Morning Blunder

This morning, I did something good to help other people.
I was driving home from my run at the gym when I saw two middle school kids walking in the dark with their backpacks on. The temperature on my car thermostat said 2 degrees.
I wondered if they didn't know school was canceled.

I'd woken up that morning around 5 and pulled up the local weather station with its list of closings. It listed every school in the county, including ours because the temperature hovered around -2 degrees Fahrenheit. That's -18 Celcius.
Two weeks ago when the temperature dipped down this low, they closed schools for two days.
I had driven past the kids already and was debating whether I should go back and say anything to them.
I turned the car around, stopped and, on my phone, pulled up the page for the local weather station again. I double checked that our school appeared on the "closings" list.
Then I drove back down the road, rolled down my window and told the kids, a brother and sister, that schools were closed. I asked if they wanted me to give them a ride back home since it was so cold.
We live in a small town, so that's not as dangerous as it might seem to big city people.
I also told them my son was a senior in high school.
They climbed into the back seat and told  me they were in 8th grade and 6th grade.
"I'm going back to bed," the boy, who was in 8th grade, told me.
I dropped them in front of their house, about half a mile back. Then drove home.
As I pulled into the driveway, I noticed that my neighbor was pulling out of her garage. She teaches at the Catholic schools, and I wondered where she was going. My list said the Catholic schools were closed too.
That's when I got worried.
According to the list, my college was closed, so I was in no hurry to take a shower. I had all day.
I came inside and searched for the closings page on the computer. The list showed only a few school delays and closures. Our school district and the college where I teach were not on the list.
"Oh, no," I told my husband. "I just told those kids there was no school. I don't even know their names."
At the same time, I needed to hurry to get ready for work.
I called my friend who lives down the block from the kids. Her 6th grade son knew them and called them. Then her son, a senior in high school, picked them up and gave them a ride to school.
She saved the day for me, and for them.
I figured out finally, that the page I was looking at on my phone was the page of closings from two weeks ago. It called up the same page I'd looked at without refreshing it.
I nearly caused a number of us to miss school.
It's fairly embarrassing and is a reminder to me not to meddle in other people's business, even if I'm trying to be a helper.

Breakfast Test

Last night when I got home from work after 9, I found my 17-year-old sitting on the couch in the dark watching college football. I plopped down beside him for a few minutes to chat. Before he went to bed, I asked whether he'd like pancakes for breakfast.
"Yes," he replied.
"Scrambled eggs too?" I asked.
"Sure."
So he went to bed and when I woke up Friday morning, I realized I'd have to cut short my run in order to get back in time to cook breakfast for Tucker. That was fine.
I just ran a couple of miles and headed to the kitchen.
Pancake batter at the ready, eggs beaten, blueberry sauce simmering in the pot, I listened for the shower to turn off so I could cook the eggs and pancakes.
I scrambled the eggs, making sure to get them dry the way he liked. I carefully cooked the pancakes to be sure they were done, but not brown.
By the time Tucker moved to hang up his towel in the bathroom, dressed for the day, I called to him that his breakfast was ready.
I set the plate on a place mat and poured an oversized glass of milk, which is what he drinks most mornings.

As he walked into the dining room, he looked at the plate and said, "I don't have time to eat that. I need to leave."

I shrugged and didn't make eye contact. 

"What am I supposed to do? I can't possibly start eating now."

"Do what you have to do," I said. 

So he slipped his shoes on and approached me as I stood over the sink washing the skillet I used to cook the eggs. He bent down for me to kiss him on his bearded cheek.

"Thanks for the breakfast, Mom," he said.

Then he paused at the wooden cabinet and pulled out a pack of Pop Tarts before he closed the door behind him.

I stared at the plate. I hadn't been home from my run long enough to be hungry yet and I thought about being angry at my selfish teenager. But I think selfish teenager is redundant. 

Tucker spends a lot of evenings at home alone while I teach. Many evenings dinner is just pizza or something we pick up at Subway. 

I spend a lot of time juggling classes, talking to Grace or Spencer at college, spending time with my husband. Tucker may feel the need to test me, to see if I'll change my schedule to kowtow to his needs.

And this morning, I did. I passed his test. 

But because I didn't throw a fit about him skipping the breakfast I lovingly cooked, I'm pretty sure that guilt is nibbling at him somewhere. 

Busy End of Summer

I've fallen off the blogging wagon here toward the end of summer. Getting kids ready to go back to college, preparing four new classes for the fall, and sheer laziness have overtaken me.
I spent all day Saturday revising an online class.
Today, I'm creating a new online class. No rush. The semester doesn't start until Wednesday!
I always debate the teaching banner I use at this time of year now that the semester is 16 weeks long. Do I use one for winter or do I use one that fits the warm weather we have now.

Maybe I need to create one for the autumn, or ask the teaching tech support team to do it.

I have two more weeks of a class that is driving me crazy. It is a developmental English class, which means the students aren't quite ready for college English. This class is three different levels all in one. Some of the students are pretty good at writing and reading, while others can't really write a complete sentence. I know I didn't make the situation, but I feel like I've been fairly incompetent at the whole thing. Three levels in one class do not work -- at least for me.

Earl and me posing with Grace
after her last performance of Emma. 

Grace has been sick for about three weeks, since she performed in Emma. We kept thinking she had allergies and urged her to take a daily allergy medicine. Finally this week, she went to the doctor and learned she had bronchitis.
Ooops. Bad parenting moment.
She leaves on Wednesday for college, but we don't have to drive 10 hours to get there since she is going to school closer to home this year. I'm excited for her and she's a little nervous about joining a new environment.

I hardly have any photos of Spencer.
Here he is waiting for the doctor this week.

Spencer has a few more weeks yet. Earl will drive him to Florida at the end of the month, still we've been doing the necessary doctor appointments, back to school shopping, book purchasing for him too.
Last Sunday we got as close as we'll get to a vacation this summer with a drive down to my cousin's house in Kentucky. We grilled out and hung by the pool enjoying their company.

My boys enjoying the pool before they went hiking into the woods.

So as my family and I prepare for school or moving to far away dorms, I wanted to leave you with this shot of Grace. I think it's an analogy for the way I feel at the end of a summer.

Grace, in the midst of her summer of working plus performing in two plays,
collapses on the grass in hope the cat will join her. 

Hope the end of your summer goes smoothly.

First Day of School Alone

As the final child at home, Tucker posed for his first day of school before driving away. He's a junior this  year.

I think the expression on his face conveys the excitement he feels about another year of high school.

School, Education and Intelligence

The longer my kids are in the school system, the less I think school, education and intelligence go together.
This lesson came back to me last week when Spencer, who is a senior, won the school chess tournament. He named the boys he played and shrugged it off, even though one of the boys is the valedictorian of their class.
I imagined how this really smart boy must have felt to know that my mediocre student could beat him in chess. The problem is that the intelligence to win in chess, or even on the basketball court, are different from the skills needed to succeed in school.
As many of you know, I homeschooled my kids until the oldest was a sophomore in high school and the youngest in 6th grade. They then opted to attend school. Yet none of them seem to have bought into the school system's game. I tell them that having chosen the playing field (the school) they must now play by those rules, which means achieve high grades.
None of them seem motivated to do the little bit of extra work it would take to achieve an A when they can do very little work and get a B. After all those years preaching about the love of learning, I have a hard time enforcing the "A" standard.
Spencer probably struggles the most with grades. If we'd sent him to grade school, he probably would have been diagnosed with ADD. But we didn't, and he has adapted with decent grades.
To me, Spencer will always be that little kid with the round glasses and the blonde bowl haircut sitting on the floor, one knee pulled up to his chest, the other under his bottom staring at the chess board.
He learned to play chess in 1st grade. We were at Borders bookstore and he requested a beginning chess set that came with a book to explain how to move the pieces. I went through the book with him and he started playing with his friends. I began to get an inkling he thought differently than I do when we were leaving a friend's house one day.
"Wrap it up, Spence. Time to go," I called as he stared at the chess board.
"Hold on. Two more moves and I've got him in checkmate," he said.
"What? How can you tell that?" I asked. I figured the number of moves were infintesimal and he couldn't predict what his friend Michael might do. But it was true. He could figure out the available moves and how to trap his opponent. It's what a good chess player does.
Once he started school in 8th grade, he gave up on the private chess lesson, the trips to national chess tournaments. He worked hard to be a normal jock with B grades.
This year, as college forms should be filled out, I told him he needed to add another activity. Back to chess, I told him. And so he did.

Spencer holding the flag is not with the chess club in this photo.

On Tuesdays at lunch, he goes to chess club. And he's succeeding. Which reminds me why school and education and intelligence just don't always go together.
Getting good grades, in my opinion, requires the will to please other people and a good memory. Those skills will make the 4.0 plus student in my kids' high school.
Grace and Tucker both have those steel trap memories like I do, so they have the ability to excel at school, if they only had the other part, that urge to please people.
The problem with not having a good memory, is that school can feel like a beat down everyday. Those other people with good memories just stride through it. Maybe chess will help Spencer remember that there's a light at the end of the school tunnel. Maybe he'll find a career where he can excel because he can see the spatial relationship like those between the pieces on the chess board or between those players on the basketball court.
And maybe someday there will be a school where kids who have a wide variety of intelligences, not just good memories for the things they see or hear, can feel like they're succeeding too.

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school for my boys. This is the 5th first day of school for Spencer since he started going to school in 8th grade. We homeschooled before that. Tucker started going later that same year, but technically this is only his 4th first day of school.
When we homeschooled, we'd have "not back to school" parties. Now I send them off before 8 a.m. and see them again after 3.
This year, our school is starting very early in the year. The goal is to finish the first semester before Christmas. That way, high school students can take their exams before Christmas break rather than coming back to school for a week and taking exams then. It makes perfect sense to me, and the kids get out of school in May rather than in June, so it all evens out.
The parents who are complaining about the early start are the parents of the younger students. They can't stand the changes in the Christmas holiday. It's hard to make them understand how quickly those years fly past. Before they know it, they will be looking at kids who tower above them try and try to eek out good grades to get into college.

Snow Day!

Remember being a kid and waking up in the morning while the dark presses in. The morning seems quieter than usual because the blanket of snow has muted the noise. The birds aren't singing. The cars are not whizzing along the roadway.
Then, there, the noise of a shovel scraping along a driveway.
I remember hearing the radio blaring the news in the kitchen as my mom listened to the school closings. And when they announced our school, oh, the joy. A free day.
Since my kids were homeschooled until a few years ago, they didn't know the feeling of a snow day. And even going to school now, they rarely get a day off school.
Our little town doesn't have buses. Everyone can walk to school. (But my boys drive the mile to school so they can squeeze out every ounce of morning sleep then rush there at the last minute.)
Usually when the snow covers Columbus, they listen to the school closings glumly then set off grumbling about our superintendent.
Last night was different though. Earl worked until 1 and when he came to bed -- at 2 or 3, he told me the roads were a mess. The snow had not swept through. Sleet covered the city.
Now sleet the superintendent has to pay attention to because of all those elementary school children walking to school. The best thing that can happen for my kids is for the superintendent to walk out onto the sidewalk and fall on his butt because of the ice.
Maybe that happened because when I stumbled out of bed at 6 and clicked on the school's website, it read "Schools closed due to icy conditions."
Score.
I walked into Tucker's bedroom and whispered in his ear. "No school."
"Yes!" He punched the air. "I was right."
I smiled and started to leave.
"Hey, come here," he said. And he reached up to hug me.
"My friends will all be here at 7," he said as he turned over to go back to sleep.
Then I went to Spencer. He had slept restlessly, worried about a chemistry test he wasn't prepared for. Just the night before as we sat at the dining room table, he told me that he is exhausted. Tired of working so hard at school and at basketball.
As he slept this morning, I whispered in his ear that school was closed, he blinked his long lashes a few times and focused.
"Really?"
"Yes, get some sleep," I responded.
Hopefully, he will have a chance to renew his tired mind and body.
As for me, my work was only postponed until 10 and then I get to drive through the icy town to school where very few students will probably arrive to meet with me.
For the boys, the day will be filled with video games, hot chocolate, reruns of The Office and, hopefully, some studying for a chemistry test. Maybe they'll even take the cat for another walk in the snow.

Back to School

Last year when the kids went back to school, it was the first time all three of my children actually attended. My husband was still working a normal schedule so he left for work in the morning, and I wondered what mothers do when their kids are gone if they aren't working. I didn't have any classes that day, so I spent the hours cleaning the house. It seemed like a renewal kind of thing.
Yesterday, the kids headed back to school again. I'd spent hundreds of dollars on school supplies and clothes, and I got up at 5 to get to the grocery store to buy the requisite boxes of tissues for the teachers.
I had to teach a few hours and I took along my gym bag, planning to work out, but when I walked out of the building a little before noon, the sky was so blue and the air was crisp.
I called my husband, who is now on the crazy schedule with days off on Monday and Tuesday (?) and said, "Let's go for a bike ride."
So we did.
The bike trail is about a mile from our house and it winds along the Olentangy River. It has some definite flaws especially as it goes through Ohio State. It's under construction and the path goes up a hill right by the old student union where people are trying to walk.
But the air felt fresh, like the harbinger of fall. I loved the sound of the few crisp leave crunching under the tires, mixed with the steady chirp of the crickets. The buzz of cicadas in the trees seemed to herald the end of summer.
Along the river I saw an egret glide in for a landing, its white wings cocked above the greenish brown of the water. A great blue heron stood placidly in the water at another spot, ignoring the squawking of the geese.
My bike is smaller than my husband's and my legs are much shorter, so it seems like I pedal constantly but can't keep up with him. That was okay because I loved the whoosh of the wind in my ears.
We got home in time to take a nap before picking up the kids from school. And, although we had to ferry them to a nuber of places, like to the doctor to remove stitches, they were all enthusiastic about their first day, and about the milkshakes my husband had ready when they came in the door from that first day of school.

Silent House

The middle of the day and all I can hear in this near silent house is the jingle of the cat's bell as he bats a rubber ball along the wood floor. Being home alone is strange for me. For 15 years, nearly 16, children have been my constant companions. Sometimes a whole houseful, other times just my three. We'd snuggle on the couch and read books in the winter or set up lemonade stands and backyard sprinklers in the summer. We did messy science projects and some unsuccessful art projects with the glitter still on the dining room table as proof.
Until today.
Today is silent.
A silence that began when my youngest walked out the door following an argument about whether he needed to wear a coat today, his first day of school, with the thermometer reaching a balmy 21. I won the coat battle, but didn't get a goodbye kiss. He left the back door open, so I had to walk over and push it closed as he climbed in the car with his father.
10 years of homeschooling have ended like that. A scared and angry sixth grader slamming out the door, wondering whether he'll have to sing by himself in choir class since he's joining in the middle of the year. His brother and sister are old pros at it now, having started school in August. His sister gave the youngest a light up pen on a string that he hung around his neck. His older brother advised him to remove it. "Looks kind of nerdy."
They were nervous for him. "You have to play football during recess. You have to play whatever the boys are playing," his older brother said.
My youngest shrugged. Today, he is still full of that homeschool fallacy -- that people can choose to do what they like and no one will protest or comment. I'm sure that will fade.
I had a meeting this morning so I jumped in the shower when they pulled away. The bathroom door opened a few minutes later and my husband's glasses fogged up as he stuck his head inside the shower curtain.
"So all the kids are at school."
I wondered how many years he had been waiting for this moment. To me, sending all of the kids to school was a slightly painful milestone. To him, an empty, silent house could mean only one thing.

Education Pushers

My fifteen-year-old daughter is starting college today.
It’s not that we try to be overachievers. I’ve noticed that we are not alone in pushing our kids to do more, faster.
This morning’s paper talks about how middle school kids can earn high school credit if they extend class time by 10 minutes. That’s it? That’s the difference between a high school class and a middle school class?
One friend’s son is hoping to get into a program where he takes classes at DeVry for the last two years of high school. He won’t go to high school. He’ll only go to DeVry and then he’ll graduate from high school with an associate’s degree.
What’s the rush?
Why do our kids need high school credit in middle school and college credit in high school?
A similar program stretches high school to five years, but again, once they graduate they will have an associate’s degree. What are they going to do with that extra year? Will they simply finish four-year colleges at 21? Does that mean they are rushing out to the job market?
Maybe that gives them an extra year to backpack around Europe and Asia or join the Peace Corps or City Year. Maybe they will take that extra year that we rushed them through and give something back to the community.
But I wonder if they’ll even know how to relax once we finish pushing them to their full potential.
Grace is terrified to step into that college classroom this morning. She is taking biology and French.
We have homeschooled since Grace was in first grade. Now she thinks she might want to go to high school next year as a sophomore. Looking at what she has studied, I figured she needed a language and a science credit, thus the biology and the French class.
And, I’m not worried about how well she’ll do in class. She’s smart. She can keep up academically.
It’s just getting her to take that first step across the threshold and preventing myself from shoving too hard.