Are all of the families out there back in the school days’ swing of things? Are the kids’ backpacks already bulky, disfiguring humps; their lunchboxes malodorous? Did you remember to fill out, sign and return the packet of school forms that gave the I.R.S. some competition for complexity?

The start of the school year went fairly smoothly around here, though it wasn’t without its minor traumas. The kids were fine, of course. They were probably dying to get back to school as soon as they figured out that Mom, with whom they spent the majority of their summer, had a secret daytime life filled with trips to the grocery store and lots and lots of meetings.

It’s the parental gripes and dramas that I’m talking about. There were carpools to organize, and lists of supplies to gather. Filling the shopping cart and checking items off the teachers’ lists felt like the modern day equivalent of stocking the root cellar for the cold, harsh winter ahead. As far as I know, people, Staples is open seven days a week, all year long.

There was also a big educational transition in our family that made me ponder the school system as a whole.

Lola started middle school last week, which puts her at about the half way mark for compulsory education. That’s only half way to college, never mind an undergraduate degree, or anything beyond. She’s a bright kid, and although she does need something to do every day, sometimes I think that she should just take the G.E.D. and get it over with, already.

Then I recalled a few family conversations that suggest another seven years might not be nearly enough preparation for college, or anything else for that matter. Like the time Luke was telling his father this hilarious joke:

Kid: Hey Dad, last week I saw a chickenway by the side of the road.
Parent: What’s a chickenway?
Kid: Oh, I don’t know…about 5 or 6 acres.
I must ask his teacher if weights and measures are on this year’s syllabus.
There’s some work to be done in geography and social studies, too:
Brother: What language do they speak in Las Vegas?
Parent: English.
Sister: You mean American, Mom.
Parent: No, I mean English. American isn’t a language.
Brother: Yeah, Lola. It’s a state.
They obviously need enough years to get to the great literature of the world:
Parent: There’s a show in the park this weekend. It’s a play by William Shakespeare.
Kid: Who’s William Snake Spear?
Parent: It’s “Shakespeare.” He’s a playwright who lived in England a long time ago.
Kid: Oh. Did he move?

Now, I’m not saying my kids aren’t brilliant, eager learners. They simply require a huge amount of information, crammed into their little heads in such a way that it remains coherent and useful for another seventy or eighty years.

Considering that this will be no small feat for their teachers, a cart full of erasers and highlighters and binders turns out to be a terrific bargain after all.

Kristen Taylor of Los Angeles is a writer and a cognitive
psychologist. She and her husband Christian have a daughter Lola, 10, and
son Luke, 7. Her e-mail address is kristentaylor@sbcglobal.net.

This entry was posted on September 10th, 2006 and is filed under Mother Tongue. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Comments are closed.