Parents Have So Many Questions

Originally Posted January 23, 2013

I am often asked what made me create this site and it’s only fair to start with the truth, it came quite by accident, I am not living the life I planned. 

The mere fact I have kids let alone am this involved with their education is insane. And people who knew me back then cannot believe it.

When I was in my 20’s the life I imagined was going to end tragically before I was thirty, plane crash with a band (or something like it) and I would forever be remembered as young and funny and gone before my time. No husbands, kids, house or mini vans for me, yuck yuck yuck and yuck.

Here I am, 22 years past my 30th birthday. I held of on marriage until I was 35, (when I found my prince) the mortgage in the ‘burbs until I was 36, the breeding until I was 41 and the Dodge Caravan until I was 43.

We all know what happens when we say never.

Our lives are made up of many versions of ourselves and I have to tell you, if I had met THIS me when I was 25 I would never have been able to imagine what road would take me here...it sure wasn’t on the map I was holding then. But here I am and I can say with certainty I am living the life I am meant to -
I just never dreamed of it, it all came as  a surprise which makes it all the more lovely.

Every now and again I see my kids as strangers. It’s a fraction of a second but there’s a slight shift and it’s as though I am seeing them for the first time and admiring them as if they are not mine but wish they were ... then, bang, everything shifts back and I am awash in such joy that they ARE mine and it makes me well up. But so does being around the too much. Right?

Yummy as they are I still love my time alone. I remember when they were babies I’d think: When the little one gets to grade one I am going to revel in the silence, the clean, the solitude. I am going to have 8:30 - 2:30 to myself everyday. 

I will nap, read, talk to adults without interruption. They will be in the care of professionals all day who will show them how to sing and dance and colour and read and frankly, my work will be done, it’s up to the schools from that point on.

And that’s the way it was in ’67 when I went off to grade one. I took a bus, my mom did not have a car. I was gone all day. She didn’t come in to cut paper plates or sit on council. She came to the school three times a year for P/T interviews and that was it. 

So naturally I assumed it would be the same in 2009. Alas...

The classes are bigger, the teachers are busier, there is less money, less support, fewer art programs, more rules, more rude kids, less discipline and way less physical activity than there was in 1967. I was quite shocked and I wanted to know if it was the same all over, if things would change, what people thought and what it all meant for my kids and their education so I started googlin’.

And that is how this site came to be. I bookmarked so many links and sites I had to store them somewhere.

I have learned a lot over the last eight years and try to use the information to make the best decisions I can for my kids. There is still a lot to learn and things shift daily.

Like my daughter for example, I figured with her imagination and love of writing and drawing she would be a perfect candidate for the arts school the kids go to. She does like it a lot, it’s more interesting than where she was but something came up the other day that was new. She said she hopes to go to a science school one day. I told her that can happen but what about her writing? Wasn’t an arts school the place for that? She said: “I write Mom, it’s what I do, who I am, I don’t have to go to school to learn it or do it. Science though, I really want to learn all about that.”

Now science school and mentoring googling starts. Excellent, I love learning as much as the kids do. But...

Are any of these decisions going to make a difference?

Are they the right decisions?

Are my kids learning enough for this future that awaits them?

Do they know enough math?

Do they have good friends?

Do they have fears?

Do they worry about things I don’t know about?

Are their interests being fed?

Are new interests being awakened?

Do they have particular learning styles that I am not aware of?

Am I making the most of the parent/teacher interviews?

So many questions. 
Answers I want now not when it’s too late.

Every child is born curious and thirsty to learn. Everyone of them can do great things.

What if their potential is squashed or squandered because they got behind in reading and never caught up and felt dumb? Or they didn’t process information like the kids who sat beside them and felt confused and left out? Or they were afraid to go to school because of a bully and they spent six hours a day looking over their shoulder rather than at their teacher, the board, a book? 

How many kids go to school burdened by things they don’t tell us? What kind of future awaits them if they go somewhere everyday that crushes their sprit rather than nourishes it?

And how can we help if we don’t know?

The people I have met in my quest for information are people you should all meet and to that end I am in the midst of putting together a HOW SCHOOL WORKS seminar scheduled for May here in Calgary. Wonderful speakers, a question and answer period, resources for you to take home. I will keep you posted.

Would you go to such a talk? Tell me.

pattimacneil@gmail.com

Thanks, P