Parents in Palo Alto are notoriously involved in their kids education, perhaps overly so. There's a sense that if your child doesn't go to the right pre-school, or the right elementary school, they will not get into Stanford or one of the Ivies and be doomed to a lifetime of asking, "Paper or plastic?"
I went to a parenting lecture once by a local physician who said something along the lines of, "It's as though we're setting out kids up to go to do well in school so they go to the right college, to get into the right grad school, to get the right job, so that maybe they'll be happy when they're 34. What about teaching them to be happy right now? Teaching them to appreciate what's in front of them and not being so focused on what's ahead?"
I've thought a lot about those words and what I hope for Alex. I try hard not to pin my dreams on him, and hope that he knows that his destiny will be shaped by his own choices and skills. Sure, I want my son to go to college. I want him to love learning and be engaged and involved in the educational process, to be a lifelong student (though not on my dime). Unfortunately, formal education has not worked out quite so well for him, and what I hear nearly every day is "I hate school."
As a parent, this pains me, not because I see Alex's chances for admission to Princeton dwindling by the hour, but because his educational experience has been so different from mine. I was a kid who loved school. I was an early reader, an early writer, and looked forward to going to school every day. My family couldn't afford to buy books, so I read a weathered set of the World Book Encyclopedia my mom picked up at a garage sale until they fell apart. I begged my mom to take me to the local library every Saturday, and was so well known there that they offered me my first job when I was 15. I grew up loving words and stories and language. I went to law school to learn how to use rhetoric and words to my advantage.
My husband was also an early and prolific reader. He loved numbers and puzzles and was a math and physics major in college, complementing my English/Poli Sci majors. We figured, with our genes, our son would be acing the SATs by the time he was ten. It didn't quite work out that way.
My son possesses a quick mind and extensive vocabulary. He can explain the rituals of the ancient Egyptian mummification process and recite the names of Egyptian gods I've never heard of, give a lecture with visual demonstrations of how a tornado is formed, and knows the names of over 200 Pokemon characters. He can also climb a rock climbing wall in record speed, with no fear of falling, and perform a hip-hop dance routine after watching it once or twice. He has skills I wouldn't ever dream of having now, and he's only seven.
But, when the academic rubber hits the road, he is below grade level on the No Child Left Behind grading scale. His penmanship is illegible and he spells like a LOLCat. This is probably not that unusual for a second grader, but the school has identified this as a problem. He is currently undergoing testing to find out why his academic performance doesn't match his mental ability. I'd like to think that it's not a huge deal, that he'll catch up eventually, that it's a developmental thing and that he's just like that because he's a boy. Unfortunately, it's causing him to hate school and say things like, "I'm stupid. I can't learn because it's too hard."
Those words pierce me like stab wounds. Partly because I know it's not true, and partly because I feel responsible in some way. Somehow, my irrational self thinks that surely we must have scarred him for life, dragging him all over the world, reading to him every night since he was in utero, and occasionally letting him watch the evil Cartoon Network and eat refined sugar. The rational part of me thinks that this is an opportunity for us to learn and grow as parents, and that we're fortunate to find out now if there is a problem so that we can deal with it. It feels as though, despite the fact that we've been around the world together, our journey together as a family is just beginning.
As much as we dream big dreams for our children, not everyone is cut out to be a Rhodes Scholar or a lawyer or an engineer. Only time will tell what the story of his life will be, and where his talents will lead. I'd like to think that no matter what my son ends up doing, that he will do it with the knowledged that he is a loved and cherished person, that he has unique skills and talents that matter, and that he doesn't need to grow up to be like his parents. Most of all, I want him to have the ability to dream big and the confidence to make those dreams come true. Now what test will measure that?
Cross-posted at The Silicon Valley Moms Blog, as part of Education Day. Check out the other posts at the DC Moms Blog and Chicago Moms Blogs as well.
