school daze

My sister Kassie has a knack for collecting unique words and phrases.  Her latest cool word is "redonkulous."  Think "ridiculous" plus "dumb."  I fell hard for the word and now use it a lot.  So much, in fact, that for a while Micah was running around saying, "Thas redonk-you-luss." 

Anywho, the emails we receive from Sage's school are the epitome of redonkulous.  I just had to share the latest email from her principal as well as Shane's response (A note: Shane mentions us being Conservative but in reality we fall more in line with the Independent crowd-but in reality we would like to wash our hands of all politicians and politics).

This bit of redonkulous-ness is for you Kass (extra special drivel is highlighted).

Greetings BCSIS and High Peaks Parents,

A collaborative group of parents from both of our wonderful schools has come together to discuss ways we can support a positive recess experience on the playground for all of our children. We have met as a group and have so far come up with goals, parent roles and a fabulous training opportunity for what we’re calling the Positive Playground Initiative. We welcome your input and participation to make this a success! 

Goals for the Positive Playground Initiative

   •  Increased parent presence on the playground – having plenty of adults on the ground during recess creates a more positive and supportive environment for our children.

    • Providing optional cooperative games and shared playground equipment between schools, e.g. an organized station of balls, hoops, etc. with laminated ‘game cards’ that describe playground games;

   • Bridging kids between both schools through positive experiences – i.e. finding ways for kids from both schools to connect and play together. We believe this will translate into increased positive play during recess.

    • Cultivate and sustain a positive playground culture, i.e. supporting important play principles such as respect, sharing, inclusion, conflict resolution, and sportsmanship.

Roles for the Parents- help out on the playground during recess!

The role of the parent volunteers would be to help support games and sport activities on the playground, support students who need help connecting with other children, and generally being a positive presence on the playground. Parents would not be expected to discipline children, nor to mediate in heated conflicts. Having more adult volunteers present on the playground would support the school personnel in dealing with discipline issues and conflict between children.

The games and sports activities we are proposing on the playground are optional for children.  We realize that some children are perfectly content with unstructured time. However, there are many students at recess who would benefit from the presence of even more caring, friendly adults to help them problem-solve and make connections.

Training and Volunteering

The Positive Playground Initiative launches with a training of core parents and staff. As a volunteer you will receive a 3 hour training from PlayWorks - a national organization whose mission is to promote positive play experiences on school playgrounds. The date for this Playground Workshop is Friday April 6, 2012 from 8:30-11:30 in the Gym. To participate in the training we ask for a commitment of one recess slot per week (30-40 minutes) as a parent volunteer for the remainder of the school year.  We hope that this core of parents will be interested in continuing their playground volunteerism next year as well. As the Positive Playground Initiative expands, we will bring on additional parent volunteers who will be trained in-house and recruited for playground volunteering this year and next.

Please contact Kael to sign up for the Playground Workshop as soon as possible. Space is limited.

Thank you and we look forward to seeing some of you at the training and on the playground. We believe this will be a rewarding experience for you and the children.

And Shane's response:

Phil,  

It's been a while since I've commented on your emails, which have been noticeably less frequent.
  
With all do respect Phil, this is the most ridiculous idea I've heard in a long time.  It may not be you personally, but someone is trying way to hard and it's going to back fire.  Kids know way more than adults.  They forgive and forget, they have way more fun, are more real, communicate way better than adults and are more sincere, generous and loving.  Can't you see that being around so many kids? 
 
Here's what you need to do.  Get all of the adults off of the play ground and just let them be kids.  Aren't you and many of the school leadership liberal in your belief systems?  It's so ironic to me, as a conservative, that liberals like to have more rules, more suggestions and more oversight then us conservatives.  We don't need more rules, especially the kids.

In a previous email, describing other playground rules, my wife and I literally laughed out loud as it described how kids can't play chase games unless all the kids agreed.  And that kids couldn't be mean to each other.  It's a joke.  Just let them play and be kids.

The adults should observe the kids to see how to behave.  What do adults know about proper communication?  Have you watched the news lately?  Do you honestly think that adults are good role models for kids?  It's the opposite my friend.

Phil, you guys try way too hard.  Too hard to make sure everything is fair, to make sure that no one ever has their feelings hurt, that there is a rule for every single thing.  It's a joke, really Phil and I'm sure that there is a better way to spend your time as the principle.  Have you checked the stats of our American school children do academically compared to other industrialized countries on our planet?  We're no where near the top.  But we definitely have plenty of play ground rules and plenty of other rules to make sure that no one is better than anyone else, that we're all the same, no one can excel because that would mean someone is failing, and that just wouldn't be very nice, that child might even cry.

And I already know your response.  You're going to be fair, thank me for expressing my opinion, that I'm an honored parent and you just want to do the right things.  I know you work hard and deal with a lot, but someone needs to stand up for standards, for right and wrong, and put a stop to the silliness that is represented in these ridiculous ideas that somehow, we need parents hovering over these kids during recess. 

These kids are not being properly prepared for the real world.  Ya, sometimes the real world isn't so nice, and it's not fair to try and create this artificial, perfect utopia while kids are in school, only to have them fail when they get out, or worse, become an entitled adult who can't be tough, handle failure, get up again and keep on trying until they succeed. The real world doesn't have recess monitors holding everyone's hand. 

It's silly Phil.

Enjoy the rest of your day. 

I'll be spending 9+ hours working my tail off to provide for my family.  I'll be fighting, overcoming weaknesses, working through fatigue, and doing everything possible to provide well for my family in an environment where if I don't try very hard, and keep on getting up after failures and disappointments, and never ever give up, I'll lose my business and have nothing for my family.  Fortunately, I didn't have people holding my hand while I grew up, and I learned to fail, and keep on going.