Ditching

I am sitting at work today and receiving hourly text messages about my son's unexcused absences. Oops, he missed first period. Darn it, 2nd and 3rd he's nowhere to be found either! Truth be told, I stopped checking my phone, knowing that he wasn't running late. He was ditching.

In an unexpected turn of events, I gave him permission to ditch. My husband gave a very formal and clear commentary about his reservations, but ultimately agreed. Yes, son, you have our blessing to ignore the rules and go to the beach instead. The reason I caved so easily is simple. It's the end of the year and evidently instruction of any kind is no longer necessary. Our son has spent the last week watching movies in his classes. He finished his finals and brings a healthy pile of books to read, not Shakespeare or a literary classic, but World War Z or a David Sedaris collection.

When I was a kid...(can you just picture the eye rolling) we worked up until the last day, finishing off every possible workbook page, catching up on art activities or creative writing assignments. We did spend more time outside in recess and gym but I never once remember watching a movie, let alone in multiple classes. We set aside a part of each day in that last week to clean our classrooms. Monday might be the washing of all the desks, Tuesday return textbooks to storage, Wednesday thoroughly wash the boards and sweep the floor, Thursday remove all papers and projects from the classroom and take them home, Friday hang out and relax and see our teacher as a pretty nice person overall, while daydreaming about swimming and street carnivals. 

The last week of school, for me, was fun. We got to be more creative, more physical, and more interactive than we'd been allowed the whole rest of the year. We were excited for summer and for being done, and we were relieved to learn our subjects without a grade attached.  

Instead, my son's teachers are cleaning their classrooms by themselves. Since no more grades will be given there seems to be no need for learning.  Practicing what they've already learned and integrating it into their life when the standardized tests are completed, appears pointless. Why bother taking up frivolous pursuits like relay races, jam sessions, or fun trivia games?  Is it really possible that on a certain day in June, everything there is to know about creative writing, jazz, physics, or Spanish was mastered so fully that there was just nothing left to do?  Have we trained our kids to only want to learn if a grade, an assessment from outside of themselves is given? Yikes!  

When my son said he wanted to ditch his last day and go to the beach instead, I said "yes". For one, how could I not reward such an honest kid with such a great argument? Secondly, I figured a cardio workout on his bike coupled with an "in the field" exploration of the natural environs of the Great Lakes was more productive and educational. 

Summertime

We didn't have air conditioning when I was growing up - at least not in our own home.  It had been invented (in case my kids are reading).  We lived in the basement.  Slightly damp but cool we watched Hogan's Heroes, Petticoat Junction, Beverly Hillbillies and any other sitcom reruns that played between noon and 3pm, the hottest part of the day.

July's Tomato Haul (Photo credit: statelyenglishmanor)

We visited my grandpa on his residential farm.  He had farmed most his life and couldn't seem to give it up.  He bought a couple of acres next to his ranch split level and planted rows and rows of corn and tomatoes, peppers and squash.  My grandfather would bring us kids in to the house and set us up with small juice glasses of Coke over ice.  It was the only time I really drank soda as a kid and I wished during every visit that his hand would move over just a little to the left and bring down the tall tumblers for our drinks.  We never left his home with less than two bushels of whatever was ripe.  Later at home my mom would can the tomatoes and cut the corn from the cob to freeze.  We'd eat as much as we could fresh but there was always too much.  She'd work furiously to get the veggies "put up" before they started to turn.

goodncrazy.com (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I remember sitting on the steps waiting for a breeze, playing in sprinklers, and drinking from the hose.  We had an above ground pool at two of our homes.  They were small but perfect for 10 year olds and great for keeping cool. Our vacations were always car trips to visit family, usually in New York or weekends camping.  We didn't have many organized camps or activities.  Our summers were a long, slow parade of tv shows, juice popsicles, and car rides, which by the way, also had no air conditioning.  It was windows rolled down, wind whipping our hair and deafening the space inside the car.

Sometimes summer was about bike ramps, races, being pushed off my bike and into the rosebushes, or having our bikes stolen.  It was about going to my friends house who had air conditioning and a turntable with 45's and listening to Eleanor Rigby.  Or it was about babysitting for the neighbor next door and wishing I could leave when the boyfriend came over and they started fighting.  It was witnessing the boys on the block slowly turn into tough guys, with their own little "chop shop" for stolen bikes (see above).

Summer is relaxed, the routines, the schedule, the demands are all a little loose.  The parental reins go slack.  Maybe it's just dozing at the beach while the kids bury each other in the sand.  Or maybe it's a few more hours of home alone time.  Or maybe it's the permission to go on their bike by themselves, around the block, or to the library, or across town.  Summer is adventure and exploration and sometimes a little danger. 

My boys joke that you can tell if you had a good summer by the number of scrapes and cuts on your knees.  Good or bad I'm not sure, but summer does seem to be a mix of juice pops and scrapes of one kind or another.