This blog was born out of my experience in the past few months witnessing my (now) six year old daughter's transition to kindergarten at our neighborhood elementary school. Previous experience had led me to believe that my older daughter (to whom I will refer hereafter as "Darling Daughter 1" (DD1) would take to kindergarten like a fish to water, which is how I remember her launch into pre-school as well as her response to summer camp and varied extracurricular activities. Yet instead of coming home brimming with stories of what she was learning and whom she had played with, after the first week of kindergarten my DD1 complained miserably that she did not like her new school and she questioned why she could not return to her Pre-K class immediately. For the next few months, my daughter's lament continued and worsened. Thus began my inquiry into the source of my daughter's unhappiness.
As a mother who has been struggling these past few months to make some sense of my daughter's kindergarten experiences, I could have chosen to utilize the local parenting and mom list serves to seek out advice and/or to engage in conversation about how to best navigate the entry to the public schools. However, as an educator who has spent the last twenty or so years engaging in the enterprise of teaching and learning, and as a scholar of the philosophy of education, I see this blog is an opportunity to spark a broader dialogue about what we should be able to expect from our public schools and why. I hope that the questions with which I am grappling, questions about the nature of my aspirations for the public schools, can serve as fodder for a shared inquiry into the meaning of our collective experiences and expectations. I hope that together we can come into a deeper understanding of why it is worth investing in the public schools, even as an wide range of educational alternatives are also available for consideration.
As I launch this blog in the first week of 2012, I intend to chronicle my daughter's journey through kindergarten (and beyond) via one to two postings per week. Each week, I will share the questions that arise from my observations as a volunteer in both my older and my younger daughters' classrooms (kindergarten and pre-school) and I will reflect on the school-based issues that continue to be raised directly by my DD1. I will also connect these reflections to what I am learning in my professional role as a teacher educator who interacts weekly with preservice teacher candidates who are interning in the public schools. As I work to discern more about the nature of my own ambivalence regarding my daughter's transition to the public schools, I want to learn how my own efforts at this "kindergarten reconciliation" compare to your experiences. I invite you to share your perspective, and I welcome your comments, your questions, and your feedback.
I’m so glad you’ve shared this! What an interesting blog! I share your concern and hope for our public schools. I am also at this cross-roads where I want what is best from my own children while believing in the potential of our public schools to support a more democratic and equitable society at large. As a former classroom teacher, and a current teacher educator and researcher deeply involved in local schools, I’m positioned to be a critic and so I’m often discouraged by my overwhelming dissatisfaction with the schools. Despite my constant worry, it’s heartening to see students’ eyes lighting up at unexpected moments in school or hearing other parents who share this commitment to improving educational experiences for all students. I do wish there was more space for discussion about the education of our children as growing people and how to kindle that sparkle of life-long learning within what seems to be a very impersonal, monster of a school system.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading, friend and colleague -- I look forward to many years of commiserating as our children progress through their educational journeys!
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