This Spring, my boys came home with a small ziploc bag filled with something I’d never seen before. My kindergartner came running across the field to greet me, his arm extended, waving the treasure excitedly.
“What have you got there?” I asked him, as he pushed the baggie into my hand.
“I don’t know what it’s called,” he said, “but there were a lot left over from snack time, so I asked Mrs. A if I could bring them home so you could try one, and she said yes! Remember, you said you like to try new things.”
Of course I do. Straight from the grubby paws of kindergartners.
Our school has a health initiative–or mandate, I’m not sure–to provide healthy, diverse snacks twice a week to our Title I students. Michelle Obama wanted to inspire a new generation of Americans to a healthier lifestyle, and I guess this is what it boils down to: passing out lemon quarters and frozen, rotting bananas to elementary kids. How fun! How novel.
This particular day, it was lychee. I’d never seen the little brown squishy balls before, but as I bit into one on the field in front of the school, a grandmother nearby warned me there was a small round pit in the middle, and to take care not bite it. “It’s a slippery thing,” she said, “and it’ll slide right down your throat.”
Indeed, the perfect tropical snack for five year olds.
It tasted like squishy, juicy coconut eyeball. But the seed was scary slippery, and this sparked my concern over school snacks (though the lemons were always in the back of my mind). Of course I googled lychee.
Last summer in one city in India, over 100 children died from encephalitis by ingesting lychees with toxins.
If my kids hadn’t brought lychees home, if I weren’t a mom uncommonly curious over what snacks they eat on Tuesdays and Thursdays–I simply would have never known.
There are many things a parent can worry about. There are many things we will never know. I wonder if we only consider what is in front of our faces, how far we can let things spin into hysteria. But nevermind–those days are here.
My email inbox is filling up with school plans for the fall–except they are as far from normal as they can possibly be. Two weeks of remote learning, to begin with–even though our state department of education recommends those under 11 have no more than 1.5 hours of screen time a day. Followed by, potentially, maybe, a return to school. Cohorts. Masks. No school lunch. No flexible seating. No air circulation. Recess as a “mask break” and “social distancing will be enforced”. Disinfecting the playground. No parents or visitors allowed.
I’m feeling my hands clench, the adrenaline fight-or-flight rush. One evening, I’ll tell Joe I’m ready to buy some land in the middle of nowhere and grow strawberries. The next, I tell him I’m standing my ground. I’m disappointed with school leaders. My Vietnamese buddy called me and says his kids are losing their English from being at home so long. I’m sad, because school is where we make friends and now we’re lonely. I’m upset, because kids need non-virtual teachers and grownups who speak hope into their lives.
As for my family, we will be just fine. We are English speakers, my kids are bright, and we can live on one paycheck. I can stay home with them.
Aside from science and good judgment, I simply don’t have much of a choice to put myself and my kids in the hands of God. This has actually been a huge relief. In fact, I can see ways where I have tried to control things and God has gently pried my hands back open. I trust Him with everything I’ve got.
But then I remember my kids–lots of kids–eating lychees at school. Someone higher up than me thought that was a great idea. And even if I’m called to live a quiet life, I’m also supposed to not look out for my own needs, but also the needs of others. This calls for sticking my neck out once in awhile. The Lord has done some prodding in my soul on that, and I’m learning to trust Him there, too.
Below is a letter I penned to my local school board, who, after pressure from teachers’ unions and dissatisfied parents, plan to begin school with remote learning.
I am posting it for anyone else who needs to voice their concern to their own school board in a respective manner. Copy, delete, and add your own words as necessary.
Dear School Board,
I want to begin by saying how much I love public school and how I support the initiative to get our kids back in an appropriate learning environment. My gratitude for professional, dedicated, outstanding and caring teachers and administration is unrivaled. I am the first to show up at our own Title I school with kind words, food, volunteer hours, and every encouragement I can muster as a mom. Teachers and support staff are amazing, and one of the biggest blessings in my life.
In my observation, those working in public education are severely under-appreciated, even as they are forming the next generation of thinkers and doers. As parental responsibility is increasingly shifted to the shoulders of educators, teachers and administration carry an additional burden of addressing behavior, safety, mental health, inclusion, mediation, equitability, and differentiation to the already heavy load of inspiring a love of learning.
I have been made aware, as both a parent and active observer, that this is hardly feasible. It is certainly unfair to saddle educators with our jilted personal responsibility. I think this is why, during the Covid crisis, the stakes appear to be higher. The lines were already blurred; boundaries were already beginning to shift. We are each consumed by our worries and seek to lay blame on whomever was bearing all the responsibility for raising our children in the first place: schools.
It needs not be said, public school has been incorporated into our life something like a basic right. We’ve become dependent on it as childcare, education, structure and support system–and there is a communal sense of panic we might lose it. Thanks to social media and the everyone-gets-a-megaphone attitude, there is hardly a place to discuss this reasonably. I want to assure you, the loudest, angriest voices do not represent many of us.
School board friends, I recognize it is not any administration’s personal responsibility, but mine, to adequately prepare my child for the future, academically and otherwise. It is my responsibility and honor to support, keep them safe, facilitate educational experiences, inspire and equip them in every way possible.
All along, public schooling has only ever been a wonderful piece of that puzzle. It’s helped me understand my GT kids, rather than toss up my hands in frustration. It has relieved the pressure of having to figure out fifth grade math and grammar. It has opened doors to compassion and community.
Up until now, I have been happy to incorporate public schooling as a life discipline.
And I am sorry. I apologize for myself and behalf of other parents for the burden placed on public school to assume my responsibilities. I’m sorry for the times I have blamed and complained, when teachers and administration were keeping my plates spinning.
I mean this sincerely: I am letting you off the hook.
You don’t have to keep my kids healthy and safe–that’s my job.
You don’t have to teach them mindfulness and how to control their emotions–that’s my job.
You don’t have to worry about the food they are eating–that’s my job.
So is civic duty, appropriate behavior, discipline, morality, respectfulness, and a thousand other extras you have taken up as your responsibility.
I want you to send my kids home when they don’t act like school is the utmost privilege. Send them home every time you feel like you’re closing the gap into parent territory or crossing the nebulous boundary of teacher versus mom/dad responsibility.
It is only a modest proposal, but it seems like the only attainable one: loosen the reins and return some of the burden back over to the parents.
Let parents decide. Let them assume their proper place in society where they raise their own children. Perhaps this seems an odd suggestion amid such dire times. But schools have over-promised, and angry parents and teachers are desperate for a line to be drawn. Instead of casting blame, it is time to humbly pick up the pieces and rebuild a broken system–one where kids succeed because parents–and educators–care deeply about responsibility.
Let teachers choose, individually, if they ought to be in schools. Let us choose, individually, how to stay healthy and safe. Suffer us the consequences, because we are all born risk takers. Life is not a promise, but a gift.
I love public school–it has been a gift to my family.
I’m terribly sad I am withdrawing my children from school this year in order to homeschool. It will be a tremendous and difficult lifestyle change.
But I see no other choice. Remote learning, as I understand, will tie young children to their devices–and even the Colorado Department of Education recommends children under the age of eleven get no more than 1.5 hours of screen time a day (https://www.cde.state.co.us/
Imagine if, instead of trying to manage and control this crisis, we banded together as responsible adults! Imagine if we called on concerned parents, educators, and community members to either step down or step up, rather than trying to make everyone happy? What if we called on healthy, willing parents to volunteer their time in serving our children and teachers instead of locking them out of the building? What could it look like if we pool our energy and resources into cultivating exemplary academia? What if we drew a line and told parents, “Your health and your children are your responsibility”? What if we drew a similar line, permitting educators to pivot?
I think it would set an example for the dissatisfied and unhappy among us. It would spark a curiosity–the world might wonder why we choose the greater good of our children over an unspoken, debilitating fear and the futile attempt to satisfy everyone.
It would spur them on to responsible living–which is sometimes painful, but necessary.
I do not envy your position as board members. But I advise you not to think you can solve a bevy of problems in the hopes of making the general public happy. Surely you have discovered that these days, we are a surly bunch. We will ride waves of disappointment and contentment, we will suffer the blows of natural disasters and sickness. We will need to repent, again and again, for heaping up expectations and standards when life itself presents a risk to all who dare live it.
But we cannot abandon our children. They are our greatest responsibility.
I stand by, ready to join again in this noble pursuit.
Sincerely,
Pearl
