Size Me Down, Baby

Of all the changes in my life over the last year, year and a half, one of the most gratifying has been the purging of the stuff. I didn’t even realize how weighed down I felt by the sheer mass of crap in my home. Between my possession-heavy spouse and the junk we acquired and the accumulated years of kid items and my own piles of detritus, I nearly suffocated. Walls of leering things—some of them quite unidentifiable—closed in on me daily.

Divorce cut the quantity of stuff in the house dramatically. Then both teens substantially cleared their rooms of the vast collection of outgrown everything. I began a campaign of removal, taking long-unused items to the Goodwill or the dump or giving attractive items away to my neighbors via the Buy Nothing movement.

As each successive pile left the premises, I felt better. Lighter. Like, if the FBI was onto me, I could pack up and ghost in short order. The rooms in my house feel bigger. Cleaning is less of a chore. (Ok, totally lying about that. Cleaning still sucks.)

A variety of stuff I’ve not yet parted with: the stacks of containers that used to contain other stuff and are now empty. What if I need them? What if gizmos and tchotchkes and ill-fitting clothes and no-longer amusing toys sneak back in, one at a time, stealthily filling my corners with the unputawayable?

Vigilance is the key, my friends. And since I bought a shopping bag full of books this weekend (in my defense, I was at Powell’s), a similar sized stack of something needs to exit. No compromise.

Apologies in Advance

Ok, I know y’all breathed a sigh of relief when Little Bit finished middle school last June. Some of you may even have marked it on your calendars as the day it was safe to come back to TR’s blog. No worries…I have no more children coming up, so the specter of middle school is banished.

But high school started today. Freshman orientation, to be exact.

I don’t think I can overstate the level of my child’s unenthusiasm for this school year to begin. Nor can I even begin to convey how profoundly disappointing it is to me, as a parent and a former educator, that the public school system has so thoroughly disengaged my highly intelligent and sensitive child. But there we are.

I still have hopes that the teachers…maybe just one of them…will present interesting and challenging activities that LB will think worth getting out of bed for. And I am hopeful that one or both of the music classes she’s taking will excite her.

If not, we have an escape plan to get out of the four-year slog after just two years. But still, two years. You might want to mark your calendars again.

Dating, Part III

Remember that drunken New Year’s Eve party, where I met the Wise Old Party Dude (WOPD) who told me that 4.5 months is the ideal end-point for any post-divorce dalliance? Because the weight of your collective traumas will always crush the life out of any relationship, you should high-tail it out before you start gasping. That’s what he told me.

WOPD was full of shit.

The other day I was having lunch with the ladies at work (my team is comprised of four women, all single). Not surprisingly, we were discussing dudes. Specifically, the difference between Dating Life 1 in one’s twenties and Dating Life 2 after the middle-age divorce.

• DL 1: You and all of your potential dates are marital virgins—no knots have been tied.
• DL 2: You and all of your potentials have been through serious relationship->living together->marriage->children->marriage collapse->divorce->online dating.

• DL 1: You have no freaking idea what you’re doing and you are looking for some similarly clueless person to bumble through it with you.
• DL 2: You have long history and at least a sketchy idea about the future and you are looking for someone whose sketchy plans jibe with yours.

• DL 1: You are young and fresh and full of hope. You have no idea what you need.
• DL 2: You are old and creaky and chipped and stained. You need someone who is also life-battered and who is prepared to prop you up and be propped, to stroke your imperfections and be stroked, and to bring an open heart.

Should you be lucky enough to find such a person, 4.5 months is not enough. Not nearly enough. How long is the right amount of time? That cannot be determined in advance and certainly not by the likes of some bitter old drunk at a party. Somewhere between one more day and forever. YMMV.

Opting Out: The Intermath

And so it came to pass that Little Bit refused to participate in the morally and educationally bankrupt practice of standardized testing. Because said testing goes on and on and on and still isn’t finished, LB has spent a fair amount of time in the last few weeks in “opt-out class.” This is the room where the opt-outers get sent to engage in alternative activities while their peers suffer through the Pearson Revenue Enhancement Exercise.

It turns out, opt-out class rocks.

During the English (or maybe Social Studies) test, for example, the opt-outers read part of Frederick Douglass’ autobiography and discussed it. LB reports that because they had a small group rather than a class of 35, they had an interesting and meaningful conversation about Frederick Douglass. The teacher, a substitute, had no need to engage in the defensive classroom management that makes all discussion stilted and overly directed. Instead, a bunch of kids talked about a book.

While not being tested on math concepts she learned years ago, LB examined the properties of Pascal’s Triangle and was excited by the many patterns there to discover.

Amusingly, the opt-outers were told by the authorities not to sound like they were having fun, lest the other children think that opting out might be a good idea.

Summing up: In the course of learning about standardized testing, the No Child Left Behind law, and the Constitution in order to successfully opt herself out of the SBAC, Little Bit had the most valuable educational experience of her middle school career. And the time spent not taking the tests also proved to be worthwhile. (My fears about being forced to scrub the hallways with a toothbrush were unfounded.)

And now just one month of 8^th grade remains and she can stride off that campus forever. And since I have no more children coming up behind her, I’m done with it too. We might both raise a middle finger on our way out.

I Am A Tree

It was bound to happen. You raise a child up with a set of worldview talking/thinking points and she will eventually examine them, extend them, reject them, transition and transform them, and of course write about them. Not to mention blogging her own lived experience in her own way.

Meet my apple:

https://skepticalgrimalkin.wordpress.com/

School is Stupid, Part 1,000,000,000

My newly radicalized child has been at it again, subverting the authorities and sticking it to the man. The subject of her activism this time: the National Day of Silence, which happened last week.

The Day of Silence is intended to draw attention to the silencing of LGBTQ students that is the result of harassment and bullying. Participants remain silent in school all day. They still do what is required of them…some kids carry a little whiteboard around to communicate with, but no talking.

http://www.dayofsilence.org/

Back in 2010, my eldest was instrumental in making DOS happen at our middle school. It still happens every year, but now there’s a whole bureaucratic procedure around it. Kids have to obtain forms and get them signed by every teacher they will see that day. Then they get a badge to wear, identifying them as a participant.

Little Bit did that last year. This year, radical girl skipped the whole procedure (clearly instituted to create a barrier to participation) and simply printed the logo from the website and made her own badge. (Those of you who watch Survivor will recognize this tactic as “making a fake immunity idol.”)

That worked fine and nobody called her out on the fake idol. BUT, one substitute teacher was not familiar with DOS and gave her a hard time.

Substitute called the roll and was about to mark LB absent when the other kids in the class hastened to explain that she was present, just silent. They explained DOS and what it was about, but Substitute was not impressed. “That’s nice, but in MY class, when I call your name, you answer OUT LOUD.”

He asked LB if she was there. She nodded.

He asked again. She nodded again.

He asked a third time before giving up and moving on. He may have recorded an unexcused absence. Don’t know.

All together now, friends: WHAT A DICK!

When I related this story to another parent, he was incensed and suggested I lodge a formal complaint with the principal, the school board, the mayor, and god.

I am not inclined to go that route. LB has several more years in this school district and she has already pissed off the powers that be with her opt-out campaign. There are only eight more weeks of middle school. Let’s just get out alive.

What do y’all think?

Kids Do the Darndest Things

Barring tragedy, one thing all kids do, whether you like it or not, whether you are watching or not, is grow up. They do that. One day you are swearing at your husband and the nurses and your irreverent hyperactive ob/gyn while trying like hell to get that baby born, and then you blink and she’s 18. I swear this is true.

Some of you, astonishingly, have been reading this blog so long you remember my eldest from when she was a wee little kindergartener just making her way in a world carefully arranged and circumscribed to nurture and protect her. You have watched Tigger grow up, but perhaps you are still as surprised by it as I am.

And a thing that happens when they grow up is they start directing their own lives. You know, the life you have patiently orchestrated all this time. No, they don’t particularly appreciate your efforts and no, they don’t necessarily make the artistic or aesthetic or rational choices you would have made if you were still in charge. But you’re not.

So it came to pass that Tigger yanked the reins out of my hands and turned those horses down a completely different path. (Have I tortured enough metaphors yet? No, I don’t think so.) My path was paved, straight, and lined with trees and sunflowers. Tigger took those brave ponies up a winding trail, steep, rocky, beset with tripping vines and perils behind every bush. She did that.

My previously full house is now down to two inhabitants (four if you count the cat and the bunny). Tigger’s room, recently so crammed full of flagrantly unorganized stuff that I hadn’t seen the floor in years, is now nearly empty.

See, I’ve been stuck, recently, though I’m making progress in unsticking. But Tigger, she’s not stuck at all. The young never are. Gone, yes. Loved, very. Missed, so much. But not stuck. Put wings on those ponies and fly, baby. Or walk or run or dance up the trail. You can do anything. Anything.

 

 

Tune In, Turn On, Opt the F*ck Out

Ok…I changed the names, but otherwise, this is the letter that my 8th grader will be handing to the principal today. Several of her revolutionary pals will be doing the same, and they plan to march into the office together. Peaceful protest in action!

Dear Middle School Principal,

As indicated on the attached form, titled “State Assessment Refusal Documentation Form,” I am opting my child out of the Smarter Balanced Assessment and the MSP. My daughter, Little Bit, has expressed serious and well thought out objections to the overwhelmingly time consuming and pointless battery of tests to which she is subjected, year after year. I find her reasons sound and am supporting her decision to refuse.

I asked LB to give me a list of her objections. She provided fourteen, which are as follows, exactly as she wrote them:

• Standardized testing is not an accurate measure of achievement because the state can simply set low standards in order to obtain high test scores.

• It is a huge waste of money that could be used on valuable things such as art and music programs, gifted programs, special ed programs, textbooks, computers, athletic equipment, and many more.

• The standardized testing encourages teachers to “teach to the test” instead of helping students gain a deep understanding of the curriculum.

• The testing is not fair to schools that are already behind other schools in their states, because even if the students are improving they still might not meet the state standards, which could result in punishment for their school.

• It is a huge waste of my time that could be spent actually learning something.

• My high test scores are of no use to me; they only benefit the school. The school should not be able to take full credit for those scores, because I learned most of what’s on the tests before middle school, and taking the tests only once during the year is not proof that my skills have progressed over the course of that year.

• The content of the standardized tests is usually completely unrelated to what I am doing in my classes, so the tests are not an accurate measure of how much I’ve learned over the school year.

• The standardized testing causes gifted children to be neglected by soaking up time and money that could be used to help gifted children reach their full potential. Furthermore, No Child Left Behind provides no incentive or funds to teach beyond minimum standards.

• Even if students are in advanced classes, they still have to take the standardized tests at their grade level. Last year, even though I was in Algebra (the 9^th grade class), I had to take the 7^th grade math MSP. I took 7^th grade math in elementary school, so the test did not say anything about what I learned in middle school.

• Since the testing only addresses a small number of “core subjects,” students are given the mistaken impression from a young age that other subjects such as art, music and foreign language are not important. Students who pursue these subjects receive little or no recognition for their efforts, and teaching a narrow set of skills instead of providing a well-rounded education is detrimental to students for their entire lives.

• Testing is very stressful to many students, and some receive low test scores even if they are very intelligent and achieve good grades. This year, the testing is spread out over a period of a month and a half, which means that it will be a distraction for a ridiculously long stretch of time, and many students will be subjected to a prolonged state of stress, which can negatively affect regular schoolwork as well as test scores.

• Not only are an obscene number of class periods used to take the assessments, but hours of class time are wasted prior to the tests in order to practice using the unnecessarily complicated computer program.

• Not all states have the same standards or tests, so it is pointless to compare test scores nationwide.

• It is a violation of the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution to require states to give standardized tests. The federal government oversteps this barrier by not technically requiring the states to administer the tests, but refusing to provide funding for schools if they don’t. This tactic is despicable, and given the fact that schools need federal funding to operate, the states are still being forced to give these tests. 

I understand that LB may be required to engage in an alternative academic activity during the many class periods devoted to testing. Before the assessment begins, please let me know what the alternative activity will be so that I can feel sure it will be constructive in nature.

I recognize that standardized testing is a contentious topic and that having students refuse is problematic for the school. However, my child is taking a principled stand and I support and applaud her. Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

Little Bit’s Mom

 

 

 

 

Radicalized

Bound to happen, I suppose. Child the younger has gone all radical political on me. The issue stoking her outrage: standardized testing.

It started last week. She came home all excited because her social studies class, facing some state-mandated exam, decided as a group that they would all write their essays on the topic of why state-mandated social studies tests are a waste of time. In addition to submitting the exams to the state, the teacher agreed to collect copies of their essays for future purposes. I talked to Little Bit about the process for submitting op-ed pieces to major publications.

She spent days researching the topic of standardized tests, coming up with a whole list of objections to them and tracking down facts and studies to support her viewpoint. She knowledgably talked about No Child Left Behind, the damage it has done, the immense profits being raked in by the testing industry, the better uses for those funds, the narrowing of the curriculum, and the illogic of punishing low-scoring schools by reducing their budgets. Not to mention the idiocy of evaluating teachers on the basis of their students’ standardized test scores.

Then shit got real.

In further discussions, the class moved onto the topic of the Big Comprehensive State Testing regimen, which will occupy hours and hours of their lives in the near future. They discussed the fact that parents can opt their kids out of the test, and a little resistance movement formed.

Little Bit came home and asked me to opt her out of the Big Comprehensive State Test as a matter of principle. She’s a conscientious objector.

Oh my. The school will not be happy if my kid and the other kids in the honors social studies class opt out. They depend on the scores from their high-achieving students to pull their averages up. Oh well…not my kid’s problem. Standardized testing does nothing but harm for those kids.

The problem, of course, is that opting out means spending those hours and hours of testing time in the library or the principal’s office or somewhere, doing…what? I don’t know. Maybe they will make her scrub the hallways with a toothbrush.

I told her if I write an opt-out letter, it will be in the form of “I am supporting my child in objecting to this test,” and that she would need to give me a bulleted list of objections. She wrote me a whole page.

So I think I have no choice, as this is my child taking a public, moral stance and refusing to collude with the corrupt authorities.

So freaking proud.

Progress

Stuck. I’ve been so stuck, my friends. Treading water, unable to move forward. The clearest manifestation of stuckness is my chaotic house and degenerating yard. I have not yet replaced the furniture removed in the divorce. I have not cleaned up the messy areas that need to be decluttered and rearranged. Stuck.

The yard went to hell a few years ago. The raised beds rotted away. Grass and weeds took over the mounds of dirt that remained. Stuff is broken, inside and outside the house. Stuck.

BUT, lately, progress. I now have garden beds again. They look like this:

Except that now there are five of them. There may be a sixth. Haven’t decided whether to bother with the one in the back corner, which historically hasn’t done well. Full credit and props to Mr. Wayne for labor and tools and know-how.

I will plants peas and beans and kale and beets and lettuce and squash and tomatoes. Other things too. I will find inspiration at the nursery.

On the deck there are pots, which until recently contained the remnants of dead herbs and lots of weeds. Now there’s this:

Strawberries, rosemary, dill, sage, and two kinds of mint. More to come. I have lots of pots.

Making progress feels like there have been sacks of sand piled on
my shoulders and I am shedding them, one by one, and becoming lighter. And happier.