Nov
30

Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing.

Reading Julia’s post about Patrick’s parent-teacher conference (he failed Scissors, poor moppet) and whether to send him to Montessori made me ponder my own early scholastic experiences.
First of all, I would like to say that I, too, failed something. It will come as no surprise to my creditors, my mother, or the smug ATM machine I frequent that the pre-school subject I failed was Money. Specifically, nickels and dimes. I still maintain that as nickels are bigger, they are patently worth more than are dimes. What child-hating absurdist created our system of coinage, anyway?
But I digress.
The point of this entry (believe it or not) was that I am a big advocate of non-traditional public schools, especially for the early years. I went to an Open School for kindergarten and first grade. It was a public school with lots of gifted and talented programs and unusual curricula. In first grade I learned all of the usual things, but also took Spanish, sewing, and a literature class that focused on death–we read A Taste of Blackberries (boy stung to death by bees) and 1000 Paper Cranes (dying girl loves origami). Okay, that makes it sound strange, and yes, that unit precipitated an unattractive 6-year-old existential crisis (I want a fudgsicle and a copy of The Sickness Unto Death!) but it was great, really.
I also took workshops that year in carpentry and soap- and candle-making. I was on the literary magazine and in the “International Club”—the sole legacy of which is my ability to sing “Are You Sleeping?” in French, Sign Language, and Yiddish.
There were aspects of the school that were a little…much—we used to sit in a circle with linked arms, swaying and singing “We Shall Overcome,” and our school song was “Lean on Me,” by Bill Withers, but I suspect that was a product of the times.
It was during my years at that school that I developed a love of learning and an ability to integrate that learning into life outside the classroom that served me well when I was thrust into a mainstream public school system, where I remained through high school, where some of the classmates with whom I graduated could barely read, where I saw my first gun, and where I was so horrifically, stultifyingly bored that I stopped attending class regularly after the 7th grade.
Wherever your offspring fall on the abilities spectrum, Open Schools and similar institutions do a tremendous job, in my opinion, of accommodating individual interests and learning styles, and in translating them into achievement and confidence.
Besides, Open School hot lunches kick Regular School hot lunches’ ass.

Edited to add: We did have to do ALL of the basics–reading, writing, ‘rithmatic, etc. The electives were just gravy. There were a lot of interdisciplinary approaches, too. No one could, say, concentrate on spelling and opt out of long division.

Unrelated, but noteworthy:
Has anyone read this? I am curious, because I had heard some complimentary things about Letrazole–not in general, but in comparison to Clomid, especially for PCOS. What confuses me about the article is that it says Letrazole has been shown to cause problems when taken during pregnancy. Now, correct me if I am mistaken, but Letrazole (Femara), like Clomid, is taken for 5ish days in the first half of your cycle—it would be long gone by the time a pregnancy occurred, non? And–again, correct me if I’m wrong–most fertility drugs/hormones are contraindicated during pregnancy, non? So why the “Tsk, tsk, this is what you barren sluts get for using an off-label fertility treatment” routine? Am I missing something?

Oh! Back to the early scholastic reminisces portion of the entry:
I learned a passel of new words during my time at the Open School. Two of those words were “Infanta” (from the aforementioned Spanish class) and “Matricide”—leading to my belief (held through the 4th grade) that the term “Infanticide” referred to the assassination or murder of the daughter of the King of Spain.

By Alexa | Posted in Ceci N'est Pas Une Ecrivaine |