Today is a day at home, catching up on things. So far, I baked the kids blueberry muffins for breakfast, dropped them off, had a coffee, got a haircut, stopped at the supermarket (all but the muffins on my bike, while carrying Casey's ripstick!), cooked beans, made banana bread (too many ripe bananas due to the heat) and sent work emails. All very exciting. Normally I'm not so domestic.
I am enjoying being able to bike to a million places. It is convenient for their to be mini-supermarkets in every direction, so I can just grab stuff when I drop the kids or whatever. Even the post office is just a 5 minute ride away.
Both kids had playdates yesterday, and then we walked/scootered to meet the parents of one of the friends for dinner. She and Casey had played club penguin all day.
Casey remains rather unimpressed by the school, but seems to be having fun. He says the work is all easy (who knows), but is mostly amazed at how mean the kids are. They have a goofy traffic light system in the class -- once you pass red (3 infractions) a note goes home to parents. He says half the class is on yellow all day. He also thought it wasn't fair that a friend who was explaining something to him got in trouble. Mostly, he has a really witty and dead-on analysis of the kids' misbehavior. He says that no one takes the traffic light seriously, and that the kids step on other kids' hands as they go to move their clothespin off of green on the traffic light, which causes more disruption than what they got in trouble for! Needless to say, Casey has a high standard of comparison with Farm School.
On the other hand, he did really enjoy writing Haikus this week, and compared to his friends, (who wrote things like: La la la la la/La la la la la la la/La la la la la), he wrote these lovely things about birds flying and trees waving in the breeze! Who knew!
Ripley is enjoying school, though she too isn't feeling that challenged at the moment. She was also shocked by some changes: When the kids were writing a story, they just said what words they wanted to use, and the teacher wrote all the words on the blackboard for them to copy. Ripley was shocked, and insisted on not looking at the board and brainrobbing herself. It did make us realize, when you see the different kids' work on the walls, that kids can look like they are doing really good writing, when in reality, they just know how to copy letters!
They also have a home reading program for Ripley's age: every night, she brings home a book from a pre-selected pile (she is "dark blue" level) and has to read it and then we have to sign off that she read it. She's enjoying the responsibility, but not thrilled with having to pick from the small pile of only those (pathetically outdated) books.
The state of Victoria has a premier's reading challenge (http://www.education.vic.gov.au/prc/ ) that the kids might do at school. Basically they have to read a bunch of books by August and they get a certificate (not even any trashy prizes, like the libraries at home do!). Unfortunately, the books are those on a required reading list. It's a pretty big list, at least, but still, I find it odd to compile a giant list of required books -- why not let kids just read? And then, the first book I tried to find on the list (thinking it might give us a good idea of books in Australia) is not available from any bookstore. oookay. And books like Animalia (a picture book Ripley outgrew) is on Casey's list, much to his amusement!
What did annoy me significantly today is that both kids' teachers have said that they aren't sure how to place the kids in reading/math level groups (which is apparently where there will be for the rest of their lives!), cause they dont' know them well enough in two weeks. Fair enough, except that neither one had any idea that we'd provided any information from their old school! !!??? (Which is TONS of information that Nancy and Dana worked really hard on!!)
Apparently, the principal just kept everything we gave them "in her [not the kids'] files." And when Casey's teacher asked to see it, the principal said it will take her a few days to "lay her hands on it."
Ok, so maybe I'm naiive and spoiled by FS, but come on! Why wouldn't this information be put in the kids' cumulative files? If the principal was going to circular file it, why not just tell us to keep it until we met with teachers? Anyway, hopefully she'll find it by the end of the week, and the kids won't have to be moved around too much (mostly Casey, I think it is less of an issue for Ripley). Needless to say, I think today is a frustration-with-school day.
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2 comments:
Dearest Sharon, How nice that the heat broke and you could bake and cook!! Your location sounds terrific if you can bike all over. Does that mean I have to ride a bike when I come? I CERTAINLY am not driving!!
It is great that the kids are having play dates--it should give you an opportunity to meet some new people as well.
I didn't know that Casey was a poet. Please send me his Haiku. Did he write more than one? What was the reason the teacher chose that form?
Miss you all--xx, Mom
Hey Sharon,
I love the title of this blog--I can so relate to those two ideas. It is why, after two years of not being able to work in the US, I was ready to return to the real world. I even volunteered pretty much full-time in a resource room at a local school. So much for domesticity. Now, the bitchiness----well, I'll leave that one up to Alex to discuss.
It is interesting to hear your take on the Australian school experience. It's just so much easier when you don't have the many layers of buracracy (I don't know how to spell that word and it bothers me) that come as an institution gets bigger. And 347 kids is small beans! Think of what the public schools in California are like.
Please don't bake too much. Once you get into your research you'll stop feeling the D&S blues. Take care. We do miss you!
Dana
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