Sunday 9 September 2012

Back and Mad


I might start writing here again. My husband and my sister will be so thrilled, all both of my followers!

My husband (hi, baby, could you bring me up a glass of water? thanks) sent me this article this morning. He was indignant. He is a much devoted dad, non-violent, a homeschooler. He is a person. He, like most, doesn't appreciate people hurting kids.
Well, thing is, apparently, allegedly, some public schools in the US have gone berserk. As there is no money, or little money, and too many kids and not enough teachers, and kids do tend to misbehave, being kids and all, well ... what do you do when a little 5 year old brat student misbehaves? Teachers can't be expected to deal with 30 or so of these tinies, especially if they are going to be stubborn, unpredictable and defiant. Apparently, the quick go to is locking them in the closet. Isolating them. Time out. What have you.

What you do have is a child, Rose. She is small enough to be oh so vulnerable, still trying to figure out the world, scared shitless.

Mr. Lichtenstein wrote the article. He is Rose's dad. And my beef is with him. I am not carte blanching the teacher, the school, the district or sick and twisted humanity as a whole. Those are all accountable. But Mr. Lichtenstein is Rose's dad. Why in the spinning world did it take him 3 months to find out what was happening to his daughter? She started freaking out during Nemo, when the shark attacks, he says. We thought that was kinda weird, so we like totally called the school and everything. We were like hey, what's up with that, what's up with Rose? And they were all, like, uh, nothing, oh, I don't know, you know, she's like little and all, who knows, I mean, yeah, nothing. So my wife, Mrs goes by her maiden name and I were all like, ok.

I think the really frightening part, in social development terms, is not as much that our schools are locking children up for misbehaviour, but that as parents it takes us a good 3 months to find out.

Our four year old overheard us discussing this. He asked, what does misbehave mean? Bless his little homeschooled heart. Which is not to say that we are too neo-hippy,  all loving, AP perfect to get it right every time, or to notice every little thing, although I do hope we'd notice if someone was routinely locking them in closets. But we do strive to let them be who they are. Although, sometimes not, when who they are spits on the living room floor. Not perfect; but I preempted with that.