Nature's cruel joke

When my girls were toddlers, they wanted to do everything themselves. Screams of, "I can do it BY MYSELF!!!" echoed throughout my house for years.

Some things are good to do by yourself when you're three... "Yes, you can clean your room all by yourself!" "Sure, go ahead and wash your face all by yourself!"

Others not so much. "No, you may not pour milk from the new gallon jug all by yourself." "Cutting your hair by yourself is not okay." "No, slicing your chicken nugget with the fileting knife by yourself isn't safe."

But with age comes manual dexterity and common sense, and the ability to do many many things on your own! I was very excited for the days my kids learned to put their clothes away, take their own showers, dust, and take care of their own stuff!

Of course, now that they can, they won't. Instead of "No! Let me help!" My days are filled saying, "For heaven's sake, you are ten years old, stop being lazy and do it yourself!"

Mommy, can you please wash my hair?

Mommy, can you help me put my clothes on?

Mommy, will you please help me do my math?

Mommy, please help me clean this up."

Will you get me a drink? Put on my shoes? Brush my teeth? Find me something to eat? Open this? Count this? Do this for me?

Every single thing they fought so hard to do themselves is now something they want me to do! It's harder work than giving baby baths and changing diapers!

I guess one day I'll be alone and regret saying this, but when do I get a break? :) 

It's math

When I was in school, we had reading groups. I was a Bluebird. The Bluebirds were an elite group of 3rd grade readers. We were so cool, we read out of the fourth grade book. Most days of the week we would sit on the floor of the back of the room and read our fourth grade book full of interesting stories and big words.

The Cardinals were the group right under us. They read exactly where they were supposed to read at all through the year. We knew because they sat in the middle of the room and we could hear them reading a story we had already conquered.

The Robins were the slower readers. We didn't know what they read because they sat in their desks at the front of the room with the teacher.

As a much older person and also as a teacher, I can see that this maybe wasn't the best system for the Robins, or even the Cardinals. I know now that grouping readers like that is bad for self esteem, especially when it was near impossible to move up or down in groups.

So why are my kids being grouped in math?

There are a million arguments against and for Common Core, and I am not debating that. I'm debating the fact that my kids come home from school gleeful that they received the E homework, or devastated that they got the P, or heaven help us, the dreaded R homework.

Most days they have a Quick Check. I don't know what that is, but that determines the homework paper they have that night.

The E is for Enrichment. That's a paper they get that has absolutely nothing to do with what they learned that day, my kids say. It is the elite of math homework.  When you get the E, you are a smart cookie. (And when you get the E, your math smart mommy is clueless on what to do....it's like those problems at the end of the lesson that mommy's teacher always told them to skip).

P is for Practice. It has a bunch of problems about the lesson. Sometimes Math Mommy still doesn't know what to do.

R is for Reteach. My kids are so upset and embarrassed when they get an R that they hide it. So I have never even seen an R paper.

And so I wonder, how is this any less harmful to my kids' self esteem than the reading groups? Sure, it's a daily chance to get an E, but it's also a daily dose of ego boosting or ego crushing. And Ivy says all the kids know what the other kids got. And then they gloat or are embarrassed.

When I was a Bluebird, I never once made a Robin or a Cardinal feel bad. When reading class was over, all the bird life was forgotten and we were one class again going outside to enjoy our 30 minutes of morning recess. Followed by our lunch recess, and then our afternoon recess (and I'll complain about that in another post some day).  We didn't feel the need to wear a scarlet letter declaring our intelligence and worry about it changing daily.