This weekend, the
famiglia de Ravioli (that would be us:
Rav, Connor, Gracie, & myself) went to a party that was thrown by a fellow eye-
talian family. They have become good friends of ours.
The party was to celebrate their middle child's 5
th birthday (he & Connor have been friends since they were in the two-year-old class together in preschool), as well as, to celebrate our friend finishing up residency and moving on to becoming an attending physician at a hospital in our state.
These friends of ours know how to throw down and put on a party.
It is always a good time.
They have old friends they still keep in touch with.
New friends (us) that they have invited into their lives.
And the nice thing is our friends have great friends.
These parties that they throw aren't the exclusionary kind.
Everyone feels at home. Everyone is friendly and open.
It is just a good time.
While at the party, I
buddied up to my friend's
BFF, D. D works in a neighboring state with the deaf/blind program. She is so knowledgeable when it comes to special needs. We have talked extensively about Connor.
After she made herself a few Cosmos, D informed me that she doesn't think Connor is
ADHD. She informed me that he is just flat-out brilliant. She discussed, at length, that she thinks he is working on a cure for cancer right now. And not only that, she mentioned him working for NASA and receiving full academic scholarships to Harvard, Yale, and every other Ivy League school you could think of.
Let me stop here and say that I'm not fishing for compliments nor am I trying to gloat. I'm truly getting at something here.
She went on to say that I need to nurture this boy. To get him in gifted and talented programs. To do whatever I had to do to get him into "extra" academic activities. She even said that if there is a Chess team for kindergartners to get him on it.
I realize that what she says is true to some extent. What mother doesn't think their child is brilliant? However.....
However, the problem with this that our education system in all its glory, and really I can only speak for our state as I have actual working knowledge of it, is bent on making sure everyone passes standardized tests. It seems that it is a machine, a social engineering machine, to pump out likeness after likeness. Actual grades don't really count anymore in our state. You simply have to pass standardized tests to move on. Basically.
I've recently learned that in the high school I graduated from there are no more college prep classes, average classes, and remedial classes. Everyone is lumped in together and expected to all meet a middle of the road standard. And in the high school I graduated from, the students are no longer expected to read novels. Just a few chapters of
Julius Caesar, To Kill A Mockingbird, etc will suffice. There really is no reason to, you know,
read a whole book. That is simply crazy talk.
I understand that, in theory, this is meant to help more children to be successful by aiming for the middle of the road. But what will the end result to this really be?
The other problem and panic I have when thinking of Connor's future is the
unlikely-hood of being able to afford a private school.
As well as finding ways to fund extra activities that may be able to pick up where public school leaves off.
So while public schools in Delaware are aiming at mainstreaming and aiming for the middle of the population, it in turn, is leaving out kids who are on the higher part of the academic scale. As well as, the kids on the higher part of the academic scale, but on the lower part of the income scale.
I see all of this as ways to yet again, divide classes and to pump out watered down kids. There really is no motivation to aim higher. Just as long as you meet the minimum requirement and the generalized
standard.
I don't want to play up to the side of the scale that only interjects on behalf of the higher end of achievement.
What service is this doing to the lower part of the scale who struggle to meet that general standard?
Being thrown in a class that basically caters to the middle and says
sink or swim to the upper and lower halves, seems rather exclusionary.
How frustrating it must be for the learner who has a bit of a harder time.
There are brilliant minds who don't flourish in a traditional academic setting and we are leaving them up to their often broken devices.
I think it is faulty logic to paint every student, every learner with the same brush.
A lot of kids are being left behind with the education we are saying is acceptable.
I am here to say that I don't think the education we are offering is enough
nor acceptable.
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It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.~Albert EinsteinEducation is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.~Nelson MandelaAll children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.~Pablo PicassoDon't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.~Rabbinical SayingEducation is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.~William Butler Yeats
About an hour ago, we dropped our first-born off for his first day of all-day kindergarten. As much as I have been looking forward to this, I was the only tearful mom in the school lobby. I couldn't hold back the tears off happiness for my boy's new adventure, the longing of days now gone by, worry, and trepidation from starting something new. This is the first real step in the separation that begins between momma and her cub. It is necessary and hard.
