Reflections about the first day of school
From a mom who plans to home school

Today was the first day of school for most of the kids in the Rochester area. It never fails me on the first day: I see those ubiquitous yellow buses rolling in the morning, and try not to look at those poor little noses pressed to the windows, longing for the freedom they've lost for another 10 long months. I experience a slow, condensed, below-the-surface anger that has all of the stress, major and minor failures, embarrassment, and outrage at the senseless rigidity and confinement of the system that I repressed during those 12 endless years in the '70s and '80s I was penned up inside those buildings.

And I think: Not MY girls.

Joy of learning? Excitement of discovery? Thrill of mastering a new skill? At the ages of 2 and 1, Madison and Ella both cycle through these experiences many times daily. And I dare say as a preschooler, so did I. But this sense of life as a wonderful adventure was soaked out of me by the second or third grade. Of course, having two parents who appeared to be professional educators, but who actually had the intellectual curiosity of cottage cheese, did not help either.

Some kids actually looked forward to school. I didn't. I dreaded it. Funny, though I felt this constant gnawing fear--of being less than perfect, of being the object of other kids' ridicule--and though I often noticed how thoroughly bored I was, I didn't actively resent having to go to school. Why?

I think the usual reason people experience resentment is that they feel they're being made to do something unnecessarily, that there are actually other options that are deliberately being closed. But I had no idea that there might be other options. Everyone always said that school was good for kids. And, frankly, I was good at school--I don't think there was a single year out of those 12 in which I wasn't the best student in the class, and I graduated valedictorian in a class of 269. Plus, everyone went to school; it wouldn't have occurred to me, much less to my parents, to think outside that box, to consider whether it really was the best that could be made available to me, whether spending my time penned up like that really was in my best interest.

So while I actively hated school, it would not have occurred to me to find creative ways to escape (aside from the occasional fantasy about becoming a child actress just to get the private tutors). And if I had felt the resentment I feel about it now, I probably would have had an even harder time, because it wouldn't have propelled me toward a solution, it would have just been fruitless anger on top of the fear and boredom I already felt.

As I said: Not MY girls.

If I have anything to with it--and fortunately, I have--Madison will never lose the excitement I hear in her voice as she shouts, "I can do it!"...Ella will always have that inner glow and self-assurance like she does when she climbs up on top of this to get that, peeking at you out of the corner of her eye to make sure you notice. Sure, they'll have some kind of school experience, with the extra classes we'll find for them. Just nothing like mine.