It's been an education

I’m glad you enjoyed my great-great-aunt Bessie’s diary. In answer to those of you who wondered if she kept diaries beyond this one, I don’t know of any, but I will have to ask around in the family.

Now back to 2012, and with the school year drawing to a close, I have been in reflective mood. For us, it’s not just the end of the academic year, but the end of my kids’ school careers in America. Here is a letter to each of them (though only for blog readers’ eyes, not theirs).

Dear 11-yo,

Your time at school here has neatly fitted into and filled the elementary years. You started in Kindergarten and you have just graduated from Fifth Grade. You began and ended our time in America at the same school. I have loved going through the last couple of weeks of Fifth Grade with you, “crazy busy weeks” as all we moms remark to each other. Every event has felt like the scribing of a closing parenthesis, an opportunity to think back to the drawing of the opening parenthesis. How different the one is from the other!

(Field Day), for example. I loved my final Field Day. I felt mellow, relaxed, happy. I know so many of the moms, the teachers, the kids. I know what snow cones are. I know what to expect. I know what to volunteer for, and – crucially – what to avoid. I know how to be me in that situation. Five years ago was my first Field Day (I wrote a blog post about it), and it was all so new. New and fun, new and exciting, but new and unsettling too. I knew hardly anyone. I wondered what a snow cone was. I was trying to be someone, but without knowing who.

(Talk about Scotland), for another example. I came into your class to talk about Scotland and your new school. You and I did a PowerPoint presentation together. That’s what Fifth Graders do. You’d helped me put it together, looking for pictures of Edinburgh Castle and Loch Ness on Google Images. I remember coming into Kindergarten to talk about Scotland and your old school.  I’d asked you beforehand what differences you’d noticed between school in Scotland and school in America. You said “When we line up in America to go to a different classroom or out into the playground, we just line up in a line. In Scotland, when we lined up, we had a partner and we had to hold hands.” “Anything else?” “Those hanging-down things in the dining room. We didn’t have those in Scotland.” America. Land of the free, home of the brave, nation of moveable track-mounted partitions in school dining rooms.

Dear 8-yo,

You were a tot when we came to America. You started at a “Mom’s Day Out” one morning a week. You were in a little class of five girls. You loved it. Next was pre-school, a year of Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, and then a year of five mornings a week. You were so ready for school when the time came. I’d lost my hair to chemotherapy when you started Kindergarten. I hoped I didn’t embarrass you, coming into the classroom to help with “reading centers” in my cap.

Now you’re finishing Second Grade. There was one day last week when all the other grades were out on field trips, and the teachers let you run through the hallways shouting “Second Grade Rules!” I agree. You do!

You’re still not quite big enough and brave enough to stand outside the school door next to that gaggle of fourth and fifth graders, but you hate to be late, so we have to time our morning arrival to the minute. You’re half way through elementary school – “grade school” as they call it – and your tot days seem very distant indeed.

Dear 14-yo,

You’ve experienced all three stages of American schooling. A year and a half in elementary school, three in middle school, and one in high school. Middle School in the parentheses of Elementary School and High School. More parentheses! The three schools are all part of one school, on one campus, and I’ve been glad for that. The transitions have been easy.

Your round, full fourth-grade face is now shaped and chiseled, with cheek bones and a chin. You regularly check to see if you’re taller than me, and last time we compared, we decided that yes, that day had come. Your legs and arms are those of a sportsman. Your backpack is sometimes so heavy, I hesitate to lift it, but you swing it over a shoulder multiple times a day. You’ve seen all three stages, but I’m sure it’s the High School year that will remain with you most. You’ve loved the freedom, the fun, the adult-ness of it.

You’ve borne the brunt of our parental ignorance. You’ve had to teach us as you’ve learnt. “Getting to Regionals is a big deal, Mom.” “Everyone calls Coach ‘Coach’.” “If the flag touches the ground when you take it down, they have to throw it away (but I don’t think they always do).”

You came as a child, and you leave with the man in you emerging, almost here. You walk tall. The school has served you well.

Everyone clucked their teeth as we left Scotland. I know they did, even if they didn’t do it to my face. Schools… education… what would it be like? How would they compare? How would our children ever fit back into the British system? And I’d be lying if I denied that their unspoken thoughts tapped into my own deep anxieties. Let’s face it, education is something of a British obsession. I just held on to the thought that whatever they lost in flip-flopping between education systems, they would gain in life experience.

You know what? The education has been one of the greatest benefits of our time here. At their schools, our children have been motivated, stretched, enthusiastic, (well, at times enthusiastic-ish), and – most important by a long chalk – happy.  I’ve probably got rose-tinted specs on, feeling a little sentimental as we leave, and we haven't done the "fitting back in" yet, but the specs are only slightly tinted and I'm feeling confident about the "fitting back in".  I’ve had my reservations off and on about some of the academics (weekly newsletters from teachers with grammar and spelling mistakes), and there was a year when one of them wasn’t happy, but wasn’t exactly unhappy either. Otherwise, they’ve been happy - truly happy. Three children, for a combined total of 14 school years, happy. That’s an A+ for the schools here, in my book.