My Seth, My last baby started grade 1. I don’t know that he’s ready for it, I know I wasn’t ready to see him off to his teacher. I was incredibly pleased when that bouncy boy smiling into his classroom was greeted by an incredibly happy and affectionate teacher, and thenhis eyes turned into saucers and he whipped around crying “mooooom” and gripping my legs so tight it hurt.

You see, I wasn’t ready to let him go yet and was so happy to see that he didn’t want to let go of me

Great post. Very thought provoking.

I am not sure how I feel about my own children entering school I both loved and loathed it. There were shining lights in my experiences- my art teacher, my debate coach, the social studies teacher in jr high, two religion teachers that actually encourages classroom debates, a 5th grade English teacher than opened my eyes to CS Lewis… and, of course, That Guy.

But then I think about the rest of what school was to me- finding out in 4th grade that I was, apparently, very fat- the social anxiety and awkwardness, the countless teachers who DIDN’T encourage debate, people and teachers that made me feel so rotten that I thought my only options were open rebellion…

I want my kids to love school. I want them to thrive. And I want to lock them up in their rooms forever to protect them from it at the same time.

Well, I DO have a 12 year old headed into the 7th grade, and he starts on Tuesday!! Years of Septembers have come and gone, and here we are. I just wrote about my trepidation for what is to come the other day, so it is as though you read my mind.

However, my concerns are more for him and his own personal academic struggles, and not because I fear for how his teachers will treat him. He is at a good school, with caring teachers… so… there is at least that. I still feel sick though…

THAT which you speak of is the biggest reason we want to move back to Ontario. I hate feeling so powerless. I saw some of the school test scores my daughter will go to and I wanted to cry.

That situation was not at all dangerous or unhealthy…just not ideal, and my daughter didn’t do very well grade-wise, which sucks, but she learned a lot socially about persevering and respecting other people’s rights.

I’m an advocate for teaching the kids to respect others, but not to respect authority simply bcs someone is over them. I wish someone would have given me this freedom when I was in 5th grade.

but the fact is, as a teacher myself and one who does want to believe that the public system has a lot to offer, i do nonetheless think there are structural issues with the way we go about education (and assumptions that the majority tend to make about what it IS) that reflect and reinforce power and class structures in society, and that these often get in the way of learning. particularly for kids who come to school with different experiences of the world – different literacies – than those valued by their teachers.

because Mimi has a point. i actually hated the year i spent doing my B.Ed degree and special education certificate even more than i hated junior high…i have never felt so out of place among the pink fluffy sweater people in my life. teachers tend to be the kids who loved school, and sadly, many are also the normative kids who just want to perpetuate a system that worked for them. while many are able to extend understanding to the kids who differ from them…many aren’t. and i don’t think our B.Ed programs (which i teach in, sometimes) go far enough to address and problematize the whole issue of schools being societal reflections.