What is hapening now?

Our daughter on her first day of "school" in over 2 years. Heading for 2nd grade, in January 2010

We have not been up to much. Scary but true.

As our daughter took up my offer to see what our local school was like this semester, we are "taking it easy".
Don't get me wrong, we are all learning a lot about each other, our goals and the people around us. She is experiencing the cons and pros of compulsory school. She still wants to learn and is eager to do well. So she wants out. She just told me she wants to homeschool third grade. Unfortunately the school could not accommodate our request to place her in the 2/3 combo class and now she just wants to get the heck out of there. We asked them to do this as she entered so that she could be challenged and engaged as we wanted this to be a positive experience for her. Instead we got placed in the most challenging 2nd grade class with a (wonderful) teacher who is absolutely stretched to the max and cannot spare much time to help the high performers in the class work at their full potential; even less, make the learning experience out of the ordinary. She has to bring the rest of the class up to standard. My daughter shares her attention with 25 others; some of them much younger by their behavior. We have just been told of a $10 million budget cut in our school district and increase of class size for next year. In the meantime my daughter clocks in everyday and completes endless worksheets that repeat facts known to her for over a year and believe me, she is not a "gifted" child. She is just were she needs to be right now. She wanted to test out of her grade but was not allowed to do so and so she's "stuck" there. At least for now. No wonder she wants out.

Above all I must say that I am very grateful for the opportunity to check out the school and verify our methods even more. Yes, the people are wonderful. The parents, the principal, the teachers. But I can't help to notice how they are all trying to do their best while having to settle for whatever the system dishes out. The parents voice their concerns and rally in demonstrations in front of city hall; the teachers do their best, the principal listens patiently and provides as many opportunities as she is allowed to make the school above average. Yet they are not getting anything but average resources at best and now with these additional cuts everyone's standard will have to be lowered even more.
Today I explained to my daughter that her teacher might have not feeling well because she just got fired from her job. That is why she's having a substitute so often. I explained the budget cuts, the rallies and how the student/teacher ratio will be increasing systematically in the next few years in order to work with the state budget and our governor's decisions. The governor who can afford to send his children to private school. Her first reaction was to consider herself lucky for having been a part of her teacher's class and having met her. Then she moved on to reiterate the fact that she did not want to be there next year, with even more unruly children around her hindering her learning experience. This is a decision made while thinking of her current reality. But what really caught me by surprise was her analogy of them, the children and teachers, to slaves stuck in an overcrowded, sweltering belly of a slave ship while "others" make decisions for them. She felt powerless, violated, angry and sad from the news I was giving her. Although it sounds like a far fetch idea, I see her point.

The people in our schools are admirable individuals, I know. Unselfish, living in a democratic society and exercising their citizenship in an exemplary way.
Be it for better or worse (although I am benefiting from their company), I am not one of them. I am not settling for the average offered to me at this time and I (like my daughter) am ready to jump ship. We've been there, done that, don't need to hang around anymore... we are moving on.
When I talk to the school moms about our choices they say "oh, no, not me, I can never be that brave" or "not me, I have things I want to do". Then I think... Well, I do too but I'm just not settling for the status quota. Why should I? Brave? me? not half as much as you, giving up your child's life to be the product of a faulty system that chews up and spits out everybody who tries to help. Well, at least that is what it seems like to me.
I know if anything goes "wrong" I'll have no one else to blame but myself. Then again... how bad can things turn out for a child who is allowed to grow at her own speed, work at her full potential and be inspired by the real world around her to make the changes it needs? How bad can it be for a child to be around loving adults who respect her, don't steal her erasers, don't call her a lair, scream at her (or others in front of 20+ people) out of frustration and take the time to have a meaningful conversation with her? We'll take our chances and find out.
Back in January we consented to her attending school because I was truly stressed. I kept wondering if I was doing things right, if she was getting "enough" of one thing or another. I over scheduled our days and could not sleep at night wallowing in my own fears. By the second day of school I knew that my fears were completely unfounded and that compulsory school for a regular eight year old is nothing more than a safe form of childcare provided by the state so both parents can work relatively worry free. I guess I'll have to learn to work with her around.

So here we go again, trying to make it all work. Optimistic about our future and knowing that we don't have to be anyone's pawns to get what we want.
Our daughter is committed to finishing the semester where she is. "It's only 6 weeks, how bad can it be?", she says. They are doing the standardized testing this week. I guess we'll take it one day at a time and enjoy it for what it is. I wonder if she would be asking to homeschool next year if she had been given the chance to be inspired, challenged and engaged by her peers and her environment in whatever she does with them for 6 hours per day. We might try it again down the road, when we have more options available and the scales are not so tipped out of balance.

When I mention that she will have to go back to having less children around (she's an only child) and missing her friends she accepts her reality calmly. I'm surprised to see her admitting at such an early age the fact that she much rather have a stimulating learning experience over friends. According to her, these are friends that she can hardly enjoy because of the short time they have to play at school. As I said, we are all learning a lot.
I can't help but think of what my scout leader's training book recommends: "Always leave smiling!".