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UPDATE, FRIDAY OCTOBER 13: Brandon and I visited a new preschool this morning and I haven’t been this excited in quite some time. It’s simply perfect. It’s a Reggio-Emilia based parent co-op right in the heart of Berkeley. Will keep you posted on how it goes.

Original Post:

I’ve had occasion to think a lot lately about education. It’s certainly not the first time that subject has been on my mind - I was the President of the Future Teachers Club in high school. Oh wait, that was just so my college application would be “well-rounded”. I forgot. But yeah, I was at one point planning to be an English professor, at another point a preschool teacher and an art teacher and at another point worked with at-risk teens and at another point was in a graduate program in Interdisciplinary Arts Education. I know a thing or two about education, is all I’m trying to say.

But seriously … I’ve been having some major issues with the new preschool that Brandon has been attending since we moved into our new place and Linda (snif) moved out of our lives. I’ve been trying to put my finger on the problem for a while now and I think it finally clicked today.

I’ve had a few what I would consider major conflicts with this situation, certainly more than I would expect to have had in only six weeks. First off, the tuition was twice what I had been used to paying - but I brushed that off as being because we were so severely underpaying Linda, at her insistence, to keep her tax burden low. The director of the preschool knew Linda, and had many conversations about accepting Brandon and the other children from our preschool into her school. She assured Linda many times that she would offer me a reduced tuition because she wanted Brandon in her program very badly and because I am a single mother with a modest income. So before I enrolled him, I approached her, told her what I could afford and asked if she could accommodate me. In return I offered her my time - either in the classroom assisting, or developing a website for the school or for her husband’s business - whatever. She assured me that this was all fine and we would work out the details later.

A week passes, a couple weeks pass, I keep asking her when she wants me to come and spend some time at the school, or what I can do to help her in any way. Each time she sort of brushes me off, oh, we need to get settled with our new group, oh, I’m training my new assistant this week, … she keeps brushing me off and finally I quit asking and figure she will tell me when she needs me.

Then we go to visit Grandma in Sacramento for a few days for her birthday. When we get back into town, I think it was a Thursday, I go straight to drop the Boop off at school so I can get some work done. She begins to scold me about not telling her my schedule. Now, I told her on the previous Wednesday that we would be gone for a few days, wasn’t sure exactly when we were returning, blah blah blah. But for whatever reason she is angry with me that I didn’t call her every morning by 9 am telling her my whereabouts … even though she never communicated to me that was a requirement. I’m completely bewildered … I don’t tell ANYBODY where I’m going to be at what time every day. But ok, she’s running a program with a schedule and she needs to know what the deal is each day in case she and the kids want to go for a walk or something. All right. Fine. My bad.

Then there’s one little thing or another about every other day or so. I get lectured about how Brandon needs to show up before 9 so he can be there for Circle Time and it’s too disruptive if I come later than that. Fine. He needs to stop bringing his Thomas train to school because she’s afraid he’ll lose it. Well, actually, no he won’t, he’ll even sleep with it if you let him, but ok, no problem. I’m sure everything’s my fault and I’m doing everything wrong, but the tone of her voice when she talks to me is so condescending that I feel myself shrinking in front of her and I feel like a 3 year old who has wet my pants for the third time today.

Then I’m a day late on tuition. Get lectured about that. Then out of the blue she asks if I can reduce his time down to four days a week because she doesn’t want me to come into the classroom. Her excuse is that she’s concerned that Brandon may have separation anxiety if I am there and then leave. I’m so flabbergasted (meanwhile Brandon is running away to go play with his friends, doesn’t even give me time to kiss him) I really don’t even know what to say. I mean, my work schedule is flexible, but flexible in the sense that I don’t necessarily have to be at my desk from 8 to 5 every day, not in the sense that I can totally blow off my clients for one whole workday each week and switch to working four ten-hour days - even if I wanted to, which I don’t. But I just don’t understand … if she wanted him in her program so badly, and was happy to give me a discount to get him, why is she treating me this way - like I am somehow trying to get over on her or take advantage of her by paying reduced fees that she agreed to!

Then I pick him up just before 6, a couple days in a row because I’ve been in super-long exhausting client meetings out of town all day. Mind you, the hours of this school are 7:30 to 6:00. This morning I get a lecture - “I have him down on my list as 8:30 to 5:30 and you need to call me if blah blah blah …” All right. You need to make sure you have enough coverage for the 5:30 to 6:00 time period, whatever … but I’m really starting to get tired of being lectured! So I go to pick him up today and she asks me if I can bring some diapers because she’s spending too much money on diapers for him. Now, there are three reasons why I justified her exorbitant tuition to myself: 1 - she’s open longer hours. 2 - she provides food. 3 - she provides diapers.

Now she’s telling me I can’t actually use all the hours she’s open, I need to sign something that allows her to get reimbursed for the food from the state, and … I need to bring diapers too??

What’s wrong with this picture?

But all my whining about the miscommunication issues and money and whatnot aside, here’s the real problem. I have never had a conversation with this woman about my son’s actual EDUCATION. Every time she talks to me, it’s about what I’ve done wrong, what paperwork I’m missing, how I’m violating her sacred schedule or breaking some important rule she never bothered to tell me about, how she doesn’t need my help in the classroom. She has never once told me, “Brandon really enjoyed this particular book today. Maybe you could get him some books on that subject.” or “I’m concerned about the fact that Brandon doesn’t speak as much as the other children, have you talked to his pediatrician about having him tested for a speech delay?” or “Brandon is so energetic - he just runs circles around his friends!”

She teaches curriculum out of a box and sends home preprinted daily reports that are more focused on what time his diaper was changed than what he actually learned. I have really come to detest those reports. I know my son will eat everything you offer him and usually seconds, despite his slender physique. I don’t need checkboxes on a page to tell me that. I want to know how his curiosity was nurtured today. I want to know whether he is learning to stand his ground when his peers take his toys away. I want to know what he got really excited about today. I don’t want to know how many wet diapers he had, I want to know how many hugs he got.

I feel like my son is a number on her balance sheet instead of a cherished individual whose life she is shaping. I feel like I am the naughty parent who doesn’t follow the rules instead of the helpful parent who is available to chaperone field trips and brings items related to that week’s curriculum to school. This is not a good feeling. This is a 180 degree difference from how I felt about Brandon’s education when Linda was his teacher. This has to change, and it has to change right now.

So … I’ll bring her the stupid diapers. I’ll drop him off at exactly 8:30 and pick him up at exactly 5:30. I will play by her rules for as long as it takes for me to find an educator that cares about my son and my family and my situation. And then I am SOOOO outta there.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 11th, 2006 at 1:57 am and is filed under Brandon, Life in Marisaland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.