Monday, February 02, 2009

Perhaps I have said his before, but it bears repeating: I believe the sole purpose of school is to create a chasm between children and their parents thereby making it easier for the children to leave for independent lives when they are grown.

After school Sailor and I walk to pick up Mac. “We’ll walk home and get the car and drive to Judo,” I tell him when we have him walking with us. “Aw, Mom! Why can’t we walk to Judo?!” It’s freezing out and Judo is twice as far as home. Two sets of gi (judo clothes) with belts are excessively heavy as is the hardcover book I am reading today. I have already made the decision to walk home and drive to Judo. I am not asking for an opinion. It’s a done deal. Not for discussion. I am simply telling him our plans.

Both boys change into their gi at Judo. “Sensei is not feeling well,” I hear the mom next to me tell her boys, “behave nicely on the mat today.” I overhear Sensei tell another mom that all he needs is for this class to be over. “I shouldn’t be here today,” he tells the 13 children – 12 boys and 1 girl – “but I am because you have a tournament in 3 weeks…” Blah blah blah… these kids are too young to understand. Just do your work, Mister, I want to tell Sensei. He sits on a chair and calls out instructions that no one listens to. “20 sit ups,” he instructs, as punishment. No one is listening to him then, either. My boys take to wrestling, throwing each other and karate kicking. I beckon them over with a single finger after Sensei has told them to keep their hands off each other. I hand Mac the bag with their clothes. “Go get dressed, we’re leaving.”

I am unimpressed with class today. Sick teacher or not there are too many small children to be disciplined so soon after school by one man. I will have a chat with Sensei and either switch my boys to a class with a lower census or withdraw them altogether. We are now just wasting our time.

At home I am unhappy with my boys and with their class. I make dinner and talk to my good friend on the phone, reading off this week’s spelling words – which range from feet and green to chameleon and wakeful – to her because her daughter is sick this week. Mac spends 15 minutes looking for “adobe” in the dictionary. Sailor has his violin out and is demanding that I pay attention to him because “I can’t do this!” when in fact he can. It’s too much. I have to hang up. And pour myself a glass of wine.
I serve my boys salad. They eat it. They finish their dinner but Sailor can’t seem to do his workbook pages correctly and Mac can‘t seem to write a sentence in which the words are separated by appropriate spaces. I need a break. I leave the room for a few minutes. “Mommy! I need your help!” Sailor calls to me. Sigh.

45 minutes after we re-start his homework after dinner, Mac has 7 definitions on his page, written sloppily, erased sloppily and making only marginal sense. He reads the definitions to me. The last word is “wakeful,” which he has defined as “vigilant.” Do you know what that means? I ask him. “No.” sigh (again). “You can’t define a word with another word if you don’t know what that word means. Find the definition that makes sense.” I can tell I am going to love this 2nd half of 2nd grade so much.

My goal this week is to get my boys into bed on time every night this week. No exceptions, no excuses. It is 6:32pm. Mac has been working on homework long past his allotted 30 minutes. He still has several pages of math and we have to get started on his time capsule. There is no way he will be in bed by 7:30 at this point. But dammit we have to get this to work more than one night (they were in bed by 8 and asleep a few minutes past 8:30 last night). I have been calm all day but I am exceedingly frustrated at this point.