I bit a girl. I was five. I didn’t know any better, should I have? Possibly, but I was five. You see it was Scouting Day at my school, and anyone who was part of Scouts Canada, or Girl Guides Canada could wear their uniform to school. At five years old, I was a Beaver. She was a Brownie, as all of you know, Beavers Eat Brownies… Or so I was told. In fact back then I was naive and believed pretty much anything I was told.
When I was a kid, younger then my oldest son, I was odd. I would not sleep in a room unless it was green, I would not drink from a cup, unless it was green, and I certainly would not sit on the mat unless it was green, and next to Jordan. You could say, I was green myself.
Why do I tell you this you may wonder, well the reason is children are precious, they say and do things because they do not know any better, when they are born they are a blank slate, it is our job as parents, guardians and teachers to help fill that slate with the rights and wrongs, the 1..2..3s and A…B…Cs. At the age of five, a child has learned so much, first to walk, next to talk, then to go to the potty by themselves, and to be adventurous and curious of their surroundings. They say curiosity killed the cat, I say no a large Newfoundland Dog did that, but that is a story for another day.
When I was seven, maybe eight, I learned to ride a bike, this made me mobile, it made me curious of my surroundings. It made be rebellious, I had the freedom to ride my little bike around the block, as long as I stayed on the Crescent we lived on, the rule do not go along the sidewalk near the busy road. If I reached the end of one part, I could not cut across, I had to go back around, even though it was only a 100 metres away going straight. One day, I was biking with a friend, I don’t remember who but they convinced me to do it, to be rebellious and go the forbidden way. I did it, I got caught, I learned something. My parents tell me things for a reason, and I need to listen. Did this mean I listened every time? Certainly not, and I would find myself in the same sort of situations many times in my life. Every time I learned the same thing, but I was still learning, learning to push my boundaries.
Pushing ones boundaries with your parents is a rite of passage in any child’s life. It is something my oldest son has begun to do, and being only five, I know it has only just begun. He’s beginning to get independent, he is beginning to want to explore, to have fun and to be a big boy, and treated like one. As a parent, I see this and understand this. He’s trying his best, he misbehaves some times, but I know grownups who misbehave worse than he does, so for the most part unless it’s something that could seriously harm him, I let him do it, even if it frustrates us. My wife does the same, and so does his Grandparents. But his school, his school seems to think children should sit on their behinds, shut up and do what they are told when they are told.
Back when I went to Kindergarten, which is Primary in Nova Scotia we had learning time, we had song time, we had story time, we had play time. It was enjoyable. Fast forward 26 years, my son started school this year, he went in knowing the basics, when it started we quickly learned, the basics was not good enough. They expected so much from the children, they expected them to know how to write, to know how to read. I get it, but he was not even five, he was four and had only been potty trained for a little more than a year. Maybe we didn’t do enough for him before hand, but we did not know, and he struggled.
He began primary at a local elementary school. He enjoyed it for the most part, his teacher seemed to be nice, he loved her in fact, and he seemed to be doing well, a little behind but he was coming home excited and his work was progressing quickly. Then the school board in their infinite wisdom decided to switch things up. There was to many kids in a grade one class, so they had to rearrange Primary, Grade one and two, making the class he was in now a Primary-One split and because he was not five yet, and would not be until December, they moved him to the other class, which meant a new teacher, new routine.
He struggled, he was not enjoying school as much anymore, the new teacher was a complete opposite of the other, she was strict and had very high expectations for her students, one being sit still and do your work when told. Pretty simple expectations right? For an adult yes, but for a four year old, easier said than done. He had not gone to pre-school, so this was a new setting for him. He tried, but he had good days and bad days, he had finally just gotten into a routine again, when bam another change happened, his teacher was going on reduced work week, and would teach three days of the week, and a substitute would teach the other two days. It was hard again for him, two people, who different styles, two different set of expectations. He struggled, but he was trying.
Then not long after, we went to parent teacher interviews. His teacher was clueless, she told us about stuff he did on a day, we did not sent him to class. We laughed it off, but as things continued the only feedback we received from her was “He’s young”, we tried to probe a little more, but really got the same answer. Not long after the meeting, we started getting calls and notes home, he’s not listening, he’s being disruptive, he’s going to the bathroom too much. Seriously? Going to the bathroom too much, this I could not believe. So I asked him, what happened today, why did you have to go to the bathroom so much? His response, I couldn’t poop daddy. The kid was constipated, and if you’ve ever been, you know it can be agony. I started to dislike this teacher.
But it got worse. The next day, the substitute teacher marched him out of the school, with her hand holding his tightly, she still holding his hand made him tell me what he did wrong today in school. She did this in front of all the other parents, my son did not know what to say, he was upset, and I was embarrassed for not only him, but myself. Not because he misbehaved, but because it was called out on the school ground.
I did what every parent who cared would do, I called the school, I spoke with the principle, and said, it was not acceptable for that to happen, and against their own polices. They specifically state in their Code of Conduct for the school, they will not discuss the students before or after school on the school grounds. The principle agreed, and talked to the teachers, the next day the teacher did the same thing, came to me with my son, and apologized in from of everyone. I said thank you for it, but I do not want to be addressed on the school grounds even for this, and asked if we could discuss things in the school. She agreed.
I asked that if he misbehaves and it needs to be addressed at home, then to send a note home, or call me, we will handle it. Boy I should not have done this. That’s when it started, almost every day I was told he was misbehaving. But they would not tell me specifics. I felt that they were doing this because I went to the school administration. So I went again, and asked for assistance in resolving this, the principle said she would look into it, and the response I got was the same. He’s just very young. I lost it. I demanded to know what this means, what he was doing, I wanted examples. I was not going to get after my child daily for stuff I could not cite. She said she would get back to me.
She did, and gave me an answer finally, he just needs a lot of guidance and does not like to sit down, he’d rather stand up and do his work. My response was, and that’s misbehaving? I then said if he needs lots of guidance, maybe he should get that help from the school. She agreed and they began to do things differently, giving him encouragement and rewarding him for listening. Things changed, I was happy for him, but still annoyed with the school, as it was now almost November, and I had been trying for nearly two months to get to the bottom of this.
He’s doing better in school now, but I’ve continuously had issues with things his teachers do or say, and silly rules the administration makes. Really though, these teachers do not know how lucky they are, to me from what I see and hear, the kids in his class are pretty decent. He plays with a lot of them, and doesn’t want the day to end, I am happy for him, as these early years, these carefree years of his life are precious, and he should be allowed to enjoy them. Though how his teachers and the school acts some time makes me wonder, what would these teachers of done, had they been my teacher… I look back and think, my kindergarten teacher Ms. Haddock, was a saint…
cshynes - 
