Mile high life

Back from preschool and it was a great day since negative mom didn't show up. Her nanny was there and her child actually seemed a lot more relaxed too.I didn't hear any complaining proving that she starts it every time! Also I could talk about the downtown school planning committee without fear that she will get involved! It's already hard enough to agree on a concept with the great group we have. It seems we are running into the problem every school has and that is if you ask a group of people what they want a school to look like, operate like, etc you will get as many different answers as there are people in your survey! I think the climate now is so against public education that the feeling is that a new school has to look as far removed from a regular public school as possible and that's just crazy to me. We don't need to reinvent the wheel in my humble opinion. We just need to have a model with high standards and STICK with it! Consistancy I am finding is so important. I think that is why this whole montessorri trend is sooooooooo popular Montessori is Montessori, you get what you get and you don't throw a fit because the standards are clear and consistent. Another thing that parents are loving about Montessori is the life skills and etiquette portiion of the curriculum. Remember home ec? I never had it. How about learning how to answer the phone, take a message, greet people and make small talk? That's what they do and they learn how to set a table, they have high tea... A waste? I think not, some kids just won't go to college or even high school and if they learn those things at a young age I would think they would conduct themselves with more confidence and just be better citizens period. Remember getting graded for citizenship? We get so caught up in creating baby geniuses and super scienctists that we forget how important it is to learn about"REAL LIFE"! Like this group, they are on the right track about a lot of things, but they are so caught up in "personalizing" education, like it's a restaurant where you can just order the type of education you want for your kid from one school, that they are forgetting that public school used to be the only option and kids graduated from said public schools, went to college and did some fabulous things for society. We really need to get back to basics, stop trying to be so fancy and frilly and gimmicky. RJ is currently on the waitlist of a catholic school near us where students perform at least two grade levels above average on tests and has a high graduation rate and high college attendance (what they can track-admittedly it is difficult because students move out of
state etc) even though most students go from private k-8 to public high school. And guess what, it looks just like a school, doesn't do
anything whacky, they sit at desks and learn consistent basic material and are taught how to treat people as you would like to be treated.
I'm just sayin'.... PS. If they don't learn it before high school forget about, add the baggage they collected and a teenage attitude to a kid who hasn't learned the basics, really? You think you can uncover that mess!? Maybe one or two but a whole school full? Yikes!