William's and Possibly Winnie's School

Today is our son's 31st birthday. How did that happen? Moments ago he was a cute little kid hanging around the house. Gone. Into the world. Into life.

When he was 5-years old, he was assigned to a kindergarten at the local school so I went to the open house. Meet the teacher! See the classroom! I walked into the room, looked around and immediately decided that he would never, ever go to that school. It was dirty. In fact, it was filthy and old and worn out and disorganized. It was depressing.

I spoke with a woman in our neighborhood who was a former teacher with a son William's age. She told me about the process of an intra-district transfer to a school way up in the mountains. It was actually in another city but was part of our school district. She encouraged me to fill out the paperwork. I did, he got in but was on the bubble. If another child moved into the school's neighborhood, William would have to be transferred out and back to his home school.

Community Art Fair that supports the school.

My plan? Make myself important at the school so that would never happened. I first became the secretary of the Site Council. I volunteered in the classroom. I then became head of the Site Council. I then became head of the Education Foundation which was the first one in the state just after Prop 13 was voted in. It provided the school with funds from the community to pay for aids in the classroom, a principal and classroom materials. A couple of years later, when a child did move into the area and increased the class size over the maximum, the teacher agreed to teach an extra student - William.

The school was amazing. It had no text books. Each child worked at their own level and in very small groups of 2 or 3 kids. When a long-term assignment was made, the children were encouraged to present their projects to the class in any way they wished: a play, a film, a poem, a song, a speech, a dance. They were taught to be in charge of their own learning. Lifelong learning.

It was a small school under 100 kids where they played kickball in the school yard. What was so lovely was that all ages played together. No score was kept. Winning wasn't the goal. I loved watching a 5th grade boy roll the ball to a kindergarten kid in a very slow and careful manner to insure the younger child would be successful in kicking the ball. And when they did, no one ran really fast to get them out. They would shout encouragement to run faster. But, it was also fun to watch the competitiveness become apparent went the older kids were up to "bat."

When he went to a catholic middle school, he discovered a huge difference in educational philosophy. The students were working from a textbooks all on the same page, all at the same time. He got a bad grade on his first assignment because "he didn't follow the rules." He went way beyond the rules.

The elementary school gave him the ability to think, not just fill in the blanks correctly.

So, it was this week when Natalie went on a tour to the same elementary school to see if it would be a good school for Winnie. Our book club friend Sue is a teacher there. Natalie and I talked about it this week before the tour. I described how the school used to be but didn't know if it still had the "bones" it used to have. Natalie had been to the other schools and looked at other programs but was not in love with any of them. They were all proper. They were all fine. The principals gave the tours.

I got a text from her yesterday. She had been to the school and took the tour. She LOVED that the tour was conducted by the children. She loved the educational philosophy. She loved the physical site, which will be quite a drive twice a day. It is in the mountains, off of a small road and surrounded by trees. What's not to love? Now, the paperwork begins!