Another decision we made a long time ago is that he'll go to public school. There are wonderful private schools around here - we're at one of them right now, and they will soon offer kindergarten. But the public schools near us are darn good as public schools go and there's a lot to be said for public school. We'll take it.
In the Seattle school system, we get some say in the kindergarten assignment. Parents make a ranked list, and the school district juggles priorities including sibling placement and proximity to come out with the final word. In order to learn about the schools we have a month-long flurry of school tours. That's this month. It's quite the topic of conversation among the preschool set as you can imagine. We ourselves are basically choosing between two schools: Wedgwood Elementary, which is one block from us (obviously a major attraction), and Thornton Creek Elementary, which is about three-quarters of a mile away but is an alternative school with a project-based expeditionary learning program. I have colleagues with kids there and they like it very well. But one block is one block, and probably means all the kids on our street go there, so we wanted to take that seriously as well.
We have now visited both schools and Thornton Creek is the clear winner. That place has vision. The first six weeks of school, for example, are deliberately structured to build the relationships that serve as the basis for productive collaborations the rest of the year. At Wedgwood they said the first couple months are all about learning where to hang up your backpack and how to line up after recess. I don't doubt that they do that at Thornton Creek too, but what a difference in tone! Thornton Creek's principal was terrific -- well-spoken, very inspiring, very involved in all aspects of the program, and from what I hear a very strong advocate for the nonstandard choices that an alternative school has to negotiate with the school district. He's been there for 14 years as principal and 12 years as a teacher before that. Wedgwood's principal just finished her first year, and she seemed pretty ordinary. At Thornton Creek, the halls were full of kid art, there were none of those commercial educational posters that I hate with kids in a wheelbarrow saying "Cooperation gets us all moving!", and the art class was making book covers for books they had written themselves.
At Wedgwood, I happened to catch a class in the middle of an activity that was just comically bad except that it could be my own kid in there. Kids had their textbooks on one side and their workbooks on the other, copying information from one to the other; then a whole class discussion with "Mara, what countries border Egypt? Libya and Sudan? Does anyone have a different answer? Israel, that's correct Dylan. Sarah, what is the area of Egypt? What are the units? Good, thank you." Hello? What about the area of Egypt? Is it BIG? "Ben, what is the unit of currency? Pounds, that's right. Don't worry about the exchange rate, that changes every day so we don't need to know it." Whaat? The exchange rate is the thing that tells you how that other currency relates to the one that you use! I agree, the number itself is not important, but neither are any of those other numbers. I stood there and just sagged. I know, it's public school and there most certainly will be a class like that in Jordan's future. I just hope he gets how stupid it is, and thinks it's a stupid class rather than that all formal learning is stupid.
Now comes the strategizing. After putting Thornton Creek first, what schools should we list so as NOT to be admitted to those others? sigh.
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