Back to School; Drool!

Back To School; Drool!

Here in New Mexico school has started.  I hate school. The amount of scheduling it forces on our family is probability the same amount it forces on your family, its just I have no tolerance for it.....I hate schedules unless I invent them. I hate homework, and you have heard me rant on group science fair projects....

Like you, we received the back to school shopping list, which annoys me.  I get why the teachers need the kids to bring in tissues, I don't get why a particular notebook is better than the next or why on the first day of school I need to send him in with 24 pencils.  I would prefer to hand the school a 20 dollar bill.  At least here in NM we have a weekend of tax free shopping....which I avoid like the plague since the saved 7.25 percent is not worth the increase in my blood pressure.  

School started Thursday, and by Thursday night we had a revised supplies list from the teachers....ugg. Why give me a list at all if its gonna change? I try to resist buying anything until after the first few days, but the lovely Red Headed Wonder is a teacher and feels she will be shunned or ostracized if our requisite 3 boxes of tissues, 24 pencils and 5 markers are received two days late.  You all have gone through this too, I'm sure.

Now here is the wrinkle.  Monster came home and told us that his History Teacher has assigned a writing task to the parents....we were to write about him. This I'm sure is not something you have done, and if you have, we need to talk.

For those of you who knew me in high school, you may remember I had a special relationship with a certain Junior level High School History teacher.  He would make open ended writing assignments, or dubious claims while lecturing and I would make a point of taking issue and arguing with him for the fun of it.  I made a bit of a sport out of the ridiculous arguments since I was a good foot taller than him and he often made silly mistakes.  

Imagine my delight when 20 plus years later I was afforded the same opportunity. Here is the rub, I generally don't think you can learn things of value about a person reading a simple narrative, I also didn't like the idea of this last minute parental work....should have been on the list.  So as I sat down to write, venom on my tongue and nostalgic thoughts wafting through my head, I had intended to punish the teacher a bit.  Subjecting her to enough poor grammar and Jimmish that she would think twice in the future.  Instead I found it almost impossible to write about the kid, without writing about myself, and it made me realize how similar we are and how inescapable the effect we have on our children is. 

Below is the letter I wrote, I think if it were graded I would get a C- but I'm publishing it just the same since I think it shows how the writing transformed from my intended diatribe....to a more wandering digest as one thought led to the next. I stopped writing when I ran out of time and reread it, then I realized just how poorly I had done.  Perhaps you will be assigned something similar and will do better than me in separating yourself from your kid. I found it nearly impossible to effect that separation, and I'm not at all sorry about it.  

Hello, I am Monsters  Father, Jim.  When Monster told me I needed to write an essay for his history teacher, I was initially over taken with nostalgia and joy since when I was his age and well into high school I took great pride in writing fairly obnoxious essays in response to my History teachers open ended writing assignments.   Careful to meet the exact requirement of the assignment, I could turn a writing assignment comparing ancient Mesopotamians to their contemporary civilizations, into a discussion whatever I thought would annoy the teacher at the time.  My essays became fairly entertaining to my classmates, who hoped the teacher would learn the lesson and stop assigning the writing.  My teacher hoped I would learn how to spell and use proper grammar. 

At the time, my writing was heavily influenced by the large amount of classic literature I was digesting, and so I tended to use big words and enjoyed fairly archaic and flamboyant sentence structure. Unfortunately, that reading did not translate into the ability to memorize spelling words.  In fact, when asked by my teacher why I had not spell checked my work, I would reply that I had. When he would inevitably counter with 

“Had you spell checked, you would have caught these errors.” 

Which is a standard teacher rebuttal from the days before word processing, and one which I was well ready for.  

“If I spelled the words incorrectly, what makes you think that re-reading the writing will somehow show me my mistake?”   

“But they are obvious errors” 

“They are not obvious to me, do you think I spell them incorrectly on purpose?” 

“No” 

“Suppose I do re-read and spell check and see that I misspelled a word, how then will I know how to spell it”, I would ask, baiting the teacher into the trap.  

“You could use a dictionary.” 

My response, “Dictionaries are books arranged in alphabetical order and define words, if you don’t know how to spell a word, you can’t find it in the dictionary.” 

By now the class was in disarray and my work was done.

The most accomplished eulogist, with the highest intentions, will tell you that distilling a persona into the two dimensional world of text, cheapens life. Each word chips away the spirit and unfairly locks down nuanced personalities into a single perspective. Our children are a reflection of ourselves in every way.  Monster is the culmination of a whole series of choices my wife and I made, driven by our genetics, luck, nature and love.  So the previous story might give you a better perspective on Monster than any direct narrative could.  Not to say, he will interrupt your class, but if he does argue with you, I might be a little proud.

Since the assignment was to discuss my son, and since I have made myself comfortable on this page, I might as well try to write about him, assuming you grant me due concessions for lapsing into a personal discussion and the two dimensionality of it all. After all, he did not fall far from the tree.

The first thing you should know, is Monster chose Monster.  He, like the rest of us; was named James and for the longest time refused any of the diminutive derivations. My grandfather was Monster, my father Jimmer, I hated Monster and chose Jim; he picked Monster just after we moved to NM.

Monster is a smart boy, my wife who is an educator, will tell you he is gifted.  He has always had a strong interest in animals and by the time he was 4 could wander through the Smithsonian Natural History Museum and practically give a tour. 

In our family we question things, we question everything.  You will see Monster do the same. I believe and taught him that work should be justified, otherwise its busy work which is a pointless endeavor, therefor the idea of homework is hard for us both to swallow.   

Monster reads a lot, but I haven’t figured out yet if he values history.  My wife and I come from two different camps on history.  I’m a geologist, so I’m all about history, and consider the human part our planets history almost as interesting as the 4 billion years that preceded it; I’m curious to know what will follow in the post human world 4 billion years from now.  My wife has a different perspective so, its possible Monster will fall in the middle, though he does not appreciate earth science like I had hoped.

Monster is an artist and is very creative.  His doodle books are full of imagined fantastic things drawn by hand with a skill that mirrors his mother.  There is part of me that thinks he will make an excellent tattoo artist in 10 years.

We are not patient people.  We are from the east coast and while New Mexico has been home for 4 years, it can only calm you down in small increments.  I have been known to say “Asking for patience is like asking for forgiveness of one’s own ineptitude” I have not heard Monster say this, but I know he likes things well planned out, would prefer to be in charge than tolerate bad leadership, and thinks any type of group project is akin to the 7^th layer of hell. 

Monster has a taste for unique experiences, we see him order the strangest thing on the menu at restaurants, he loves to play Jazz, has learned to fence and is ranked in the state for archery.  Team sports are not his thing, but he excels at things that require singular focus and accuracy. He has traveled, likes to camp and this summer was spent at his grandparents homes in Eastern Pennsylvania.  He knows what good pizza is, and knows you can’t find it in New Mexico.

I have the ability to quickly invent answers to questions I do not know the answer to.  This super skill is called Bullshitting as I’m sure you are aware.  Monster has been exposed to this his entire life and is developing his own skills.  Currently, they are manifesting as a dry sense of humor that enjoys Monty Python, Arrested Development, The Oatmeal, and the hitchhikers Guide.  Monster’s eyes gleam when he lies and twinkle when he tries to pull the BS, but like Jedi his skills improve daily.  The BS that he has been exposed to also makes him fairly skeptical.

I am proud of my son and hope he applies himself in your class.  I imagine by now you may be a bit frightened that my writing style and lack of grammar has infected him.  It’s probably too soon to tell.  It is too soon to know much about the boy, however everyone I know who has met him, is interested to see where he will take his life.  All we can do is guide him a bit and hold on for the ride.