Domestic Psychology

school pictures

// August 18th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // school, teenagers

It is school picture time again. Freshmen pictures had to be pre-ordered and paid for sight unseen. Unbeknown to me, the high school freshman made a last minute change to his wardrobe and chose the same color shirt as the color I specified for a background. His picture will look like a weatherman in a green shirt aka floaty hands and head. When they get the picture at Christmas, it should be fun for the older relatives to choose between complaining about the length of the teen’s hair and the teen’s missing torso.

Senior pictures are four full pages of proofs and decisions that are weightier than they should be because of the heavy price tag. For $500 I could have them on a CD, but since I don’t have half a grand for pictures, I’d still have to pay extra for prints and we still have to buy graduation announcements, I think I’ll spend more time staring at the proofs. It’s easy to stare at them, because they are great pictures. Even though it’s a treat to see the girl teen without her face hidden or sticking out her tongue, she looks absolutely beautiful. The pictures that include one of our dogs are funny and I have to have them just because the dog posed for only a few minutes before trotting off to frolic in the creek while pictures continued sans dog. One of my favorite poses is on a green screen.

Let’s look at the backgrounds that can be added as an afterthought. There’s are five different versions of crumbling brick or cinder-block walls for anyone who spent their school years painting, cleaning and fund raising to salvage their deteriorating school building. If your student minored in train car and overpass tagging, there are eight graffiti background choices for you to remember their unbridled creativity. There are only five beach and pier options for students whose parents have a coastal timeshare, but they also have two extremely tropical backgrounds for families with serious island property. There’s a paint splattered warehouse door background for art students and a fire damaged curtain background that looks like it survived The Phantom of the Opera for theater students. There are several indescribably odd backgrounds, like some kind of sideways log cabin wall with a whiskey barrel in front of it or the one with train tracks and a train coming toward the student. There are four tree backgrounds that seem appropriate for our area, but since the candid photos include REAL trees, that seems an unlikely choice.

I wonder if we can just use the green screen as a background.

summer reading

// June 1st, 2010 // 4 Comments » // books, school, summer

Ahhh, June first and the start of summer fun school assignments. The youngest children don’t have formal assignments, so they get to choose their own books and we casually work on specific skills. Evan excels at numbers, so we are learning what sounds belong to each letter. Amy’s reading and writing abilities are amazing, so she needs to work on numbers.

Noah and Sarah have assigned summer reading. Noah normally absorbs a novel a day, but he is less than thrilled at his new books. Noah is going to read:
“The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd
“Anthem” by Ayn Rand*
“Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck
“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou
“The Greatest Generation” by Tom Brokaw

Sarah is going to read:
“How to Read Literature like a Professor” by Thomas Foster
“1984″ by George Orwell
“Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley
“Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad
“The Greatest Generation” by Tom Brokaw

“The Greatest Generation” is on both lists because the school wants every student to read it. The teachers didn’t include it on their printed lists. Sarah took this as a sign that it was optional. I took it as understood, since everyone is supposed to read it. I don’t care if they discuss “The Greatest Generation” in basket weaving class, but they’d better discuss it at some point this year or my name will be mud.

Sarah also has a summer art portfolio and college shopping to get done while Noah learns how to be a part of the marching band. Tommy thinks his summer will be spent sleeping until noon and playing games all night. I’m going to schedule play dates to force him to interact with others and get out of his room. I’m a brutal taskmaster.

*I hate this choice. Like last year’s Catcher in the Rye, I would happily trade for a different book if it was an option.

Ready for clown school

// May 14th, 2010 // No Comments » // preschoolers, school

“Evan, I need you to pay attention and answer the teachers’ questions today.”
“Okay. I’ll tell them a good joke.”
“Umm, why don’t you tell me the joke first.”
“Knock-knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Apple.”
“Apple who?”
“Apple head! Bwa-ha-ha! Isn’t that funny?”

On the class assignment flowchart, “apple head” is guaranteed to bypass all the academic questions and send you directly to the class with the strictest teacher for the naughtiest children.

School Board meeting (Twitter explanations)

// March 22nd, 2010 // 3 Comments » // school

As I’ve mentioned before, I like going to School Board meetings. Last week, I went and Twittered the meeting, but that left half a dozen things in need of explanations.

First, Tennessee was represented at the Race to the Top final interviews by only ONE Superintendent from the entire state, Dr. McIntyre. That speaks volumes about the quality of our Super and we should be very proud of him. I will revisit that point at the end of this post.

Second, the pension conversation was horrible. Why can’t you stop paying the promised pension to the retired teachers who depend on it to live? Because you are contractually obligated and saying that the seniors should just tighten their belts was ridiculous. Asking how long before they would die and release you of the obligation was brutal and you deserved the cold responses you got from the firm handling the pension. That said, a financial investment firm who says “If it makes you feel any better, ALL of our clients are having to invest extra cash this year,” are not doing a good job of promoting their firm. The next time Knox County needs an investment firm, they won’t be calling you.

Third, one ream of paper is 500 sheets and costs less than four dollars when purchased in bulk. Your handouts are what, a dozen pages? Since you haven’t spent enough time on the school’s website to learn that absolutely everything is available there, perhaps you should stick to the printed notes and not worry about that few dollars of paper per month. After you learn to use the laptop and take notes on it, then we’ll revisit this subject. Maybe you can take a class on using the computer & KCS site with the board member who doesn’t know to turn off the sound before visiting websites completely unrelated to the meeting that you are being paid to attend.

Fourth, a huge thank you to the board member who is paying attention to the community members who are begging the schools to explain how fees are spent. That money is used for supplies and events, but people don’t realize how much it is needed. Tell parents exactly what students are learning when they visit a museum, but also tell how much it costs just to put the students on a bus. Explain how expensive it is to purchase and maintain musical instruments, but clarify why the benefits are much greater than the costs.

Fifth, after about two hours of the meeting, my mind drifted. The room was a billion degrees and I was hungry. It took less than three minutes to fill out my census paperwork and my family is probably twice the size of yours. Fill out your form and mail it.

Finally, the post script to the meeting that happens after the reporters have fled the room is a community forum. This evening’s forum was all about the consequences of the budget. There were appeals from the teachers’ union and the school losing the most teachers to rethink cutting out the most important learning tool, teachers. Then, there were two former students and a co-worker praising a teacher who is not just losing his job, but his entire department. Most importantly, that very teacher spoke for himself, his program and his students. It was heart wrenching and left me feeling like I had been run over by a train. Go to the very end of the video (183:35) and watch this teacher speak. After the camera stopped rolling, the Superintendent got up from his seat at the table and walked directly to this teacher. I repeat what I said earlier. Be very proud of the man who is in charge of Knox County Schools. It doesn’t matter if he agrees or disagrees with everything that you believe. He is sincerely trying to do the right thing.

Grrr.

// March 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // knoxville, school

Step one: Find the perfect venue for an end of eighth grade party/dance.
Step two: Sundown in the City schedule ruins perfectness of venue.
Step three: Find different, but equally awesome venue.
Step four: Principal changes date of event and neither venue is available.
Step five: Pound head on wall for several hours.
Step six: Begin step one.

If the PTA ever updates their site, they should add a community guide to assist with planning for local school events.

*We have a venue that works with the new date. I’m holding my breath that it’s in our budget.

Two cents – Inskip

// February 23rd, 2010 // 1 Comment » // local, school

It has taken me forever to feel it is appropriate to comment on the shooting at Inskip. I just couldn’t comment until the victims were stable and the school was moving forward in their healing process. The screaming about the size of the staff in the AJ building, metal detectors in every doorway or not hiring anyone with a history of mental illness was tempting to address, but in the beginning, all focus needed to be on the victims. The no explanation version of my opinion is that while everyone did what they were legally required to do, it is now time to do better. How can we do better?

Let’s start with our responsibility to report anyone we think is a serious danger to others. Alerting authorities with concerns is all that we have to do. If we do it anonymously, huge amounts of time are wasted trying to verify the validity of the complaints. Disgruntled students and parents have been known to make groundless complaints about teachers. While all concerns have to be taken seriously, they also have to be properly investigated so that teachers are not wrongfully accused. When a person in our neighborhood robbed a bank, we called the FBI. The criminal was armed and dangerous and knew exactly who we were, but the risk of that person committing another crime was great enough to warrant our publicly identifying him. We need to be helpful and not a hindrance to an investigation.

Let’s talk about teacher education programs. I write these words as someone who graduated college before the full year of internship that would have completed my education degree. I was extremely pregnant and knew I needed to spend that year focused on my new baby. I personally knew a dozen people who graduated with teaching degrees. Less than three years later, TWO of those people were still teaching. I believe that those college professors knew some of those students were not going to be teachers. Education programs that knowingly allow students to spend years studying in education when they would be better served in an MBA program are doing students a disservice. Education programs that can’t say a reasonable percentage of their graduates continue to get their Master’s degree within a certain number of years instead of losing their graduates to other careers are doing future employers a disservice. Education programs that fail to encourage medical help for students who clearly have mental health problems are doing children a disservice. Teacher education programs need to watch for signs of predatory teachers who will date their students (yes, that IS a euphemism), bully children and threaten peers. Mandatory counseling sessions may just need to be a requirement in teacher education programs.

Any laws that restrict checking of references or prevent references from being completely honest with concerns need to be reconsidered. There must be a better way to protect the innocently accused while also protecting our most vulnerable populations.

School systems need to think about their part in tragedies like this. Are we taking good care of the teachers who are responsible for classrooms full of children all day? Do we ask them to do the impossible and provide inadequate support services? Is it really a good idea to inform someone they won’t have a job next year while they are still on the job? Are school administrators given the power to terminate contracts mid-year when they know things are going poorly? Do we encourage teachers to take care of their physical and mental health or make it difficult for them to do so?

Ultimately, responsibility falls completely upon the person who made the horrible decision to hurt others. Blaming anyone else will not change that which has already happened. If we fail to learn and grow from this, then it becomes our failure.

Lost & Found

// February 7th, 2010 // No Comments » // parenting, school

At the end and beginning of every school year, a list of volunteer opportunities comes home with every child. Sometimes, the job duties are obvious and you instantly know if it’s something you feel qualified to do. Treasurer? I think we’ll let a CPA do that job. Parliamentarian? I’m pretty confidant that there are some parents with legal training who would do that much better than I could. Other times, the job isn’t completely clear. Cafeteria? Umm, cut off crusts and open milk cartons? Grounds? Lawn mowing and floor mopping? I have worn many different hats at schools, but I think my favorite at the elementary school is this year’s job, Lost & Found.

I confess that I thought the job would be getting lost items reunited with their owners. Only ONCE have I truly helped someone find a missing belonging. There are also the less than a dozen items labeled with names that I send to the office for redistribution to students. The job is really to empty the Lost & Found nook at the end of every month. I fill two to four lawn sized trash bags with coats, jackets, mittens, hats, lunchboxes and various odd items. I wash them all and donate them somewhere. That’s it. Lost & Found is really Laundry & Charity. This is the best volunteer job ever.

So far this year, I have donated to Goodwill, Saving Little Hearts, Christenberry Elementary and two others that I can’t seem to remember. This month I ran out of big shopping bags that I had saved from Christmas shopping and I didn’t know how I was going to send the mountain of coats, hats and mittens to Christenberry. Chris at Kohl’s on Morrell kindly donated enough brand new bags to last through the end of the year. The awesomeness of this job never ends. The ONLY thing that even slightly tasks my brain? Choosing who will get the next month’s “new-to-you” jackets. I know the fundraiser committees need people to get dropped in dunk tanks and the carpool committees need people standing in the rain at way-too-early o’clock, but trust me when I tell you that you want to work on the Lost & Found at your school. Just don’t tell anyone I said that.

Now about that end of Eighth Grade Party . . .

snow day

// January 29th, 2010 // 4 Comments » // school, weather

I know that it is 2:10 in the afternoon and the roads and skies are clear. School could have released one hour early instead of being closed the entire day. However, the looks on faces when school was canceled last night, were absolutely priceless. Sparkling eyes and contagious giggles electrified the air. There was even a little happy dance. I think the joy outweighs the risk of running out of allotted snow days. The giggling, dancing teachers clearly needed an unscheduled play day.

Dear new PTA parent,

// January 14th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // people, school, teenagers

Just as the PTA meeting looked like it was over, you raised your hand to ask a question. “Does this PTA do anything except raise money? I want to know what can be done about the bad kids in this school.” As the words left your mouth, I wish I’d had the courage to move from my seat to one where I could see the Principal’s face. The principal was completely still until you addressed her directly. “Are you a teacher here?” Clearly, you never attempted to talk directly to the Principal before complaining to all of the PTA moms and dads about the “bad kids” and the school. After saying “bad kids” more than a dozen times, another parent asked what suggestions you have for the school. You want all the “bad kids” aka students who distract your child, placed in a single classroom with a police officer standing watch over them.

This school is staffed by teachers whose wide-ranging talents allow them to reach the most students humanly possible. A staff that long ago tossed out the concept that there is a single formula to teach in favor of embracing individualized plans for students. Teachers who continue to grow and learn with and for their students. The passion and dedication of the teachers in this school keeps the teachers here in spite of the fact that they must take on so many additional roles at this school. They know their work is vitally important. They are saving lives.

This is a public school. Students are required by law to be here. Without those laws, many would never walk through the school doors. There are students here who are loved and supported at home. There are students who are neglected and abused at home. In between those two extremes are every possible combination of students’ lives. There are some who may or may not get fed regularly. There are students who may or may not get enough sleep or even know where they will be every evening. Some students have multiple caring adults in their lives while others have none. Some students are encouraged to do their best in school while others are taught that school is a waste of time.

With all the outside influences on students’ lives, their potential can seem limitless or bleak. The teachers in this school recognize the obstacles and try anyway. They can’t and won’t take every child who makes odd noises, drums on desks with pencils, can’t sit still or need constant reminders and lock them away in a school jail. The students with the most obstacles in their lives, the students who are at risk of jail, poverty and homelessness, are the students who need the most attention.

Your unconditional love and your child’s desire to learn are stronger than any of these “distractions” that you want to go away. That private school that you repeatedly praised as your next option may be exactly what your family needs. You have selected the private school that most locals would agree is the ideal environment for the type of student you describe your own child to be. In the extremely unlikely event that you decide to stay at this school, your child has the unique opportunity to be the role model and leader who could make the difference in another student’s life. Don’t underestimate your child’s ability to grow and thrive in a school that serves a diverse population of students.

Your plan to visit all the “bad kids” at home to tell the parents their kids are bad is your own folly. Please don’t take your child with you on those ill-fated journeys.

no school left behind

// November 16th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // knoxville, school

When a very opinionated senior wasn’t entertaining me with his tales and ideas that made me grit my teeth (“You don’t need school if you’re going to pour concrete.”), I spent Saturday listening to people discuss the unacceptable graduation statistics in our school system. While we were separated into smaller groups based on each public high school, I suspect that every single group made the claim that someone in our group made. “We have to think outside of the box, because things that work in other schools, won’t work in ours.” The better statement would be what a wise teacher tacked on to that claim. “Each student has unique circumstances and needs. One size does not fit all.” That teacher voiced the one thing that everyone in our group could agree on as a solution. Every student needs a caring, supportive adult in their life.

Then, the invisible wall that keeps Knoxville from going from scruffy to shiny made its’ inevitable appearance. “It still galls me that we have kids who belong in other schools at our school. We are a community and those kids know they don’t belong in our community.” The hair on my arms assumed the porcupine pose, but I bit my tongue. Half a dozen high schools are a fifteen minute drive from my house. This is not MY school. These are OUR schoolS. Those teenagers strutting their feathers like peacocks at the mall, concert and party attend all of our schools. The teenagers committing vandalism, shoplifting and assault attend all of our schools. The teenagers excelling at academic and athletic competitions attend all of our schools. The teenagers adrift in the murky bog between childhood and adulthood attend all of our schools. The teenagers without the motivation, support or ability to graduate from high school, attend all of our schools. The drop-outs without literacy or skills to work have and will continue to affect each and every one of us.

If a student is enrolled in your school, they ARE a part of that community and anyone who thinks otherwise is a part of the problem instead of the solution. This feudalistic attitude about tiny geographic segments of Knoxville hurts our city and the people who live in it. Knoxville is too small for this us vs. them behavior. We have to work together to help every school. We have to embrace every student in every school. If you won’t even connect to the students in your own classroom because you see some of them as usurpers, we won’t succeed. If they are sitting there, they belong. If they live in Knoxville, they belong in ANY of our schools. Celebrate the fact that every student in the room is a student who still has the opportunity to graduate. Don’t pretend they are not a part of your community. Those students in that OTHER school are your community too.