Vent Sesh

Lucy caught a mild cold this past weekend, probably due to Shayne and Maia being all drippy-nosed, too.  Lucy spends a lot of time with her cousins over the weekend at Aunty Shelley's house or at grandma's.  So, when she woke up this morning, we took her temperature, and when there was no fever, I gave her the choice to stay home or go to school.  I know you don't have to have a fever to feel too sick to go to school, after all, and would rather she spend time at home resting and getting better than go to school and make it all worse.  I told her she could stay home and rest or she could go to school with the option to go to the health room if she felt sick.  She chose to go to school.

And as soon as she walked into her classroom, she told her teacher she was sick so she might have to go to the health room later and that she had a "small fever".  Teacher says, "You shouldn't be here if you have a fever," and sends Lucy to the health room.  Health aid confirms Lucy doesn't have a fever, but Lucy tells her she doesn't think she can finish the day at school.  Health aid calls me and I talk to Lucy and determine that she's okay and that I don't have to take her home.  She puts the aid back on and yet the aid still kind of insists that Lucy should go home.  So I pick her up.  I'm irritated and take it out on Lucy on the way home from school.  I'm not getting paid today because I'm not working because Lucy lied about having a fever and because the school employees don't know her well enough to gauge how she's REALLY feeling.

This is really why I'm angry right now.  I'm angry with Lucy for lying-- she KNEW she didn't have a fever because both Charlie and I told her that 96.8 did not a fever make.  She knew it and lied anyway.  But what I do know for certain is that 1. if Lori was still our health aid, she would never have forced me to take home my daughter because my daughter said "I can't do it."  2.  If Tracie were still her teacher, she would have understood what Lucy was doing and why I didn't keep her home.  I feel like I was manipulated into taking Lucy home from school and that my choice to send her to school was flippantly made.  Because even when I explained what happened to the health aid, she still looked at me like I was stupid and mean for having sent my sick child to school.  The very school at which I work, mind you.

It's been such a crappy-ass school year for Lucy and she doesn't even realize it, and I think it's been so unfair to her and her classmates.  Their teacher left just after the first quarter for personal reasons (family  emergency type stuff), had a long string of subs second quarter, and now have a different teacher, new to the school, to finish out the school year.  This, their first HSA-taking year (and believe me, HSA is a whole 'nother blog).  So, after beginning the year one way, then having no real structure for a quarter, and then now having to start all over again, I think Lucy and her classmates are at a distinct disadvantage so late into the year.  I had hoped she would have stayed in school today not because I didn't want to stay home from work, but because I know she could use all the classroom instruction she can get.

Just as the work is starting to really get hard, her teacher is still working on getting to know the kids as well as getting used to curriculum and school politics (and policies).  She drastically changed the routine, diverging from what was agreed upon by the grade level, which totally threw the kids off.  Many of them did poorly on their spelling tests, for example, because she changed so much of it without a heads up to even the parents.  I couldn't help Lucy figure out what was expected of her because even I didn't know.

Which is why I've also been doing some reading by the author Alfie Kohn.  He's written many articles and books about the many wonders of progressive education and outlines the failure of the current educational system.  He writes about how standardized tests measure the wrong things and how students aren't being taught for the simple value of learning, but to become better workers as adults.  Very interesting stuff.  Stuff I'd already kind of agreed with (like standardized tests), but never did much research on.  It makes me want to be a better parent, really.

I'm now feeling better about what happened today so I'm going to stop writing, but if you have any thoughts about our educational system, I'd love to hear them whether or not they echo my own ideas.