Clown and mother
I’m going over my new calendar and thinking about commitments. My Kid will finally be taking a dance class again and is registered for indoor soccer. I am considering some workshops and new projects for myself.
But, I have the same old New Years resolutions of wanting to do more exercising, more cooking, more cleaning, more volunteering, and more writing…
It is the season of my annual online search for MFA programs to which I do not apply.
It’s New Years Eve. So much has been said about this decade that for lack of a better name is being called the post 9/11 decade. Remember Seattle’s public Millennium Celebrations that got cancelled because of a terrorist plot. Remember the sight gag on late night TV, Seattle’s New Year’s Celebration as a few guys in an empty room sitting on folding chairs. In the year 2000 my beautiful daughter was born, one of those auspicious millennium dragon babies. We bought a house in Seattle. And then the tech boom ended. And then we moved to New York. And then 9/11 happened the week after we discovered the sphere fountain in the World Trade Center Plaza was a good place to take our toddler. Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church Playgroup. And then we went to Nebraska to introduce my baby to her great-grandparents. And then there was the Anthrax scare so I didn’t send Christmas Cards from New York to let everyone know we we had moved. And then my baby could talk. Music for Aardvarks. And then my little girl went to preschool at the Dillon Center. STREB kid action with Fabio. Shi Chi Go San. And then my little girl went to pre-K in Manhattan. And then my little girl went to Kindergarten in Brooklyn. And then I spent two months on the jury for a murder trial. And then my little girl was in 1st grade. And then my little girl was in 2nd Grade. Shi Chi Go San. First Holy Communion. FIRST Lego League. Brownie Girl Scouts. And then my little girl was in 3rd grade. The Husband changed jobs four times in one year. The New Economy. AYSO Soccer. And now my little girl is in 4th grade. Barack Obama is the President of the United States. And now it is turning into 2010. We have a new hamster. Whoooosh!
I’m not surprised that the New York City Department of Education failed to increase the number of minority students in gifted and talented program; http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/nyregion/30gifted.html. The program was obviously created by a man used to working in an office with a staff, not a mommy juggling school and work and family and HOLIDAY obligations.
I am a white college educated woman stay-at-home-(at least some of the time) mom-obsessed with my only child’s education AND I FAILED TO GET THE PROPER FORMS IN ON TIME in order for my child to take the gifted and talented test.
Last year, right before vacation, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PRE-HOLIDAY CRAZINESS a letter came home about signing up for the special test. The form was to be turned the first or second day back in school after the long Christmahanakwanzikadan New Year break.
The teachers were ambivalent with an “if this is interesting to you, it’s not mandatory…” note.
In MIDDLE OF THE PRE-HOLIDAY CRAZINESS this piece of paper did not get special treatment…
After the holidays, in the school office, a casual question in the school office. The school secretary said the test was only if you wanted to leave this school. My kid’s happy at the school where she is, which also happens to be on my husband’s way to work.
I don’t want to yank my kid out of the school where her friends go, and add a significant commute to her morning for her to attend a gifted and talented program somewhere deeper into Brooklyn that may be nowhere near our go-to subway line.
So…
For whatever reason…
I filled out the form, but I failed to turn it in by the deadline and my kid was not pulled out of class to take the special test.
I felt like a bad parent on that day of the test when the other more organized parents were talking about it.
My kid’s statistically minority friend who took the test well and was accepted into the gifted and talented program, well, she didn’t change schools. Our school has no “gifted and talented” program. They aspire to nurture the gifts of all the children.
Kids are not interchangeable like bricks.
Schools are eco-systems.
Children need more than accelerated programs, they need friends, they need to feel at home in the school building and comfortable in their classroom. They need to be able to like their teachers and know their teachers enjoy them.
At 8, 9 or 10 years old kids are not thinking about their future. They live in the present looking forward to the end of the week at best.
Even Malia Obama, a bright student in a good school, with very prominent parents–when faced with the prospect of her father’s campaign’s unprecedented TV buy on multiple channels–only concern was if his program would pre-empt her favorite Nickelodeon and Disney Channels (which also happen to me my own child’s favorite channels–another reason to vote the Obama Family into the White House).