It’s Just Wrong

I’ve been holding on to this rant for a couple of weeks. I waver back and forth between sharing and not. But I’m so fed up with this that I need to get this off my chest. Actually it’s more like out of my head.

I need to say a couple of things first – There are a bunch of teachers in my life and I’m fond of them all. I don’t blame them for the current educational paradigm. My kid’s teachers are great. My Cousin Amy is fabulous. This is not a criticism of teachers or teaching. It’s not.

Also, I’ve been working at the local school for eight years full time. I subbed before that. On November of last year I was informed my job would not be funded for the following school year. And while this has happened to me before and I have always been offered another position, it was a new position that I really liked. It hit me hard and made it very difficult for me to perform to my full potential for the rest of the year. And I wasn’t offered another position. I’m currently jobless. (Not that having more time to write is bad, but it is hard on the finances.)

I’m pretty burned out on school at the moment.

Keep those things mind as I rant. I may not be entirely clear headed.

My life is ruled by my children’s education. I can’t plan anything because the amount of homework they bring home keeps them busy every evening and weekends are generally full up too. Labor day weekend? Can’t go anywhere because the boys have a paper to write.  The Thanksgiving break will have a paper assigned to it, sometimes two. The special events we attended as a family before Christmas – caroling, decorating, wrapping, baking, musicals, ballets – all gone. Mid-term exams are scheduled for the week before Christmas break now, so it’s all cramming for exams and test taking. This is supposed to be so the students won’t spend the entire break studying. Except someone didn’t get the memo. Last year a novel had to be finished and a five page paper written during the holiday break. So much for having the time between Christmas and New Year for the family. (And there’s a two week period in the beginning of January when almost no real work happens because the mid-terms were finished two weeks before the term ends. Go figure.)

The same happens over winter and spring break. I hate it, but I’ve come to accept it. But then we come to summer. Eight weeks of pure unfettered childhood. The time of family vacations and reunions and campouts and general goofing off and relaxation. UNLESS your high-schooler enrolls in honors or advanced placement classes. Then it’s two classics to be read and annotated and a paper written.

I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid there wasn’t any summer homework. We ran around in packs. Biked the trails along the river, hung out at the lake, swam at the pools, public and private. We camped with our families. Traveled to the Grand Canyon.

My poor kids spent a lot of their summer with their noses in a book, a pen in their hands, their fingers on the keyboard. And it feels like punishment to me.  No days spent with my sons sitting by the lake. No plans for campfires or hikes along  the beach. My memories of the summer – I got to go to PEI, afterall – are not my son’s memories. High school has claimed their summer, along with every other spare moment in their life.

I don’t like it. There isn’t any balance. It’s all homework, homework, and more fucking homework. And what I want for my kids doesn’t seem to matter any more.