Spelling Test Follow-Up

As a follow up to my last post, I thought I would proudly display my son’s first perfect spelling test.  I guess I’ll send a check next month.

Jake’s spelling test!

Montexpensive!

Every parent who makes the decision to transfer their child from the public schools to a private school ultimately comes to the decision that THIS will be what is best for my child. We believe that any academic inadequacies that were present in the public school system will be resolved in the new school. Not that we assume the child will go from a dunce to top of the class, but we are positive that they will be given the space in which to blossom academically within their capabilities. Maybe they will even be flagged as gifted! Each parent has additional reasons for the switch, but academics are usually the #1 reason that parents choose to spend the money to send their child to a school that they have deemed “better” than what the public schools have provided for free*.

This decision was a very difficult one for my family, primarily because I have been a visible advocate for the CH-UH Schools for four years. I have spoken at various school board meetings, co-founded ECHO (Early Childhood in the Heights Organization), volunteered to plant flowers, coordinated the “Box Tops 4 Education” program and appeared as the “Dinosaur Lady” at Career Day. I believe that strong public schools have the power to build strong minds and strong communities. Further, quality public schools are THE key to economic prosperity.

However, after a year in a public school where my son seemed to go from academically above average to below average and where my darling child was being bullied, my husband and I decided that a Montessori environment would be best for him. He agreed. After spending one day trying out the school, my son came bounding out of the building saying, “Oh Mommy, I have to go here!” And so we enrolled him.

The tricky thing about Montessori is that there is very little in the way of outward assessment. My son has no homework to speak of and does not receive grades. The only way I have to evaluate how he’s doing comes in the form of his weekly spelling tests. So far, I am less than impressed with his inability to memorize and retain information. We work on his spelling words every night. I try to teach him easy ways to remember how to spell words. He writes each word five times and then spells them out loud to me. And after all of this, when he goes to bed, I am sure that he’s got “fruit” and “shoe” and “cake” in his little brain. Friday continually proves me wrong when on his spelling test I find “froit” and “shoo” and “Kake”. I find this so frustrating, particularly because our family is now forking out Big Bucks for him to learn.  Add to this his seeming inability to remember basic addition and subtraction and his constant reports that he “did angles” all day, and I’m wondering, did we do the right thing? Not only do I feel like he isn’t learning anything new, but I also feel like he forgot anything he learned last year.

Part of me knows that the Montessori Method is quite different than traditional school learning, and that while it may seem like he’s not learning anything, the skills he is developing will help him to learn better in the future.  But then there is the other part of me, the part that controls the checkbook, that says every month, “I can’t believe I’m paying for this.”

There is hope. Next week we have a parent-intstructress conference, which is an actual assessment of how he’s doing. Maybe I will learn that my perception is completely incorrect. Maybe this Friday, my son will pass his spelling test. Maybe he will “get” that any single number plus 10 is the teen-equivalent of that number. Maybe not. In the meantime, I will continue to write the checks with fingers crossed that we made the right decision and that he will grow up happy, healthy, and able to think. 

* Of course public school is not free. Our taxes pay for public school, and in Cleveland Heights, we pay a great deal in taxes for the public schools. So in a way, my family is paying for two schools, one of which my child attends and the other where he does not attend, but still uses the playground.

Happy Birthday Aunt Robin

Today would have been my Aunt Robin’s 47th birthday. She died in May 2001 of a brain aneurysm. My husband and I got the news that she collapsed at work on our 2nd wedding anniversary. We were heading out the door to a seafood restaurant when we got the call from my Dad. All that day I had dreamed of crab cakes. During dinner however, I don’t think I took more than a couple bites while trying to hold back my tears. 

I’ve been thinking about Robin a lot lately. The other day when I finished my morning run, I was suddenly remembering the time that she and my Uncle Michael (who also passed away at an early age) were cheering for me at a dance concert. I had won an award for selling the most tickets to the show, and I still recall as clear as day where they were sitting and how obnoxiously they cheered when the emcee called my name. I was so embarrassed, but I look on it fondly now.  As I walked up the hill toward my house out of breath, the vision came flooding back out of nowhere, and tears fell.

Truth be told, I didn’t even like my Aunt Robin very much as I was growing up. She wasn’t as young and hip as my Aunt Heidi. She didn’t live in our town; so she wasn’t as frequently in my face as my Aunt Jenny. She didn’t really shower me with love or gifts. She was busy and bossy. She called me twerp and terd. She had extremely long hair that kind of freaked me out. So much was my dislike for her; I named a pig that would one day be breakfast meat for our family, “Aunt Robin”.

During high-school and college our relationship changed. We became very close, mostly because the things I needed to talk about were things I didn’t dare share with my own mother. She was a single woman from the “big city” with so much life experience to share, and she seemed to understand me in a way that no one else did. I would drive to Erie (thus the quotes around big city) to go out to lunch with her. I would call her for advice. I would write her letters about my exploits. When I decided to move to Montana to escape a toxic relationship, she was one of the people who helped me make the decision.  When I returned triumphant and more grounded with a new fiancé, she greeted me with open arms and threw me a bridal shower.

There are times that I will watch my wedding video just to see her “alive” again. I have this need to keep her memory since she had no children of her own. I try to tell my son about her when I can, and I still have a few things of hers that I refuse to give up or throw away.  Robin was not perfect or a saint, but she was fun and full of life. She jumped out of airplanes, went parasailing, ran in 5Ks and rocked crack babies at the hospital. She was my Mother’s best friend and my confidant. She was opinionated and stubborn, and she worked hard to be a better person.

My son has recently started learning Italian at school and with each new word, I hear Robin in my ear correcting his pronunciation. (She was married to an Italian once upon a time.) When I hear it, I die a little inside knowing how much she would have absolutely loved him, and what a great, great-aunt she would have been to him.

Today I will honor her birthday by trying to remember every little thing I can about her and thanking her silently for the small part she played in making me the woman I am today.

  Happy Birthday Robbie.