Is Spelling "at" Really All That Challenging?

It was parent-teacher conference day this week. Always fun, especially when your kid is doing really well (ok, except when it comes to practicing self control... you know what they say about the apple and the tree... I take the genetic blame here). So why am I so annoyed?

On the one hand, I am delighted that my son has surpassed grade level in reading (and it's only March!), that the gym teacher thinks my son has "some arm" and is a joy to have around, that the art teacher treasures the fact that he's one of those kids who sees, say, spilled paint bleeding into the next color not as a mistake that needs to be fixed ASAP but as a cool creation...

Spelling test at school

On the other hand, I am fuming a bit because I pay exorbitant school taxes for schools in a high-performing district (with great teachers, many earning 6 figures) and a chunk of the education my son is getting seems to be about as challenging as putting on a shoe with the light off -- maybe a little difficult the first time, but after that, easy.  Not all of the education (the science is pretty darn cool and he loves it, for example, and some things in each subject are a challenge...) and not all of the time, but enough to make me mad for now. Maybe because it's the basics that seem, well, way, way, way too basic and there's mostly lip-service to differentiation -- at least the meaningful kind. NOTE: This post is not about teacher-bashing.

I am not one of those crazies who thinks my first grader should be doing calculus or reading Proust by the time he's in third grade. But I do think it's ridiculous that he gets the highest mark -- a 4 -- for spelling 48 words right when the hardest word is "want" or "would" and the majority of the words include reeeaaaaalllllly challenging stuff like "at," "me," "I," "the." Is this ALL they expect of the kids??? 

The math program is bad enough -- but Cullen could spell those words in the fall in kindergarten (and was required to by his teacher b/c he was in her "high-achiever" group of kids who knew the sight words in five seconds, so she challenged them to spell them). Wondering about that 4? ... Is it an A, is it an A+, is it meaningless in real life? Nobody knows. Standards based report cards offer no grades, but a 4 is "exceeds proficiency standard."

So what happens when you exceed the benchmark and then start to exceed the benchmark for the NEXT GRADE? Hmmm... well, that's not considered in such parameters... read on...

So, on the bright side, my son went from reading level 12 (which is where they expect them to be at this point of the year) in late November to reading level 20 last week when she did the assessments. Guess what the "proficient" (aka, marked a 3 for meeting the standard) is for first grade at the END of the year for a proficient mark? A level 16-18. So, here he is, with three months left, and he's already exceeded that and been marked a 4. At this rate, he'll be at level 30 before he finishes first grade...

Kumon sheet from January

The teacher also handed me some math practice worksheets (a miracle...!) with REAL math. Except that all but one page was too easy for my son, with the hardest problem aside from the last page of problems being 9 minus 6 or something equally not-hard.  I then showed her photos of Cullen's recent Kumon workbook pages (the iPhone is handy for that) that revealed he'd gotten an entire two page review correct on problems addin numbers as high as 10 to numbers as high as 30 and subtracting from 20. While we try to get him to do at least four pages a week -- that's only two lessons -- when he's into it (which isn't every day) he'll sometimes do that in one sitting.

On the negative side, I can already tell he's bored. I see it in his sloppy handwriting, racing through the easy problems and assignments (and therefore sometimes getting them wrong even though I know he knows the answers). His teacher sees it, too, although she also attributes it to his general personality (that's partly true, too). I've seen this movie before... and without projecting too much of my own experience onto my son, I know that it only gets worse if the child isn't challenged academically.

And that's the biggest issue. In general, the school has almost nothing to offer kids like him as far as enrichment or challenge. Yes, he is in the higher-level reading group, and the teacher pushes them to think about the stories and asks them more comprehension questions. That's valuable. But next year? At this rate, he'll be halfway through the second grade benchmarks before he finishes first grade.

The teacher tried some computer games the school offers for math enrichment, but technology and my boy are a bad mix educationally. For him, it is all a game. He'll guess and guess and never learn or absorb the lesson because he's sucked in by reaching the "win." I suspect/hope he will grow out of it, but right now, putting him in front of the computer isn't enriching or educational. For math, that's all she really has at her disposal -- or all she's willing to push since the core math program isn't really math, enriching only involves adding more inane ways to measure an object (don't get me started...).  

Is it wrong that I expect better than this? I just want the level of real differentiation I keep being promised for my son. I am not alone. I know one mom who pulled her child out of kindergarten mid-year and transferred to a private school because promises of challenge were never kept and her son was bored to tears... and many, many others paying big bucks to tutors or after-school enrichment programs. The school system, like many around the country, says it offers differentiation for kids at all levels. There's all sorts of stuff to help the struggling kids. But not much to help the middle kids achieve more and even less for the kids like my son who isn't a child-prodigy but is bright and can and should be doing more... It's the blank-stare-of-death when you ask something like that. Or you get a defensive reaction...

How about an up arrow for challenge?

My son likes school a lot and likes his teacher (she really is a nice lady). But he's that kid who'd like anything that he can do where he can participate, be a part of it all... to raise his hand and answer the questions and hurry up and get to snack time.  He's often ready for the next activity or assignment because he's figured out whatever it is he's doing and he's ready to move on because, umm, it's boring now, so what's next? Even his teacher sees that as part of what's going on. But he's happy when he goes to school every morning and he's usually got something exciting to tell me at the end of the day. Maybe I should accept that and not worry that he's not being challenged about half the time. Maybe I am a little crazy. Maybe I should sit back and wait for the later grades when parents tell me that it does get more challenging.

But that feels wrong. What about the time in between? My son  is an insanely curious child who sees the world in ways a 6yo doesn't usually see the world and to listen to him ask a zillion questions and then draw the most interesting and advanced conclusions is to recognize he's a really bright kid who needs something more to really flex that. When he's challenged, he gets into the work like it's second-nature to take his time and figure it out and absorb it... no hurry up and get to the next thing, no ants in his pants... it's like watching the internal workings of a complex timepiece moving in tandem, intricate mechanisms seeming to go in opposite directions, but really not... you can literally see him processing and thinking.

He's not in a class of 30 and the kids do get art, and a good measure of music, gym and science... that's not what he'd have if we stayed in the city. But I also now have a mortgage and a house and taxes and I still don't know that I have done all that much better by my son educationally (and my daughter, lord help me). I don't know what the answer is. Part of me feels strongly that I need to put him in a private school even though I have long been a proponent of public education and even though it might send us to the brink of bankruptcy. Short of that, I feel like I need to find strong enrichment for him after school, but I'm working FT, my husband works FT... and that's not changing anytime soon.

I know I'll figure it out. But for today, I'm just not sure how yet.

Measure of a Life Oversubscribed: No Makeup, No TV and Gym-less-ness

For weeks, no months, I have needed new makeup. My concealer ran out two weeks ago. The four-colored blush  has dwindled to two colors and hints of a third in the last month. And my beloved MAC Studio Fix was so near-empty that I had to lay down the powder brush and pull out the kind-of-gross spongy pad included in the compact to apply what little was left. Don't even get me started on the mascara.


I just hadn't had time to go replenish. I know, I know, you're thinking, "You have to make time for yourself, what's 15 or 20 minutes replacing makeup going to cost you in a day?" Especially since there is a Sephora across the street from my office... and I had $115 in gift cards from Christmas. But until the prospect of showing up at work both without concealer and without powder... or blush... felt more unpleasant than taking that 20 minutes of spare time to go buy the damn makeup, I just didn't.

Makeup isn't the only thing I seem to have lost time for in the last year or so--and especially in the last six months. I haven't been to the gym or out for a run since... gulp... August. And trust me, it shows in the six extra pounds I've been carrying on my 5'2" frame. That could also  go a long way to explaining why I haven't shopped for clothes in about eight months (sigh... outlet shopping was a favorite escape). I haven't watched any of my favorite shows since the fall of 2010--although, to be honest, I kind of lost interest in must-see-TV when 24 was canceled. An actually, I don't even know if any of my favorite shows are still on (House? Private Practice?).

It's more complicated than just not making time for myself or my needs.

In the 16 months, I've worried, job-hunted, left a job, worried some more, collected unemployment, written a book, found a job, worried sick about schools for my kids, house-hunted, moved, found another new job, waited weeks and weeks for mortgage approvals, worried, bought a house, worried yet again, transitioned two kids and a husband and a dog into life in the suburbs, became alarmed at math, worked my butt off to do well in the new job, make sure the family was settled in, manage the new juggle of commuter trains schedules, daycare hours, fewer home-cooked meals, a new babysitter, bigger bills, property taxes, worrrrrrrrrry, what seems like a zillion half days and days off from school out here in the burbs, caught ConEd-aphobia, and  started a fight for transparency and better math in my new school district, worried, got angry (more than once), refocused, and kept fighting.... all the while trying to be a good mom, good boss, good employee, good spouse, good family accountant and budget-maven, good train-catcher, and good person.

And did I mention I am a bit of a perfectionist, have a low tolerance for mediocrity and that it is my nature--I have tried and failed to control it--to be relentless?

All of this is time-consuming. even for someone who has practically perfected efficiency (at least at the office). And tiring. To do all of this, work a 9-hour day, be a good mom and squeeze in time to fight for what I believe in during the day or at night or on the train ride (those three things, not in that order, being top priority), television began to seem trivial and an utter time-waster. The gym? Well, I mean, I've only gained the six pounds....
The makeup was the last can't ignore holdout of my oversubscribed life.  As each item dwindled to nearly-nothing, I said to myself (out loud.. sorry if I scared any of my fellow train riders), "Seriously, this CANNOT  go on like this!"  On Monday, I crossed the street (I actually left the building for lunch!), stepped into the magical world of makeup.

My life might be oversubscribed, I might worry too much and I am sure I have too little patience. I might get tired -- of the fighting for stuff I believe in, of putting out fires at work and sometimes at home, of my ConEd bills, of racing for the train -- of all of it. But I wouldn't trade it. Ok, that's a lie. I'd trade the fight for better math and transparency and I'd happily offload my property taxes on someone else. But I wouldn't trade the rest of it.

Here's why: Almost every night when I get home (before bedtime, at least three or four nights a week) my two children just wanna hang out on the couch with me, tell me about their days, get and give hugs and all that good stuff. My daughter usually squeals and demands a very long hug before I put anything down.

She sometimes grabs my face and pulls it into hers for a nose kiss. My son usually asks "What did you do today that was fun?"  It makes me stop and think and reminds me to do something fun at work so I have an answer (he spots b.s. a mile away). He used to ask what my favorite part of the day was -- but the answer was always the same, "Right now, being with you guys." For now, the dog still greets me, so happy her whole body wags. I forget that I am tired or hungry or that I had a rough day.

I get a lot of satisfaction from my work, from the things I am working hard on in my spare-time life. I can't figure out what of it to give up, so I don't. But that time between the moment I walk in the door and the moment the bedtime battle begins is why I don't mind being a little chubby, a lot clueless about popular television and concealer-less (for a limited time).

Besides, if I finally found time for makeup, can the gym be far behind?

Peas and Carrots, TERC and How I Became a Mad Math Mom

Most people who know me are well aware that I left the city -- the coveted big, but cheap apartment, the day care we loved, the neighborhood we called home -- for one, big reason: Schools. Isn't that why anyone who has a decent-sized apartment leaves NYC?


My son's well-regarded elementary school had lost its K-2 science teachers the year he started kindergarten. Other resources had been cut, too. He lucked out that a classmate's dad taught science at a charter school and came down to the school once a week to do science with the kids. The more time I spent in the classroom and at the school, the more I caught a case of severe mother-panic. It was that, omigod-I-cannot-send-my-child-back-next-year that drives a person to consider paying for private school or moving to the suburbs.

 In short, my son looking at a 30-child first grade class, a host of discipline tactics that would likely never apply to him but would scare the crap out of him, a hyper-focus on struggling kids and almost no focus on the kids in the middle who could be pushed to high-achievement or to high-achievers. And still no science. I'd missed the deadlines for the lottery schools and if I was going to pay for private school, well, why not move to the suburbs and pay taxes.

And that's what we did. Not for more space. Not to build equity in a house. Not for a guaranteed place to park my car for free. For schools.

So, when my son came home with odd-looking math problems, I thought nothing of it at first. Actually, I mostly thought it was too easy since my son was doing double-digit work at the end of kindergarten and

Real MATH assignment + four more variations of it over 3wks

could subtract basketball and football scores in a matter of seconds. Maybe this program was just slow-paced, I thought. That is, until some new iteration of the same old problem kept coming home week after week and my son kept drawing bizarre pictures and never doing any actual math.

It was peas and carrots. It started off ok enough. A foursquare grid that asked the child to show four different combinations of peas and carrots on a plate to get to 7 (another day it was 9, another I think it was 8, etc.). Only the children were not allowed to use numbers. Or plus signs. Or equal signs. Drawings only, my friends. Or number lines. Or number humps. Why not just write the problems out and then draw to show your work, I asked my son. Oh no, mom, not allowed. WHAT? My son was not supposed to use numbers or algorithms to do, umm, MATH. Peas and carrots is an ENTIRE UNIT in this math program, with weeks spent on ONE problem and a few variations of it.

I spoke the teacher not long after about how my son was adjusting and quickly brought up the math. She agreed it wasn't nearly enough, but I wasn't informed enough yet to ask what she was doing to mitigate all the peas and carrots. (After all, not all kids like veggies.) It would get more challenging soon, she assured. It didn't. And like the crazy research-oriented reporter-type that I am, I scoured the web and all other means of info about this odd math that discouraged kids from using the language of math. I finally told my son -- and his teacher -- that he'd be writing the algorithms because that's what math is. (I'll note that he rarely gets "stars" on his papers with algorithms, while he gets them for the other nonsense.) It's +, -, * and / and all sorts of other related things. Not peas. Not carrots. Not feathers. Not number lines or humps or boxes representing 100 that assure our kids get the problems wrong (this one is seriously disturbing).

The news was not good. No, actually, it was very, very bad. This math, TERC Investigations, was a radical-constructivist math program, the king and queen -- all rolled into one-- of fuzzy math. Districts across the country had abandoned it. Parents fought to have it removed from schools. Math professors around the country spoke out against it. Of the 70 districts touted by the publisher as success stories in 2007, by mid-2009, 60% had dumped Investigations, others used it as a secondary supplement and only 4 still used it as a primary curriculum. The one independent national study out there says Investigations students lag others.

The program doesn't teach multiplication or long division, encourages calculator use as early as kindergarten and by second grade, encourages kids to use calculators to solve hard problems (no need to learn the hard stuff, my friends). It encourages estimating and nearly forbids practice. Let me repeat: TERC Investigations DISCOURAGES use of any algorithms. Because, you know, those won't be useful when you get to algebra

1st grade from Jan, algorithms only b/c I insisted!

and one of the numbers is x and another is y. And those peas and carrots. More than halfway through the year, they're replaced by drawing cookies, or feet or button-sorting. This program never moves from pictorial to concrete and that's a disaster for kids as they get older.

Well, of course, you;d think revealing all of this information to the smart and education-oriented folks in the district would be enough to get them thinking about whether this was the best math we could do for our kids. Au contraire, my friends. You see, I violated the unwritten code of the quiet, high-performing suburbs. I made noise. Making noise makes it clear all is not well behind those manicured lawns and $500,000 starter-houses.

Reasonable people can disagree, but what I faced -- along with other parents who were getting angrier and angrier about this math -- was absolute disdain for anything that questioned the school administration's decisions or choices. And, it turns out, people had been complaining for years -- although less publicly.

Many board meetings and much research later, I became a founding member of the Pelham Math Committee, a group of concerned parents working for high-quality math in our schools. Our website is full of research, data and info that will make your head spin and your anger gene go into overdrive. We have a petition, we hosted a math night with three professors, we've received some local press and we push on to both educate parents (come on, admit it, math is scary and frankly this new picture-drawing, fun-times math seems so much less scary, right?) and get better math in our schools.

Along the way, I've somehow found myself fighting back against a lack of transparency in our school district and so much back-door dealing that it'd make an cub reporter a star to uncover it. The state of journalism today means one reporter at the big paper in the area covers a zillion towns and has better things to do (that's a topic for another post). Here's one tidbit: After a large group of parents in a district on Long Island successfully got rid of TERC Investigations, fighting the pro-fuzzy math superintendent all the way, that superintendent's contract wasn't renewed... and he ended up in a job as the head of a consortium that does curriculum evaluations across NY, NY and CT. And guess what? He personally led the evaluation of our district's elementary math program two years ago (and gave it a thumbs up, not surprisingly). Lovely, eh? And that's merely the tip of the iceberg.

So, here I am. The lady who moved to the suburbs for better schools and found herself fighting a board of education and superintendent on behalf of her own kids and all the others for better math. The lady who increasingly finds herself disappointed that others can so easily dismiss FACTS and who hasn't learned how to reason with people who operate under alternate rules for rational thinking and reasonable behavior. And I sometimes feel I've made the biggest mistake of my life putting all my money into a home (I'm stuck now), believing I was trading for greener grass. It's greener in some spots. But my kid is still getting crappy math, which I backfill with workbooks and will soon be forced to pay a tutor to backfill and I pay high taxes for this bad math. And guess what, this program teaches such bad habits of mind, backfilling isn't usually enough.

Peas and carrots, people. They are for eating. They -- and their cousins, feathers, feet, cookies, pizzas, marbles, buttons and boxes -- are lovely alongside a number sentence, but they should not be the primary means used to teach a child math.

Vacation With Kids. Seriously, Stop Laughing

The phrase "vacation with kids" is the biggest oxymoron I've ever heard in regards to family life. Especially the moron part. Vacations with children are hard. They involve intense planning, remembering 4,000 details at any given moment, and lots and lots of time in close quarters with, umm, children.

Did I mention that we drove to Florida. And back. This was 42 hours of car time, with my driving 38 of the hours. Why didn't anyone stop me? What kind of friends do I have? Please, you should have talked sense into me. Even with dual-DVD players and lots of fun games, coloring books and stops along the way... But even as insane as that was, it was an adventure.

Before I come across as a total Debbie Downer, let me say that I love my kids a ton and realize that moms who aren't working outside the home spend way more time with their kids than I do (you have my undying admiration). And our vacation had some truly wonderful moments, memories I will cherish and always look back on fondly.

Beach day

Like the moment my son was blowing bubbles on a nearly-empty beach on an 82-degree February day while my daughter played happily nearby.

Or the moment when both my kids stared in amazement and then squealed with delight when they saw Shamu up close and got to touch a dolphin at Sea World.

Or the moment my daughter, whose own half-eaten ice cream cone fell on the floor looked over at my dad's cone and stuck her finger right in it to take a big swipe, smiling and laughing the whole time.

Or the fact that I got to spend time with my dad and one of my best childhood friends, who has a giant sandbox in the backyard for her kids, a fancy little chicken coop where we found recently-laid eggs and scared the rooster into crowing not one, but three times, and cows roaming the property (for tax purposes, my friends) and orange trees from which we picked fresh fruit to take home.

Shamu flips

This blog post isn't about those moments. It's about the moments right after. Like when my daughter then grabbed the bottle of bubbles forcibly from my son's hand and dumped it into the sand, sending my son almost to tears. Then he grabbed her arm too hard, she threw sand in his face.

Or my daughter's 20-minute scream-fest (please, hide the thin glass) after the Shamu show ended and it was clear we had to vacate the stadium and move on to something she totally did not want to do, like go to the bathroom.

 Or the tantrum my daughter had after I wouldn't just get her another ice cream cone, right there in the middle of a diner-like restaurant in deep-red bible belt country where most people expected me to pull out a freshly-cut switch and give her a whooping right there (no, seriously, I know that look well--it was right up there with the nasty comment, made loud enough for me to hear, at the Cracker Barrel on our way back to NY when my misbehaving daughter wasn't taken out of the restaurant fast enough for some lady's liking. Hello, lady, it's Cracker Barrel, not Capital Grill). 

Well, Grandpa still has a cone

But these paled in comparison to The Worst Birthday Ever. Those of you know know me know how much I love birthdays -- and not just my own. I LOVE birthdays. I love doing special things for other people on their birthday and I make a big deal. As for my own birthday, I love that too. I used to start counting down on Christmas Eve, but I outgrew that silliness. Ok, so it was only a year ago when I stopped. But whatever, it's a BIRTHDAY! It's the one day of the year where you can celebrate yourself without feeling too sheepish and where you can celebrate another person a little over the top on their day.

The Worst Birthday Ever started out with some foreshadowing I didn't recognize until it was over. I got up. My husband didn't. He was on vacation, after all. So he slept in while I took the kids to the hotel lobby where a breakfast of pre-fab eggs, oddly round sausage patties, and make-your-own waffles awaited. Nobody said happy birthday. Half a plate of eggs on the floor and one spilled milk later I hurried the kids up to the room before management came to shoo us away. My husband was just getting out of bed.

I'll help myself!

I got the kids ready to go to the beach, got all our stuff ready for the day and off we went. I asked the kids to "guess what today is?" My daughter said, "BEACH DAY!" My son remembered and said, "It's mommy's birthday." My daughter, ever the drama queen, said, "No, I want it to be MY birthday. When can it be June?" My husband, who had only himself to get ready, finally says Happy Birthday.

Fast-forward. This was the day of the bubble-dumping affair. I should have known after that moment that trying to go out for dinner would be a mistake. But a girl's gotta dream. Just to be safe, I picked a restaurant we could walk to from the hotel. Good thing I did: I had to leave with my daughter -- who had started putting straws in her nose, sliding out the edge of the chair and darting to other tables and, finally, screeching -- right after the appetizers arrived and before I even finished my fruity, highly-alcoholic drink.

I should note that my daughter is a wonderful little girl, sweet, caring and very, very independent and spirited. She is very clear about what she wants. When she doesn't get her way, everyone knows. Like, everyone in the room, the building, the town. I am sure this will serve her well later in life but right now, it's not serving me so well. My dad says it's payback, but exponential.

A sandbox the size of a small living room!

 Back to the hotel room, I committed a major mommy crime. I told my daughter she had ruined my birthday. And then I put her in the crib -- time out -- and laid on the uncomfortable hotel bed and started to cry. I realize the ridiculous of this. But I felt like I was entitled to a little pity party. It was my birthday. No card, no dinner, no sleeping in, no peace. I wanted... a vacation. And a birthday card.

When I complained about The Worst Birthday Ever after the fact to a friend, she scolded me, "You are a mom, that's all... You don't put all that thought and love into other's special moments to get anything back. You do it for them. The trick is to not feel like the martyr you really are!"

Ok, ok, good friend, you are right. But I still want a do-over. On the vacation and the birthday. I'm done whining now.