Social Engineering: Exercise 1

I have had my little brushes with social engineering as a parent. Playdates gone bad, pre-school selection, cautionary tales, I've seen my share, and now this. We have heard back on school. The community school looked good... but... we have also been offered a spot at the French Immersion school.

Shit. I'm in charge again. Unhelpful fates.

The buck needs stopping and I'm riddled with holes. Elitist? Nicer class sizes? Close-by? Better after-school care? Pros and cons are pointless and aimless. Gonna have to decide.

About all I've learned in this fretting is what school is not. I probably began worrying what kids we would be sending her to learn with, and what teachers might be like -- cause yes I am a self-serving bitch. The stress of making a perfect choice of a place where she will be safe was my off-base pre-occupation. School is not custodial. Daycare is custodial but school ain't. At daycare there are 25 kids and 3 to 4 'teachers'. At school there are 18 to 21 kids and 1 teacher. In the school library she will chose books I will never see. She will build friendships that will annoy us; but what of it? She will be ever, even, more her own.

School is independence and I need to find the best place for my kid to be independent. The best place will be where I am sure I will support her well when she has troubles. And, there will be trouble sometimes. It is the path to independence after all and those usually have wars. I mean we can't all be Malta! I need to find a piece of schooling, that microcosm of society, that offers happiness, community and a rich learning environment AND THEN WE HAVE TO SUPPLEMENT THAT.

It is tough choosing a school. (Especially, she whinges on, after a year when I feel I have had to make too many major choice too often.) It seems so surely life-changing. But it isn't, is it?

ps. I have noticed that choosing a school is a lot like having a newborn baby. If you haven't been here already just wait for it... Oh the assvice! harsh.

Waitlist

Tomorrow morning I will be lining up to get my kid into a 'good school'. Jan 5 is the first day of applications for the September '09 Kindergarten year and that's where we're at.

After much discussion we are about 80% sure that we'll send our kid to the standard down the road public school but in the meanwhile we need to play along with all our friends and neighbours and a good chunk of class politics, too. Considering everything I need to make applications for 6 schools: the two public montessori school lotteries; two french immersion; our local school (that tends not to have a waitlist so yeah) and a second local school that's considered 'better' than our actual catchment school. The latter school is in fact closer to our house by .1 of a kilometer. I repeat 6 schools! Hey I could make it 8 but I cut-back. Consider me suddenly some hyper-social-engineering, self-centered freak-show parent. A garden variety busy-body and worrier I despised, well, a little over a fortnight ago.

I wish I could enjoy the pride of my daughter being such a big girl now, the twinklings of independence to come but no, screw that. I am newly immersed in a forest of anxieties about making the right choice for my kid. I mean why are half the families around here sending their kids to French immersion? ESL-paranoia. If they go to French immersion they won't have immigrant kids holding their kids back! Yeah, what a crock -- then on the flip side my daughter actually likes what French language learning she's had so far so fingers crossed we win a lottery space for that option!! Montessori? Well that's a similar thing, get my kid out of the regular school please I am afraid of the ordinary????

The most time sensitive application I have to make is for the school nearest our house. I will honestly be standing there begging them to timestamp my submission all the while elbowing three other dear mothers of my daughter's dear friends to do it. While we sort of prefer this school location-wise it would be a lie to not also acknowledge our perception that this is a better class of school, more English speakers, a better balance of ethnic groups, fewer special needs kids. It's shameful all the euphemisms. Hello, this is PUBLIC school, don't we want our kids to learn how to operate, you know, IN PUBLIC??

My daughter is a sweet girl. She's clever enough by half. I think a lot about what she might do with her life and thus I will comb all the options here. But seriously, wtf??? What I want most is that when she goes to school next September she is among friends. That she will go to a school with a few good friends she knows and that she can build from that community base to the bigger, and better, community base school offers. For a lot of reasons it is becoming freakin' complicated to achieve that.

I really hate anything that requires me to give a crap about how my friends choose to run their families. Know what I mean?

ps.. I would prefer there wasn't a lot of driving involved to do that either.

Flashing Green

When our dear nonlinear ones were here from the United States of America last month they asked me "What are the flashing green lights for?" I explained that is our great Canadian universal socialized street crossing scheme. The scheme that says, hey I have the right to cross the street at many many many intersections. And, I expect the government to help me do it!

****

I was driving to work today. Shame. Shame. The back route I usually enjoy has been less enjoyable since school got back in. Today around the corner near the high school it was entirely clogged. Rainy and a bit dark near eight there were cars everywhere. Slow, silly cars.

When I was a kid no one drove to school. Before the age of 16 anyway, then it was the ultimate coolness. My parents lived in the house I grew up in for a long time and I remember when the phenomenon hit my old street (a block and a half from my elementary school); the street would clog up with cars. Lots and lots of cars. Then fancy signs about how/where/when to stop -- and not stop. I thought it was weird, not for the logical environmental reasons, but more because I thought schools were put close to people so they could walk there. I love right now that my kids can walk to day care and that I get a walk around the block myself is a mental/physical health bonus, too.

Today in my self-conscious mode of analysis of the drive to school culture wondered what it would will take for my kids to walk to school. I have often wanted to wander the edges of what I consider to be a very expensive form of helicopter parenting; the safety conscious stuff. Count me keen to avoid the mode where I had to go to the 'safety store' to childproof A LOT. The busy inventories that, while they may suit others, would land me in the loony bin should I engage even a bit with that sort of worry. The hypoallergenic everything, the super-safe toys and overall pursuit of purity that raises my suspicion. I was shocked as a parent to discover one of the biggest brands is something called SafetyFirst. I felt like I'd been dropped into some junior Coast Guard brigade with poop! How much of it is about actual risk and how much is just a sales job for already overly freaked out parents? Of which I am one. I always enjoyed the "look offspring X really just loves poking around with a stick", or "offsprings y-z, don't they just love to wash dishes". It is liberating and practical and cheap and more....!

But, today, I looked at all those cars this morning and I got it. I realized that I could be one of them. I hope it's just a matter of perspective and conditioning. Maybe it is just my current separation anxiety, which is considerable, but looking at all those cars I sort of thought, yeah. I guess I should get off my high horse and admit driving the kids might be the way to:
1.) see my kid until the very last minute.
2.) know they are safely at school.
3.) deliver them to a school that we think is the absolute best option for them.

I hope that I don't drive the kids to school. From the get go I want school, like everything they do, to be a permissive developmental bargain. You will conform to this institution in exchange for an additional measure of independence, discernable in the following ways.... I will make you go to school but I will at least trust you to walk the six blocks to get there. I will trust you to learn the right routes and to obey crossing signs. I will teach you to respect yourself and begin to protect yourself from the earliest possible age. I will support you as a member of this community to achieve the degrees of safety you deserve.

We have of late read the excellent book LonPoPo**. My daughter asked me today, at the age of four, if I would leave her at home with the door latched while I went to pick up her brother from childcare, a half a block away. The trip would take me 5 minutes or less. I said no, but I would think about it. I felt she asked me because she wanted to show me she knows a new risk and can keep herself safe, alone. She wanted to prove it. I believe she feels the liberty because she knows the danger. (Or maybe she just wanted to totally act out and role play the risk [highly likely] at the moment, so... no we won't leave you at home Princess Smartypants!)

Where do you stand on these dangers? Is there a definite right age for your children to be alone, apart from you as a parent? Do you think safety is an important factor in your decision to drive -- or not to drive -- your child to school? October is walk to school month. Tell me, will/do, your child(ren) walk to school?

** Young, Ed. Lon Po Po : a Red-Riding Hood Story from China. Scholastic, 1990.

Dedication: "To all the wolves of the world for lending their good name as a tangible symbol for our darkness."