Failing Systems 4

Another early hint was when the school held a literacy event after school one afternoon. Parents and kids went to the kid's classrooms and the teachers explained how they were teaching the kids to recognize letters and sounds. Interesting stuff, especially since he's in a dual-language school (English and Spanish) but it was explained in the most boring way—lecture style. And our kids were with us. So, after they had already been in school that day for about six hours, we all had to sit through an hour-long talk. That one just felt like a missed opportunity to me—why not have the kids participate so it could be more like we, the parents, were getting to sit in on an actually classroom experience?

But a little later I realized that the actual classroom experience was kind of like that. By October, Lochlan was having a hard time in school. Well, we think he was having a hard time right from the get-go, but by October, his pent-up feelings were coming out in the form of physical outbursts—throwing things, kicking things, knocking over chairs. Lochlan was struggling and Ms. K did not have the resources she needed to fully support him (like a classroom aide, for example, or perhaps an entirely different model of classroom education). One day, I got a call from the school. Lochlan had gotten upset (it was almost always about something that seemed on the surface minor, like he thought he messed up on an activity) and thrown something and he couldn't go back to classroom unless one of his parents could stay with him the rest of the afternoon. Thankfully, I was free, so I went.

I couldn't believe how boring kindergarten was. And when I say boring, I mean orderly. Here were all these five-year-olds, and the classroom was like something you'd expect of an older grade level, maybe 3rd at least, when children have a greater degree of impulse control and have had time to adjust to the expectations of school. There was no chaotic joy, no free play, just table work and floor-mat sitting and lining up and raising hands. To be fair, it was toward the end of the school day, so I was only in the classroom for about 45 minutes, but that brief glimpse gave me an idea of why my child was struggling. He was used to a lot of freedom and self-directed play. I had been hoping kindergarten would help him learn more about cooperation and compromise in play with his peers, but instead found that it was focused on compliance and consequences.

I wrote this! Read more at https://fuckedupandwonderful.blogspot.com/2024/10/imagine-world.html