Mommage

Homeschooling

There were many times I considered homeschooling my son, not because I thought it was better, but only because I felt he wasn't learning enough in the classroom due to his behavioral problems.  Every time I came close to making a final decision, however, things would improve at school causing me to change my mind.  Two things bothered me about the idea of homeschooling.  One was the lack of social interaction, and the other was the fact that I am not a teacher and am not qualified to teach.

Apparently I'm not the only one concerned about a parent's lack of teaching expertise.

Sticks and Stones

Kindergarten is supposed to be one of the least stress-related times in a child's school life. Unfortunately for five-year-old Alex Barton, it will be remembered as one of the most.

This is by no means a new story. As many of you probably know, in April of this year, Wendy Portillo, a kindergarten teacher in Port St. Lucie Florida decided to punish Alex Barton for behavioral issues by having him stand in front of the class while his classmates systematically told him what they don't like about him (one called him "disgusting") then voted him out of the class "Survivor"-style by a 14-2 margin. The one friend Alex had made in the class was also forced to participate. What may be even worse is that Portillo apparently knew Alex Barton was undergoing testing for Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism.

Handcuffed at School

A five year old kindergartener at a public school in Queens, New York, was put on a chair and handcuffed behind his back by a school safety agent.  According to this report, he allegedly threw a tantrum and was taken to the principal's office where he apparently knocked items off a desk.  The police report says the child was "punching his teacher and swinging wildly at school aides, that he smacked the assistant principal in the face, ran into a corner, and began to throw things on the floor."  The boy suffers from asthma, has speech problems, and may have attention deficit disorder.  He had two other tantrums the previous week and was transported by EMS to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.

The Union representing the safety officer said cuffing the child was the last resort, because this particular child could not be controlled.  The New York Civil Liberties Union calls this an example of "criminalization of the classroom" and says that school officers have a history of going too far, and that the situation with school discipline is out of control.

No one ever wants to witness a child in handcuffs, but I definitely see two sides to this issue.

Good News!

As some of you already know, my son's behavior has been a problem over the years, both at home and in school. Through it all, however, he has always managed to get good grades and has also been having a love affair with numbers since he was an infant.  So you can imagine my delight when I came across this article, stating that "preschool math and reading skills predict later academic success, but behavioral problems and social skills don't".

Granted, the theory is surrounded by controversy, but based upon my own experience with my son, I think there's a lot of truth behind it.  Here's why.

MRSA--Methicillin-Resistant Staph Aureus

As some of you may know, my son was hospitalized in early September for four days.  He had Methicillin-Resistant Staph Aureus also known as MRSA.  This particular strain of staph infection used to only be found in hospitals and nursing homes, now it is being found in the community at an alarming rate.  Here in Virginia a 17 year old male athlete died from MRSA on October 15, and since then many, many cases have been reported all over the state. 

This hits particularly close to home for me because of the fact that my son was hospitalized with this.  Luckily my son is okay, but had to be hospitalized to receive intravenous antibiotics.  My son had a bump just under his nose, it looked sort of like a pimple.  I was not that alarmed until I came home from work the next night to find his lip red and swollen.  We took him to Urgent Care where they placed him on Rocephin by IV and told us to bring him back the next day for another dose.  The next day when I took him, the same doctor that he saw the first day, said that he needed to be admitted because the antibiotic given to him the day before was not working and in fact the infection was spreading.

The First Day of School

Mike Levine was the Executive Editor and former columnist of the Times Herald Record, my local newspaper.  On January 14, 2007, at 54 years of age, he died suddenly of a heart attack.  Mike's columns were a part of people's lives, and there was nothing he wrote about that I did not relate to.  The following column has become a tradition to the readers of his newspaper.  He published it for the final time last year.

The First Day of School
September 5, 2006

Dear Reader,

I wrote this column a decade ago. Since then, parents have told me it's a way they mark the arrival of September's first school bus.  I've added a few lines for today.  Here's to a safe and healthy year for all our children: