I consider one of my greatest accomplishments as a father the fact that my little girl couldn't wait to start second grade today. She loves school! For some reason, one of our accepted societal memes is that "school is boring" and "vacation, all I ever wanted!," but I don't get it. School's the best. Seeing my daughter get on that bus with a backpack full of sharpened pencils and crisp, white-lined paper, and a lunchbox with little cut-up strawberries and a hummus sandwich, I was decidedly jealous.
Of course, I always went the peanut butter and jelly route when I was a kid, but they don't exactly look kindly on peanut butter sandwiches in schools nowadays (which is a whole different crazy ball of wax).
Maybe we're just lucky in our town. Our schools rock! We're just a little town with 5,000 people and low property taxes and pretty simple schools where people get impressed when there's a couple of computers in the room, but the kids really seem like they're having a blast.
It all starts at the top. My daughter's principal is awesome - the guy is a ball of energy trapped inside a slightly chubby body transported from New Jersey to Maine. This guy does not look or act like a Mainer, but people can't get enough of him. At the ice cream social (yep, we had one of those), he sang the school's mission statement to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" at the top of his voice in the middle of the room. And everyone clapped uproariously.
Do you know what you get for reading a certain amount of books? You get to watch a movie with the principal and eat popcorn. That's right - your reward is going to the principal's office.
This freaks some people out. Discipline is about punishment, right? What's going to happen when you do something bad and you get sent to the principal's office? The kid's going to think he's getting a reward!
Does anyone think kids are that stupid? They know when they've screwed up. They know when the principal isn't giving them a reward. I've seen them. They're devastated that they've let the principal down. Devastated.
School's even better this year, too, because the town got together and held a 5k road race to raise money for the schools, a piece of which went to new playground equipment. It's okay. Lots of stuff to climb on and some cool plastic twirly pieces that will definitely increase agility (the other day we were pretending it was a Super Mario game and we were Mario - could we get to the other side?!?), but there's kind of a lack of flow and the pieces are a little repetitive of each other. I'm picky, though. Something of a playground connoisseur.
We probably should have had Glen do the designing... Have you seen the
new playground/swingset?
Anyway, I do have a problem, too, with there not being enough physical education at my daughter's school. In five days, they spend exactly 40 minutes with the phys ed teacher, which isn't nearly enough. It's takes them weeks just to learn the rules of a game properly, what with the five minutes at the beginning for attendance, and going over the rules of the gym/playground, and making sure everyone's gone to the bathroom and has the right shoes, etc. I went to gym class with my daughter last year and, sure, it was fun, but it was over in the blink of an eye, and playing blob didn't exactly tire the kids out or get them much cardio.
Plus, all the boys cheated and I was the only one that called them on it.
Recess is cool, but I know my daughter. She loves the swings and hanging upside-down and the monkey bars (I'm amazed at how many times she can go back and forth), but she also loves to talk with her friends and draw with chalk and do pretend games, and at least half the time I can guarantee she's not moving around very much.
Education is about a sound mind and sound body. The kids love being at the school. The teachers could get them doing anything they wanted them to do. Why don't they get them exercising and learning the joy of active play?