Overheard on the Phone

TR: I’ve got a lot of work to do when I get home tonight.
Me: Anything I can help you with?
TR: Not unless you want to write lesson plans.
Me: I don’t think you want me writing lesson plans.
TR: You’re probably right.
Me: “Okay, class, today we’re going to learn about mucous. Take out your tissues now… okay, now…blow!”
TR: What would be the objective of that lesson?
Me: To teach them that it’s important not to wipe their snot on each other. Duh.
TR: It has to relate to a State educational standard.
Me: Personal hygiene isn’t a State standard?
TR: No.
Me: Well, it should be.

Feeling Stupid?

Children have a way of making adults feel stupid. Not intentionally (at least I hope not), but they do. Here’s what I mean. I could be sitting down reading a book or watching t.v. or eating some liver or something, and one of my kids could look up from their homework and say, “Dad, what does ‘precocious’ mean?” Now, I know what precocious* means. If someone were to tell me, “That little girl is so precocious.” I’d understand what he meant. Asked to give a definition, however, I become completely stumped. My answer usually ends up sounding something like, “Um. Er. Precocious… preco… preco… hm. I know what it means… I’m just not sure how to define it… Hold on… er. Um. Look it up. I’m not sure how to describe it.”

See what I mean? Not only do I feel stupid, I think I’m giving my kids the impression that I’m stupid. FOX Broadcasting has capitalized on this phenomenon with their new game show Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? The show pits grownups against fifth graders and asks them questions like “What’s the capitol of Alabama?” When the contestant can’t answer, the audience gets a good laugh at his stupidity and the show goes on. But there is a difference between knowledge and intelligence. People rarely make the distinction, but it’s there. Just because I can’t recall a piece of information doesn’t make me stupid. Perhaps I never learned the information in the first place, which makes me uneducated not unintelligent. Or, like the poor guy that doesn’t know the capitol of Alabama, maybe I learned that answer 30 years ago and since I don’t live in Alabama, I’ve forgotten it.** Frankly, I think the show’s title is a little misleading. Maybe they should have called it Are You As Well-Versed In Trivial And Useless Knowledge As A Fifth Grader?, but then again, maybe that title is too long.

Maybe I should sit down and have a talk with my kids about how Dad really isn’t dumber than a box of rocks. I’m not sure it would do any good, especially when they bring me their math homework and ask me how to do it. Math was never very fun for me. Don’t get me wrong, I can add, subtract, multiply and divide with the best of them, but when it comes to algebra, my brain starts to quiver. It’s not that I never learned it. I took the classes in high school. It’s just that I’ve never used it in real life, and my brain has dismissed it as unimportant. Case in point, my daughter brought me a problem the other day and asked me to help her solve it. I took one look at it and said, “What problem?” There were some hash marks and squiggly lines and a number or two, but nothing I recognized. Like I said, kids can make you feel stupid.

*Precocious means unusually advanced or mature in development. I looked it up.

**Contrary to popular belief, the capitol of Alabama isn’t Birmingham. It’s Montgomery. I knew that, so I guess I’m smarter than a fifth grader.

This is an Easter egg… Well, maybe not. An Easter egg is traditionally colorful and oval in shape. A regular egg is white, so I guess this could be considered an egg, but it’s not oval in shape, so I guess that blows that theory. In any case, if you’re reading this, you can pat yourself on the back for being very clever for having noticed that there was some extra space at the bottom of this post. Well done!

Back to School Night of the Living Dead

Seriously. What’s the point of Back to School Night? I mean, I know what it’s supposed to be about, but it never really seems to achieve any of its goals.

• Parents are introduced to the faculty – A good idea, but in the context of Back to School Night, an impossible goal to achieve. Anyone who’s ever been to one of these things knows that it’s so crowded and noisy, and the school’s P.A. system is so bad, that if you don’t sit in the first four rows, all you are able to hear is, “I woul…mufflemufflemuffle… introdu… mufflemuffle… ipal, Mr. Smi… mufflemuffle.”
• Parents get to show their support for their children’s education – My children know I support their education. If I didn’t support their education, I wouldn’t be doing their homework for them every night.*
• Teachers get to meet parents and talk about their plans for the year – This only works in an elementary school environment. If the students have several different teachers, each one is only alloted 10 minutes to sum up their entire academic plan of action, and half of that time is spent getting parents in to the classrooms. And “meeting” parents? Forget it. Oh, sure they shake your hand and introduce themselves, but if you were to meet them on the street the next morning they wouldn’t know you from Adam. Not that I blame them. They’ve got over a hundred parents to meet.

This year my youngest daughter entered Jr. High Schoo… er… excuse me, I’ve been told that the new politically correct term is Middle School (though I don’t know what people find offensive about the word “Junior”). Her Back to School Night was on Wednesday, and since her mother was busy with prior obligations I took her (we usually go together). Something hit me that night, as we sat listening to her science teacher talk as fast as she could. I’m older than half of my daughter’s teachers this year! And in some cases, a lot older. Her science teacher, for instance, looks like she just graduated from High School. It was an odd feeling, because up until this point, I’ve always considered teachers to be older and wiser than me. That’s why they’re teachers. I suppose, with my wife being a kindergarten teacher and everything, I shouldn’t feel that way. I guess I did and just didn’t realize it. It was weird. I almost wanted to jump up and say, “Hey! You’re just a little kid. You can’t teach my child!” I resisted the urge, but it was there. So, I guess one of the purposes of Back to School Night this year was to contribute to my midlife crisis. Thanks Back to School Night.

As we walked home that night (we only live about 3 blocks from the school and I couldn’t see a reason to waste the gas), my daughter babbled on and on about nothing-in-particular. “I know. I’m talking too much and not making any sense.” She told me. “I do that when I don’t have much to say.” No, I thought, you’re my quiet one. You only babble like this when you’re excited about something. I doubted that it was Back to School Night, since she had looked as bored as I was through the whole thing. Then it hit me. She’s happy to be spending time with me! My eyes started to fill with sentimental tears.

That’s when the zombies attacked…

*If any of my children’s teachers are reading this… I was just kidding about the “doing their homework for them” thing. Really.