*

Treva wanted to go to school.  Seeing as life in our family has been fairly hectic over the past few months, and after much thought and lots of consultations with everyone involved, I had come to tentatively toy with the idea that it might be ok after all, for Treva to give public kindergarten a try.  The reasons for considering this were manifold: Horus’ behaviour has been increasingly challenging, and he requires a significant amount of attention.  He also tends to take out his frustrations on Treva, and there have been a few incidents lately, that have caused me to think that Treva herself might feel some relief, spending time away from home.  Lee spends a significant amount of time with the kids because I have been working so much lately, and I know this has been hard on him.  I also know that some days we both just think that if we could, well, offload one or two of these little ones for at least part of the time, things might feel easier (and yes, I feel guilty about these wayward thoughts)—especially since our oldest has been struggling a bit lately.   Treva on the other hand, is pretty flexible and easy-going for the most part, and loves playing with other kids.  She is very social, and I know would “integrate” into a class without, at least, an outwardly perceptible problem.

*

Another factor in our decision to give school a try, is that we have felt quite a bit of (friendly!) pressure from members of our community, to actively contribute to the sustainability of the Gagetown school by sending our kids there.  Small local community schools are being closed all over the province of NB, and the Gagetown school is one of the holdouts.  Although I’m not a fan of institutional education, I do think that it’s important for local schools to remain open, so that children are at least educated in the region where they live, rather than shipped off, by bus, to a central school.  I do love our community, and I feel like I haven’t done much to actively express that–but I also balk at the suggestion that it is somehow my family’s responsibility to prevent the closure of the school by attending. Finally, my sister is a teacher, and my mother was before her, (both in the BC school system) and both mum and A. have recently talked to me, and to Treva about kindergarten.  Tree’s curiosity was piqued during these discussions, and she specifically came to me and said “Mum, I want to go!”.  I’m very open with my kids about my own thoughts and opinions;  I also try to honour them, and their interests and curiosities, by taking them seriously, and respecting their choices.  I expressed my ambivalence about school to Treva, but she was adamantly enthusiastic.  So we got ready for her first day.

*

I have been doing a homeschool routine with Treva for a couple of years now, which has essentially been a hybrid approach, inspired a little bit by Mason, Montessori, Steiner, and others.  We do a brief daily sit-down “formal” homeschooling session with myself and each of the oldest kids one-on-one—reading, and literature-based, for the most part.  Horus, Treva and Felix all love this, because basically, they get to chill out with me on their own, which is a rarity.  We read, and chat, and do some writing.  The “structure” really lies only in the routine: they get to go upstairs to my office, they feel grown-up, and they get me all to themselves.  The rest of the time, we do art, and pottery, and daily life=”unschooling”, I suppose.  When the weather’s warm they’re climbing trees and collecting pond specimens.  In the winter, they go tobogganing.  We took a break from almost all routines over the summer, because Lee and I had a major wood-firing to do, and a gallery show, and then our trip to Vancouver, so everything kind of fell apart in the best way (holiday!).  But the fundamental result of my approach to “school”, has been this:  Horus is a skilled reader, and pretty much reads everything he can get his hands on.  He is also whip-smart, remembers everything, talks eloquently ad nauseum on the subject of dinosaurs, entomology, swords, star wars, etc.  He can be charming, he is often aggressive and oppositional, he can be exceptionally kind and generous, and he has some major issues with authority (check and check—ok, stop with the observations that he resembles me in this respect: in all seriousness, he has been *who he is*, since day one). Treva is a very good reader, and is hilarious and brilliant.  She has an awareness of, and a sensitivity to, people and social situations that is quite different from Horus’ way of relating in the world, and she loves to draw, paint, and to tell stories.  She is also more adept than Horus at navigating and leading groups of other kids.  She can be bossy, but she is also diplomatic.  I’ll talk more about Felix later, but basically, our two school-aged kids are alright.  Then again, there are days when I look around at our house, and I feel my own sometimes-too-long absences, and I worry.  Maybe the small class at the Gagetown school will be wonderful, and nurturing, and Treva will love it, and everything will end up being more structured, more predictable, easier.

*

The morning of, Treva was so excited, and Horus and Felix were excited for her.  Horus did share a few disparaging remarks about school. ( “Why do you want to go to what is effectively a *prison*, Treva?”) which Lee and I both dismissed and entertained, lovingly, playing both sides, encouraging a plurality of choices and perspectives, as we always try to do. Felix wanted to go with Treva, and I had to explain to him that he could try it out, too, in a couple of years.  I took the sweet photo above, for her first day, and I felt a bit sad about it all, and felt like a bit of a failure of a “homeschooling parent”.  But I do try not to get too caught up in identity or ideology.  What fits for one child, might not fit for another.  Despite the impression one might get from this blog (in its entirety) I try not to be too dogmatic, or to get too caught up in ideology.  Maybe school has changed for the better since I was little.

We drove, although Treva, once registered, would be picked up by the school bus at 7:15 am, and returned home by bus, at 2:30pm.  On the road, I told Treva that we were going to try it out, but that if she didn’t like it, she didn’t have to stay.  She could always come home. Are you sure you don’t want to just turn around, go home and do homeschooling?  No!!!!  I want to go!!  Ok.

*

We arrived at around 10, as I knew there would be a process involved in registering her, and likely she wouldn’t be in attendance as a student until the following day.  The front door of the school is equipped with a buzzer, and a sign that read that every visitor had to buzz in, and to report to the office.  I get this, and it bugs me.  Obviously, like every parent, I want my child to be safe.  But the mandatory buzzing in, and checking in, strikes me as unduly bureaucratic, paranoid, militaristic. (This is the way things are, Yo). So we entered, and went up to the office, where we were greeted by an extremely friendly secretary, who was thrilled to hear that we were there to possibly enlist.  We were herded into the office, and I was handed several papers to fill out.  Treva was given a page to colour, and we were shown to a desk where Treva and I sat down to do our work.  Everyone was very nice.  Before I had a chance to look over the documents, the principal came in, and we were introduced to her.  I sat back down.  Not two minutes later, I heard a kerfuffle in the hallway, and then the sound of a woman’s voice, *screaming* at a child.  “BRIAN!!! STOP RUNNING IN THE HALLWAYS. YOU HAVE BEEN TOLD SEVEN TIMES TODAY ALREADY, AND I SEE YOU RUNNING NOW.  STOP RUNNING IMMEDIATELY”.  The caps don’t do it justice.  The woman was *roaring* at this kid.  She sounded like I sound, on a bad (middling?) day.  Now, I’m no perfect mother, and I find myself (way too often), yelling my head off at my kids.  It’s not good, and it’s also probably not the worst ever, but I have also worked a lot with other people’s kids over the years: in daycare situations, as a piano teacher, as a babysitter, etc.  As a parent, I expect that when I send my kids off to karate, or to school or to music lessons, that the adult on duty, will *not* be losing their shit.  I might yell at my own kids when I’ve hit the roof, and when I do, I have to deal with the guilt, the repercussions, the fallout.  But I expect that adults in (particularly paid) positions of authority are going to temper themselves when dealing with other people’s children.   What I witnessed was surprising, to be honest.  And somewhat distressing.

*

In fact, I was so distressed, that I literally *could not* fill out the registration documents. I couldn’t do it. And I really felt torn:  Treva wanted to be here, I had condoned this, but as I sat in the plastic classroom chair, at the melamine desk, looking over forms that involved giving out my daughter’s health information, her birthday, her allergies, her vaccination history, I felt a sense of dread, and displacement.  I’m thirty-four years old, and I’m just now recovering from the pathology that so many women suffer from: the almost unstoppable urge to do what others expect from us, to be “good”.  I’m only now recovering from what public school did  to me.  In the past, I might have just swallowed my discomfort and worry, and written in the blanks, and handed in my homework.  But I’m getting better at listening to my intuition, and so I said to the secretary, “You know what?  I think I’ll just take these forms home with me.  We have been homeschooling up until this point, and we may just decide to stay home this year. But I’ll take everything with me, and we’ll think about it”.  The secretary looked at me, and said, “Are you sure?  You could just fill them out now…”  And I said, “No, I’ll take them home.  But thank you anyway”. The secretary—clearly a lovely person—then looked at me, and said, apologetically, “the kids are just getting out of recess.  It tends to get really loud in the hallways.”  To which I responded, “Yes, I can see that.  And I understand that running in the hallways is not allowed.”  She then pursed her lips, and said, “That’s right”.  It was an interesting exchange.  She had picked up, unequivocally, on the discomfort (horror?) I felt over the incident I had witnessed in the hallway.  But while she noticed this, she certainly wasn’t going to legitimate my concerns, or compromise her own standing by acknowledging the inappropriateness of the teacher’s behaviour.  Hierarchical institutions in which adults hold positions of power over children tend to (always?) throw the kids under the bus.  I couldn’t help but wonder, Who is Brian? Why is he running?  What’s his deal? And why is he being screamed at just a few days into the new school year?

*

Alright, said the secretary.  If you don’t want to fill the forms out, can I at least show you the kindergarten room?  Sure.  All I wanted to do was to get the hell out of there, stat, but this was a concession.  And a concession to Treva, also, who had started to pick up on several conflicting developments in the atmosphere, which I perceived from her expression, body language, attitude.  First of all, this place isn’t as awesome as she first thought it might be.  This isn’t all fun, all the time.  Also, her mother (me) clearly hates it.  (It’s true, I hate it—and I’m not very good at hiding my emotions, although I know that Treva also knows that I understand ambivalence, and that she gets that I get that every situation incorporates a multitude of stances, opportunities, facets). Also, she is small, and the politics of a place are big.  Perhaps my five-year old daughter wasn’t making so specific an assessment about her relative insignificance, but she felt it, and I knew she felt it, because I felt it too.  I felt it on my own first day of kindergarten (which I can, in fact, access, like yesterday).

*

We walked through the halls, and at this point, because the secretary has clearly figured out my less-than-positive take on the place, she starts to babble a little bit.  I felt for her, because I’m a babbler too, and I didn’t dislike her at all.  But while I’m normally very chatty and friendly, the environment of the school itself; its architecture, its fundamentally oppressive mood, really brought out my aloof and taciturn survival-self, which I think often comes across as snooty and superior.  In fact, I was on the verge of tears.  I remembered my first day of kindergarten. I liked it on the first day.  I didn’t mind it on the second day. The third day wasn’t as great, and I think it was probably just a week in, that I realized that I would *be here for the rest of my life as a child*.  And that was the case.  Mum, please don’t leave me here.  It’s not my mother’s fault.  She was doing the right thing.  And while I’ve thought quite a lot since my own school experience,  about the institutionalization of children, the reality of once again actually walking through a school where I was planning on leaving my own daughter, was a form of heartbreak that I could hardly stand.

*

We reached the kindergarten room, and Treva was welcomed by the kids, and the teacher, who is a lovely person.  Ms. F. lives down the road from us, and is widely known throughout community as being a great teacher and a wonderful person: responsible, diligent, hardworking, compassionate.  This was all clearly true, in the way that she interacted with the kids.  It is in no way a detriment to her personally, that what I observed in the hour that I spent watching from the hall, with Treva in class with the other kids, was a quiet, slow-blooming awfulness.  I do believe that teachers do their best, and are motivated to enter the profession by a sense of civic duty, a passion for learning, and love for kids.  It’s simply that the institution itself and the curriculum in particular, is designed in such a way that necessitates, on the part of instructors, an approach to classroom management that is inherently paternalistic, and which curtails the original sense of curiosity, exploration, freedom and motivation that every child is born with.  Several times during the hour that I watched the class, these five year olds were admonished (albeit gently) for not having both feet planted on the floor while sitting at their desks, or for not having their eyes fixed entirely on the teacher, at all times.  It was extremely upsetting for me to see the bodies of small children being policed in this way.  I’m sure many people would tell me that if teacher’s didn’t require compliance with these rules, all hell would break loose.  I wonder that maybe if the material being taught were even remotely engaging, the children would be intrinsically inspired to pay attention.  As it was, the kids were going over colours, and patterns—concepts which Treva mastered months if not years ago, and not from worksheets, or sit-down exercises, but from the beading projects she has initiated herself; from studying, of her own volition, the way flower petals are naturally organized; from her spontaneous art-making at the kitchen table.  It was very clear that my children’s intellectual and academic development would be orders of magnitude better served by simply being left to their own devices day in and day out, that if I were to send them to sit in this fluorescent lit classroom, bored out of their minds day after day.  I was never a disruptive student.  My response to the insult to my intelligence that was public education, was depression, withdrawal, and a profound sense of questioning my place in the world, to a pathological degree.  I can’t do this to my daughter.

*

The most common objection that I hear from other people in regards to homeschooling is that keeping my kids from the classroom will rob them of necessary socialization.  Frankly, the last thing I want for my children is for them to be socialized into what I see as a broken system—again, it’s not the kids who are a problem, it’s the framework itself.  Furthermore, because my kids are not institutionalized for the majority of the hours in a day, they have far more opportunities than other children do, for interacting with people of all ages, and of all walks of life.  My kids meet people who are involved in birth-work, they kids hobnob with pottery folks, they chat with the mail-lady, and the guy who delivered our firewood last week. They have a richness and variety of social experiences that simply isn’t possible if attending school all day.  As far as interacting with other children goes, Treva is starting her second year of ballet, they all take swimming lessons, and we are taking advantage of what sounds like an amazing French program taking place once a week, for homeschooled children, through UNB, which will give them a chance to meet even more kids.

*

There is no question that my ability to keep my kids at home is a result of extreme privilege.  I work from home, and I’m very lucky. But I also work full-time (and I probably put in 100 hour weeks, for the most part), and so it does take a phenomenal amount of work to juggle everything that’s going on.  While things get hairy sometimes, I am comforted by knowing that what my children see in their parents, day-to-day, are adults who love their kids, and who are internally motivated to work, and to grow and to learn.  I hope that the experience of learning at home can provide my kids with a foundation of intellectual, social and academic development that might allow them to bypass the years that I went through, of depression, anxiety, and confusion, as I struggled to find my place in the world after having been taught since the age of five, to follow the rules, to capitulate, to fit in, to roll over, to play dead.

*

The lunch bell rang, and I told Treva it was time to go.  Then sun on our faces as we walked out of the building was a balm.  I was a little concerned about telling Treva what I thought, and expected her to object when I expressed my own objections to kindergarten.  But I told her the truth about the various concerns I had, and she listened intently, without saying much.  When I said, You know Treva, I think we should just do homeschool at home this year.  This school isn’t a bad place, but it would be hard to have to say goodbye to you every morning of the week, and for you to be at school every day by yourself!  Her response was, “Yah mum, I think I’d like to just do homeschool too.” Relief.

*

We went back home, and I went upstairs to my office with her, and we sat together for an hour.  She read an entire story out loud to me,  and then we drew a picture together.  After that, I had to go to the studio and finish some vessels, which I did to the joyful noise of Treva and her brothers outside in the yard, climbing trees, building sandcastles, and being free.