I want my kids to love school. It’s not just about being good at math, science, and history. Good grades are important, but just every parent wants their child to excel. I want my children to love learning.
Josie and Jamie at preschool orientation last year, Sept. '10
I want them to know all the pleasures of academic excellence: the happiness that comes from reading a good book, the satisfaction that stems from earning a well deserved ‘A’, the pride that bubbles up inside while holding a certificate of recognition. I want them to be presidents of the math clubs and captains of the debate teams and not care what anyone else has to say about it because no amount of peer pressure could keep them from doing what they love. I want them to get out of bed every morning….okay, maybe not EVERY morning but at least most mornings….and look forward to learning something new. I want them to love going to school.
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| Josie, jumping for joy, on her first day of preschool. Sept. '09 |
Two years ago when Josie first started preschool I had many doubts and reservations. I didn’t think that preschool was necessary and I couldn’t believe it would have much of an impact on my three-year-old. But Josie quickly put all those issues to rest. She loved her school, she loved her teachers, she loved her classmates, and most importantly, she loved learning. We saw her flourish in preschool and so I anticipated that kindergarten was sure to be even better.
So you can be sure that when Josie started school last week I had high hopes and great expectations.
That being said, this is how Josie’s first week of school actually unfolded:
Day 1: We stood in front of the house in the scorching sun and unbearable humidity for over half an hour, waiting for a bus that never came. Josie was eager and excited at first but then she was just tired and frustrated and started to whine. Five minutes before school was supposed to start I loaded all the kids into the car in a hurry and we rushed Josie to school. Once we had gotten Josie to where she needed to be I talked to the bus driver and clarified that we were supposed to have met the bus on the corner of the street and not in our driveway (although no one from the school ever passed that information along to us. Thanks for nothing, Deep Creek Central.) When Josie got home from school and I asked her about her day she told me, “I don’t know. I don’t remember.” The most information I was able to pry from her stubborn lips was that they learned about the color red and her teacher gave her a candy.
Day 2: We got Josie to school on the bus successfully! I was feeling good. I was watching the clock like a hawk when it neared time to pick her up at the bus stop. We were never given an official drop-off time so I estimated that the bus would arrive around the same time it had the day before. Both the boys were asleep in their bedroom so I was trying to stay at home for as long as possible. Then, about ten minutes ahead of my assumed schedule, I heard the unmistakable sound of releasing bus breaks. I jumped out of my chair, threw open the front door, ran around the corner and sprinted down the street, chasing after the bus. Oh, and I did it barefoot. I caught up with her bus at the next stop. When the doors opened the bus driver pointed at her watch and then shook her finger at me. I know that she expressed some scolding words to go along with her gestures, but I was too distracted by the traumatized look on Josie’s tear soaked face to listen. I scooped her into my arms and carried my big 55 lbs girl all the way back to the house, huffing and puffing and apologizing with ever short breath I had left. It was awful.
Day 3: We finally put the bus drama behind us. Pick-up and drop-off went smoothly, but there were tears again when Josie came home. She said that she got in “really big trouble.” The details are fuzzy since the story comes from the mouth of a five-year-old, but apparently Josie wasn’t paying attention and cut a triangle the wrong way. She also said that her teacher asked her to sing and she didn’t want to. And then there was something about her friends playing Goldilocks and the Three Bears and no one wanted to be Goldilocks. The other girls told Josie to be Goldilocks and when she refused they told her to go to her room and when she said ‘no’ they threatened to spank her. This is all unconfirmed, mind you, but it wound Josie into quite a tizzy and was enough to warrant some parental concern on my and James’ part. During bath time that night Josie told me, with sadness on her face and sorrow in her voice, “I don’t want to go to school anymore.” I almost cried.
Day 4: The last day wasn’t as bad as the others. Josie was sad that she wasn’t good enough to get a sticker but at least she wasn’t in tears over it. They learned about the color brown and had gotten to eat a brownie, which must have been enough to make up for the lack of sticker. It seemed at first that the day had been okay. But later in the evening while we were changing into pajamas I noticed a large red welt on Josie’s right collar bone. I ran my hand over it and she cringed. An inquiry into the injury revealed that a boy at school had hit her with a toy sword while play fighting. The mark is surely going to bruise so the boy must have had a strong swing, but it does sound like it was an accident.
So with all the bus drama and the getting in “really big trouble” and the abusive friends, Josie’s first week of school was far from ideal. Nothing like what I hoped her first week would be. I fear that this kind of beginning will ruin any hope I had of Josie ever learning to love school. I thought that maybe I wouldn’t write these stories down in hopes that she might eventually forget and not be permanently scared by these events. But then I changed my mind. It can only get better from here, right? And maybe we’ll want to look back and laugh at this someday when Josie’s a teacher’s pet, an honor roll student, and student body class president. Hey, maybe she’ll even use one of these stories in her valedictorian speech.
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| Josie waiting for the bus on the second week of school |
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