For the record

For the record, if your post on Facebook begins with something along the lines of:

I believe in respecting everyone, but...
I'm not racist, but...
I don't believe in discrimination, but...
I don't hate anyone, but...

...and you think that little clarification makes it okay for you go on to write something ignorant or racist or hateful (even though you "don't hate" anyone), then I promise I am not following your Facebook any longer. Even if I love you. Because this week there have been too many times when I've said, out loud at my computer screen, "For f*ck's sake, no one is taking anything away from you."

It is probably time for a Facebook break? Except that I fully admit that I want to tell everyone that my son lost his first tooth today, or share the hilarious thing he he said at school. When his class asked the teacher how old she was, she said, "Well, I'm not as old as dirt yet." (One of the other kindergarten teachers frequently jokes about being "as old as dirt.") My son replied, "Well, my grandpa is older than that and he's not even dead yet."

Bless. This is why I love Facebook. But.

For the record: if you are my friend and you ask, earnestly, if I plan to keep my children in our current school or district, or what our plans are (we are looking at middle schools already!), I will happily have that conversation with you! I will tell you yes, absolutely. I believe we are all trying to do what's best for our children, and I believe in keeping my children in our neighborhood public schools. Because the public school teachers who teach my children are the most dedicated, compassionate, loving, creative people I could hope for. They work magic and they know exactly how to keep doing that no matter who is at the top. (I would also like to chime in here that I have been teaching for fifteen years, and if I teach differently now than I did ten years ago it is because I am better, and it is because I have learned from my ever-changing students how to meet them where they are. It is not because suddenly there is a new [insert principal/superintendent/politician/school board person] somewhere above me. I don't want to minimize the challenges that potentially creates for me, or for any other teacher, and some other day maybe I will write about that, but I'll be damned if that dictates a student's experience in my classroom, which is a beautiful and sacred and magical place.) I will tell you that I have faith in the men and women who help teach and shape my children into hungrily curious students. I will tell you that I absolutely believe they will gain more than they will lose by sharing their classroom with kids who are not exactly like them. I will tell you that I give not the remotest of shits about the standardized test scores of the school, especially when I see the magic that happens in those classrooms, especially when my children are eager to return to school on Monday morning.

However, if you are the mother of one of my children's school friends and you post a bunch of anti-testing stuff on Facebook (and I don't disagree with you, by the way) but also express real consternation about the school's "grade" based on those very tests, and you're not sure you want to keep your child in public school, and you are "all for diversity" but you feel the schools are "going downhill," then I will probably not be terribly interested in future play dates. I will go ahead and admit right now that when you mentioned the superior district you moved here from, I looked it up. It looks pretty good, as far as those test scores go -- from the tests that inspire you to fill your Facebook with anti-testing rants, right? It is also 92% white, with about 10% free and reduced lunch. But I will put my children's teachers up against those teachers any day. What are we measuring, exactly? Passion? Dedication? Competence? Resilience? Love?

Any. Day.

If you said all these things out loud to me during the play date, I regret that I didn't have a better response; I was a little blind-sided. You clearly assumed I would agree with you, and I wish I would have said more. I wish I would have told you that I think every family needs to decide what's best for their situation, of course, but I am not remotely worried about those "other" kids "bringing down" my own. I admit that I need to learn how to have this conversation graciously but firmly.

Full disclosure: I am having kind of a difficult day.

I have three classes that are so fabulous I can't even believe I get paid to teach them but I also have a class that made me curl up in the fetal position on our bed when I came home this afternoon. Matt, who was working from home today because our car needed an oil change and a new set of tires, came in and suggested that I go for a run or go to Starbucks. I stared sadly at the wall.

I don't really want to write about what caused me to stare sadly at the wall because I am also in no damn mood for anyone to disparage these kids.

Isn't that funny? I mean it is, kind of. I love them fiercely. They literally keep me awake at night. Tonight I pulled two of them aside to check in, after giving myself five minutes to breathe deeply because they were pissing me off. They are sad, depressed, lonely kids. They are smart kids. They are good kids and I love them a lot and I can't help them. And part of me is angry at them today because LIFE IS NOT GOING TO GET ANY EASIER, so please try to accept the help I am offering and get your SHIT TOGETHER. And while I am thinking all that I know it's not that simple or easy. But I still don't know how to help them. One of wrote me a note last week thanking me for my patience, and I'm like, what does that even mean? I don't. know. how. to. help. But some part of me also understands that we don't always get to know what the results of any of this are. We don't get to know if or how we help. We just show up.

It's not really enough, but it's what I have, it's what I can do. I can't promise I do it gracefully all the time. I'm angry, but I'm earnest. And here we are, in this fraught moment.

But all moments are not so fraught:

I'll be up in the morning, packing sack lunches for my boy and me; I'm taking a day off to chaperone a field trip with the kindergarteners (and hopefully avoid carpooling with Playdate Mom). My son lost his first tooth tonight. There is plenty of joy to rest in, right here. And tonight I need both: the joy, and the rest.