school

It Never Fails

No matter how organized we try to be, no matter how far in advance we try to look at the calendar and no matter what our past experiences are, we always seem to get taken by surprise.  It begs the question, are we stupid or is this just the way things are or do we just get told these things in passing at 10:30pm at night or did the teacher not post it or did the coach not know about it or does anyone even give a crap?

For instance, a young lady asked our son to a dance earlier this year.  What we would call a Sadie Hawkins dance, they call MORP(prom spelled backwards).  Well, the day of the dance a water polo tournament is scheduled.  A water polo tournament goes on all day long and is exhausting for those who do not know.  Well, let’s just say it provided a lot of stress to our son who ended up having to race home from La Jolla, jump in the shower, shove some food down his throat and meet his date at the dance.  Is this good stress or bad stress?  I guess that’s just the way life is, but it happens so often.

Prom is this Saturday night and he has had this planned and arranged now for a month.  We didn’t even know juniors could attend since at our high school only seniors were allowed to attend.  In total, we will probably be spending somewhere between two and three hundred dollars on prom.  A group of them are supposed to meet for dinner and photos at 5:30pm and then take a party bus to the venue.  Well, it turns out he made CIF swim finals that are the same day and start at 3:00pm in the afternoon.  This was a surprise to him and us because his times haven’t been good enough for consideration and  yet he has been honored with the invitation.  He would have to have the race of his life to win this thing.  What to do? 

Same goes for my daughter.  Her varsity dance team is doing a two night performance this Friday and Saturday night.  It’s a big deal.  They have been practicing long and hard all semester for this show and these young ladies are talented dancers.  You would enjoy the show.  Well, her private dance group booked a competition in Palm Springs on Saturday and Sunday.  She’s doing full rehearsals at the school and going to the studio at 9:00pm to practice for the weekend competition.  This stuff just gets out of hand.  She will be a zombie when she gets home on Sunday evening.

Can we foresee this stuff.  Well, the Mrs. and I try to really stay up on things on the calendar.  With the two school websites, twelve teacher websites, all the aquatics emails, the changes in all the schedules that pop up and the teens not delivering the information in a timely manner, I guess this is just the way it is for now.  Not to mention, the SAT prep classes, the SAT test, the ACT test and the driving to colleges and looking for a summer job and all the homework and AP tests.  I went to a great college and don’t remember anything in high school being this crazy busy.

At this age we and the teachers put all of the communication through the kids, so that they grow up to take care of themselves, but things fall through the cracks and there are the unexpected things. 

Thank goodness Stewart drives himself around and Jennifer will be driving herself in a few months.  Maybe we will have all this down by the time Jacqueline’s a senior:)

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Hey Teacher! Leave Them Kids Alone!

Things used to be so simple back in the day.  You either took a regular class or you took an honors class.  The highest your gpa could be was 4.0.  The SAT was a maximum of 1600 points.  Sports had a season and they weren’t played year round.  You got Thanksgiving and the day after off.  You got two weeks at Christmas and one week at Easter.  Pardon me, I’m not being politically correct.  I should have said winter and spring break.  Back in the day, summer was very long.  You got out of school around the middle of June and always went back the day after labor day.

Things have gotten so complicated.  There are regular classes, honors classes, AP classes and international baccalaureate classes.  They even have honors classes in Spanish in case you can’t speak English.  What’s the point?  Why so many classifications?  It turns out the colleges don’t give a rip whether you were in regular or honors.  The colleges only care about your gpa.

I personally am not sure the regular classes are rigorous enough, so I have suggested, encouraged, pushed and demanded my son be in the honors classes.  I don’t expect the international baccalaureat because that’s just too much work if you’re in sports and not inclined to that much academics.  My son is with the program.  He hasn’t balked at the challenges and did well last year. 

Getting to the point of all this, I really want to know who the moron is that starting assigning homework over the summer.  This is what happens to honors students these days.  They get homework assigned over the summer.  This is really irksome to me.  Do these teachers have any idea how hard it is to get a fifteen year old motivated to do homework over the summer?  Talk about government intrusion into my life, I just can’t take it anymore.

You’re probably not much that different than my wife and I.  We divvy up our parental responsibilities.  It just so happens that it has been my responsibility to make sure my son does his summer homework.  This has been like pulling teeth.  At the beginning of summer, we decided he could have until August 1st without having to worry about any school work.  So on August 1st we sat down and made a schedule of how much he should do per day, so it could all be done with a week to spare.  In this way, the last week of summer could be totally carefree.  I don’t think it’s going to turn out that way.  The educators have turned this into my angst and I’m not happy about it.

I can honestly tell you that growing up I never had as much homework as my kids do.  I never did homework over any summer.  I don’t even remember doing much homework during the week during the school year when I was growing up.  I feel sorry for this generation.  Why is everything a race and a pressure cooker?

I’ll never forget what my dad told me on my graduating from UC-San Diego with my bachelor’s degree.  He shook my hand and said, “Congratulations, nobody cares.”

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Is Summer Over Yet?

Everyone has their favorite season.  Some people love winter because of the snow and the cool crisp air.  Some people love the spring when all the flowers come out and the trees and grasses turn green again.  Some people love the autumn leaves falling to the ground.  I happen to love summer.  I love the hot days.  I love the long days.  I love the warm evenings.  Why am I ready for it to be over?

When school gets out for summer, there is a collective sigh of relief from everyone.  The school year is a grind for everyone.  The teacher’s have had enough.  The kids can’t take it anymore.  The parents are worn out from helping kids with homework and end of year projects.  The first day of summer is usually a beach day.  The kids are excited.  Mom gets the cooler out and loads it up with snacks.  The beach chairs and boogie boards go into the back of the car.  Everyone has a great day at the beach.  You come home a little sunburned and a little salty and there’s no homework for 10 weeks.  Yeah!

Where has all the goodwill gone?  The last I saw it was under a pile of laundry by the garage.  The time before that is was under a couple of dirty dishes that were found on the ground outside’s someone’s bedroom door.  I didn’t realize we had room service here.  There has been a complete break down of society in the last six weeks.  The school year brought structure to daily life that doesn’t exist during the summer.  It’s hard to have structure when you get up a 10am, watch tv and then eat breakfast at noon.  I don’t know what’s going on anymore.  People are coming and going out of this house and I can’t seem to keep track.  When you’re at the beach until 10:00pm at night and it’s your turn to do the dishes, they don’t end up getting cleaned.  When you’re spending the night at a friend’s house and you didn’t fold your laundry, it just ends up on the floor.  Help!

The worst part is trying to re-assert your parental control.  The wife and I were happy it was summer also.  We know the kids need a break.  We want them to do fun things during the summer, but you can’t have fun every minute of the day.  We still need some dishes washed and some clothes folded, but they are resisting.  Six weeks of no daily routine and the kids have gone feral on us.  Finally, this past Tuesday, I had to wield my fatherly powers and get everyone’s attention.  Yesterday, Karen finally had enough and whipped this place into a frenzy.  I almost had to leave for a couple of hours:)  We had a family meeting and the kids even admitted they haven’t been doing their chores and promised they would get better.

Hope you’re having a great summer.  I’ll see you at the beach after I wash the dishes.

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Happiness or Academic Intelligence…What Would You Choose?

When Frank was looking for a guest blogger…I jumped at the chance. I really do have too much to say about everything. I pondered on all the topics. I brainstormed and created a long list. And I thought about it while I was packing up one house to move to another ~ which was it’s own form of Chinese Torture. I wanted to throw my opinion out there, I wanted to talk about my business ~ The 3 Day Sleep Solution, I wanted to point out something crazy that is going on in our noisy sensationalized world, and I even thought about rocking the boat at bit. but then I realized that most importantly I wanted to leave everyone with something that would make them feel a little better about the madness of being a parent. I work with parents every day. They ask me questions from what I think about breast feeding to how old their infant should be before they start sign language classes or to start full-time preschool. I’ve watched mothers wait all night to get their child into the “best” preschool. I’ve watched parents get speech therapist for their 2 year old, and yes, even tutors for children who haven’t even started school. And I’ve asked myself over and over…WHY? Does all of the craziness of trying to make your child more intelligent make anyone really happy? That is the question!

The best compliment I have received to date is…someone is always laughing in my house. One would think…being a woman it would be about looking thinner, great hair, great shoes, etc. but it wasn’t. It was about the level of happiness in my house and that yes, someone is always laughing. And that makes me very happy until the dreaded progress report or report card time comes. And with the opening of those obnoxious envelopes zzzzziiiippppppp…a painful silence stifles the laughter if only for a second.

I have three daughters and I think they all have their own unique personalities and gifts.  In fact, they could not be more different. I have two who get excellent grades. In fact one just finishsed her second year at Madison with straight A’s, one just finished fourth grade with almost all 4’s (the equivalent of A’s) and then there is my oldest daughter ~ yikes. If I took Prozac…on report card days…I’d double up. It is painful when her grades come in. Her father and I have to go into ‘talks’ about what we are going to take away from her, how we might torture her into getting better grades, and worse…I spend time thinking about how I messed up on her first three years and trained her hypothalamus to avoid frustration at all costs by doing too much for her.

But then I stop because that girl is one happy person! And the only time she is really unhappy - other thant the normal teenage girl hormone stuff - is when we are beating her up about her grades. This is an ongoing struggle for us because the one with the worst grades is the happiest and the one with the best grades…well…would be unhappy if her ice cubes were cold and the third one seems to have both - go figure. We want them to be happy but we also want them to make the grade. I want her to go to college. I want her to have all the options that good grades will bring her but at what cost?
Our society values intelligence and good grades and achieving that has little to do with happiness but is what we all want. After all no one goes to the doctor to get a prescription because they feel dumb. They go because they are unhappy.

So by the end of one more report card day, I come to the same conclusion after I check my ego. I do want them to be happy and most importantly I want them to do their very best. Who isn’t happy when they know they’ve given it their all? And academic success…it’s nice and an important piece of the puzzle but I know on my best days, I never reflect on how smart I am but on how happy I am.

Davis Ehrler

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