More than just a number

Just a day or two before I graduated high school I was given a copy of my high school transcript, complete with my GPA.

I graduated high school (and later college) with honors. I had those chords to tout it and all.

I was the president of NHS.

But I had a GPA of something like 3.89 or equally ridiculous.

I was devastated.

Freaking devastated.

Mostly because no one had ever told me that I was more than just a number. That I mattered more than a test score or my GPA.

I remember my dad told me I was being silly for being upset. I was smart and had done well and besides, it didn't make a difference for my college or anything.

And in retrospect it was silly.

But at that moment, it wasn't. To me, it was failure. Utter failure.

I had failed.

It didn't help that I wasn't graduating in the top 10. I was 11.

Eleventh. In a class of 200.

But I was only eleventh.

Failure.

When I was in early elementary school I vividly remember receiving my report card on the last day of school and breaking down in tears. I told my teacher I couldn't see my mom, I didn't want her to pick me up from school because she wouldn't love me anymore (and no, my mom never once said her love was contingent on my grades, ha).

I had a B+ in math for the last quarter.

In math. My least favorite subject. The greatest thorn in my side.

I was like 7. And all ready I was so choked up and freaked out over grades.

If I collected one single tear from each crying session I had over grades during the first 18 years of my life - just one tear from each session - I could fill the Black Sea and then some.

I wish that someone had told me the truth. That somewhere in the midst of all that stress and heartache someone had whisper words of wisdom into my ear and said, "Ki, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, none of this will matter."

If only I'd known.

Yes, yes, of course, if you are in a school system you have to make the grades up to x for college, yadda yadda yadda. I get all that. But a B+ in the second grade wasn't going to make or break me.

A 99% on a history test instead of 100% wouldn't prevent me from being a history major.

An 84% on a chemistry paper wouldn't affect my overall grade if I did well on everything else.

I wish I'd known.

I see glimpses of my crazy perfectionist self in H sometimes. It scares me.

I've grown so much in the past 5 years. I'm such a better, calm, laid back, go-with-the-flow girl. Occasionally I will feel the anxiety setting in when I get caught up with a kiddo and burn the green beans, and then I take a breath and bring myself back down to earth and remind myself, "It doesn't matter."

Because it doesn't.

I hope H and B never ever feel that overwhelming stress I did as a kid who was less than perfect. I hope they never cry themselves to sleep because they believe wholeheartedly that they've failed. That they're not good enough. That they are anything less than pure perfection in my eyes.

I hope they have no idea that people get graded on asinine things like spelling and math. That instead they simply know that you practice and practice again until you've got it done. No need to make a 6 year old feel like shit. Or a 16 year old.

I hope they know they're so much more important than a number. That they can do anything in the world that they want. And no number can make or break them.

I hope they see that their momma was brilliant. She worked hard, but never too hard or hard enough. That she always put more on her plate than she could swallow, and yet she always swallowed it in half the time anyway. Was always a little more stressed in her school days than was even remotely healthy. And for what?

All just to graduate with honors, and graduate again with honors, and to say "thanks but no thanks" to Law School and career that wouldn't have mattered even a fraction of what they matter to me, but would have deemed me "successful" by everyone else's standards. No one cares that I graduated high school with a 3.89 GPA. No one but J, my mentor, and my professor ever read my college thesis that I spent more hours than there was ever in a day to write.

I hope they realize that the only times any of that was ever worth it was when I looked at myself with my own self-satisfaction. When I was proud of myself. Not when others were.

And I hope they see their papa, who struggled through school and college. Who never had the right grades. Who is dyslexic and plagued with other learning disabilities that no one ever helped him with. I hope that they see that numbers never mattered to him in the make or break your soul way it did to me. That he said "fuck numbers" and became a kick-ass engineer anyway. Because he knew he was so much more than a number. That he worked hard for himself every day. He didn't work hard for a gold star or a high percentage number or because he feared he wouldn't be worthy if he performed less than.

I hope they know they're more than just a number.

No.

I know they will know they are more than just a number.

Because I will never put them in a position where they could possibly think otherwise.

Taking a page out of the Fins (Finish?) book

So, after a lot of talk back and forth with J, we’ve comfortably decided that we won’t do any formal schooling with the babes until the age of 7.

I know, insane, right!?

I read an article about a week ago about the school systems in Finland. Their education system in ranked the best in the world. They have the best outcomes, etc., etc. Pretty much everything I read that said contributed to this were things I all ready strongly believe in: shorter school days, more time playing (they have a minimum of 70 minutes of recess a day!), they only partake in one standardized test throughout their entire pre-university education, etc, etc.

The one thing though, that really made me go what!? is that they do not even begin formal education, until the age of 7.

I thought this was crazy.

But then again, a year and a half ago I thought the idea of homeschooling was crazy. And that children “learn through play” was crazy. It wasn’t even a full year ago that I fully believed that the younger children were put into the academic system, the better. Now I know that they are learning more through play than they ever could in an academic institution.

So I’m coming around. I’m changing. That’s what people do.

But this whole not until the age of 7 business really threw me off. I mean, how do I not teach my children until the age of 7?

I mean, we have homemade Montessori-style alphabet flashcards that H loves to practice. We have a great set of BOB books that her Godmother sent us that she often requests to work with. Am I not supposed to do those with her?

Of course I am! If she requests it. Once I understood this vital part of the education system in Finland, I realized that it’s so on par with my beliefs anyway. I had never planned to make H or B sit down and learn something if it wasn’t fun for them until kindergarten age. Even then, not so much. I love the idea of child-lead learning. But at the same time, I believe it’s imperative to learn the basic things. So if someone hated math, then yes, I’d step in and make it mandatory.

So in Finland they believe in child-lead learning 100% until the age of 7. Then more structure is brought in as they join the academic world. But even so, their school system is largely student-lead as well, where the students have the ability to focus and concentrate on their interests more intensely than other subjects.

I love it.

And I love the idea of waiting until 7 before forcing anything on them.

7 years is such a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things. So 7 years to just be a kid, for playing to be your only real responsibility, is amazing.

And I think I’d like it to be my goal. 7 years of 100% childhood for my babes. I think it’s a good goal.

But if I’m losing my sanity all ready come a year or so, I’m always willing to re-evaluate my beliefs. I'm pretty good at that anyway.

Little sis graduates...will my kiddos?

My baby sister graduated high school today. Well, I guess she's really not a baby.

I found myself getting all teary-eyed during her commencement. Lord knows I didn't get weepy at my own high school graduation (or college!). I was so happy to get the flying fuck out of there, I didn't even want to attend my own graduation(s).

And yet, for a split second anyway, I found myself questioning if the decision J and I have made at this point in our lives, to home school Miss H and baby B, is the right one. By depriving them of a high school graduation (and a kindergarten one), would we somehow be doing some kind of irreparable damage to them?

As I said, it was only a split second of questioning, because I was quickly and easily able to remind myself that the damage of putting them in the school system far outweighed the damage of them never wearing a cap and gown and being handed a piece of paper in front of a few hundred people. At least in my opinion.

I think school is definitely a "to each their own" thing. And beliefs constantly change. A year ago I would not have even considered the possibility of considering homeschooling, now I have a hard time considering any type of school system, whether it be public or private.

Much like different parenting methods work for different families, I realize that different schooling works for different families. It's not a "one shoe fits all". Which is one of the reasons I really hate the public school system, as well a many private schools. They all teach all the children the same things, at the same speed, and the same way. And that doesn't make sense to me. Kids are different. They learn in many different ways. That should be realized and expanded upon. But it isn't.

I also really dislike that children spend 7 hours at school (sometimes more!) with only 2 thirty minute breaks (sometimes less!) and are expected to sit still and not speak and do what they are told and most especially, never question anything. I don't want a robotic sheeple of a child. I want a strong individual who is free to play and explore and question everything often.(I'm not saying that all children who are put through the public school system are sheeple, obviously they are not. But that doesn't mean that many of them are not either.)

I guess I'm just realizing that allowing my children to learn at their own pace, on their own terms, in a manner that is best for them is the better option for us. And if that means I won't get to take photos of them at a cute kindergarten graduation, or even a teary high school graduation, then that's okay. I'll still get to hear all about them from my friends and their kids, and I'll probably even get to attend some too! And that will be awesome. But, unless things change, which really, can always happen, those are just some things my kids won't experience. But they will have a bunch of different, great (and I'm sure not-so-great) experiences that kids who are "attending" school won't have. So it all evens out, right?

I hope so.