Why the Tiny Tornado Likes School

At the end of August--one day after my last post--I began a post-baccalaureate program in communication and speech disorders, with the hope of eventually going to graduate school in Speech Language Pathology. And from there, getting an actual job. And earning an actual income. This is something I'm doing partly to resolve my mid-life crisis, when I found myself envying everyone I met who had a profession, and partly for the family's economic well-being. We are on the other side of the financial meltdown that was our custody fight with the Tiny Tornado's birthfather, and one thing that has gotten clear to me, as the family money manager, is that it's going to be a very long time before we can make up for the savings we blew through and the savings we weren't able to put away. If, indeed, we can ever make up for it.

 

In particular, there's no way we'll catch up before the Lego Savant, now 11, reaches the going-to-college and/or backpacking-around-the-world stage of life. But if all goes more or less according to our somewhat vague plans, I will be starting to earn an income just in time to use it to pay his tuition and/or travel expenses. I hope he appreciates my sacrifice.

Anyway, the addition of two classes--Language Development, and Introduction to Phonetics--to my schedule has made the last month the busiest one I can remember in a very long time. Both classes are time-consuming, especially Phonetics, which requires learning a whole new way to hear speech, and transcribe it using the International Phonetic Alphabet:

From http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/course/chapter1/chapter1.html

Also this month, all three kids have been in swimming lessons; the Tiny Tornado and I are taking the dogs to Circus Dogs class; I'm finally reconvening my robotics team; The Older Two are doing Odyssey of the Mind; and The Older Two and I have gotten a fresh start on the year's homeschooling. Every day, I am as busy as I can be, and yet I never finish everything I think I should finish. This past weekend, I was able to get out my crocheting for the first time since I started classes, so I may be getting on top of things. But I don't feel very solid about it yet. It could all so easily come crashing down. A sprained ankle, a case of the flu, an unexpected need to go out of town: doom.

Getting on the pedestal at Circus Dogs class

The Tiny Tornado also began school this fall. Specifically, he is in Begindergarten, a class our local school district offers to kids who are technically old enough for Kindergarten but perhaps not ready developmentally. His class of 20 is 75% boys, and the "birthdays" chart the teacher put on the wall is hilariously jam-packed with September, October, and November birthdays...and then nothing for the rest of the year.

Going to school took some adjusting. He was pretty nervous at first, and was one of the cling-and-cry kids, though he always settled in and did fine once I left. Last week, we had our first tear-free good-bye. And this week, he hasn't even bothered to say good-bye, dashing into the classroom without so much as a wave in my direction.

He is such a busy, active kid that I worried he'd have trouble in school, especially since our district went to full-day kindergarten this year. Seven hours! That's a lot of school for a little guy. For me, and for The Older Two, that much time with other people would have overwhelmed us. I used to come home from school and veg out with the TV or with books, and I begged off a lot of days with vague symptoms of illness just because I needed a break (and I thank my mom whole-heartedly for letting me do this even though she knew I wasn't really sick). The Older Two recently spent several days in a row with their best friends, who are also brothers, including some sleepovers. When they came home after the third day of togetherness, within two minutes each had disappeared behind a closed bedroom door, not to emerge for hours.

The Older Two Emerge from their Hermitages

The Tiny Tornado is a different breed. Energetic and extroverted, he's not even particularly tired at the end of the school day, and he's up for more action. One day this week, I picked him up from school, took him to the park for an hour while we waited for The Older Two to get out of Odyssey of the Mind, had a quick dinner, and took him to his swim lesson. After which he begged to play on the playground at the Y for a bit before going home to bed. I now understand how there can be children who not only attend school but also do extracurricular activities. That had always been a mystery to me.

I was thinking this morning about why he does fine in school behaviorally, why his high energy doesn't get him in trouble. Three daily recesses plus a rotating schedule of art, music, and gym certainly help. But I think another part of it is that it keeps him busy. It focuses his energy; there's always something for him to pay attention to. He is never unsure of what he should be doing, something he struggles with at home.

And, I think school suits his talent for, and love of, carrying out processes. He is a very concrete, action-focused kid, and his talent for thinking through a sequence of tasks and carrying it out emerged early. This is the source of a lot of his mischief-making; it's not that he's rebelling against rules, per se, or doesn't want to listen to us when we tell him, say, "No, you may not fix yourself an omelet." It's that he has no trouble figuring out the steps involved in fixing the omelet [not a real example; he doesn't use the stove on his own], and he knows he's capable of it, so it makes no sense to him that we don't want him to do it.

Not too tired for swim class after a long day at school

 

From a very young age, you could give him a series of tasks to carry out, like, "Hang your coat on the hook, put your boots on the rug, go use the bathroom, change into dry socks, and then come to the table for your snack." And he could do it. Likewise, he could narrate a series of tasks for you: "Mom, will you make popcorn? You need to get the popper down from there, and get the popcorn out of the cupboard, and put a little oil in, and then use the white cup thing to scoop the popcorn, and turn the stove on, and then turn the crank. And you'll need the blue bowl, and you can put the butter in the microwave. Here, I got you this cup to put the butter in."

And what is school, with all its routines, but a series of processes to be mastered? He loves the choatic efficiency of the arrival routine: if his blue folder came home with him the night before, put it in the folders basket; put his lunch in the lunches basket, and his morning snack in the snacks basket; go to the smartboard and move his name to the column for his lunch selection; put anything he brought from home and can't use at school into his backpack; hang his backpack and jacket on his hook in the closet; go to his seat and get started on his morning "work," usually a math activity or coloring page.

He loves the procedures for checking out and returning library books; for going to lunch and from there to recess; for going to music class and gym and the computer lab; for circulating through the room during "centers" time (each center another set of processes to be engaged in! Card lacing! Finger-painting! Using the bear counters!). He loves that he has jobs to do, whether that's setting out the lunchboxes on the counter so that kids can easily find their own, or helping return the class's books to the library, or making sure the classroom calendar shows the correct date.

He enjoys the little rituals his teacher uses to get their attention and to keep order. When all the kids have finished the morning routine and are at their seats, she gets their attention by clapping a rhythm which they repeat... and then freeze. After a period when they can talk freely, she quiets them by counting down from five to "zero noise." The kids make their "zero hands" and raise them above their heads. (The other day when I volunteered to help with centers, I admired that the teacher could also use her "zero hand" to remind kids to be quiet when she was talking without having to interrupt herself. Though, of course, she still had to interrupt herself quite a bit.)

The Tiny Tornado is even fascinated with the procedure for discipline, which he has told me about many times. Minor infractions are "green" and cost a minute of recess; bigger ones, "yellow," cost three minutes; the biggest, "red": cost FIVE WHOLE MINUTES. Although he has never been disciplined, he finds the prospect of discipline intriguing, and I think he likes that there is a SYSTEM which can be DESCRIBED as an organized PROCESS. (He also voyeuristically keeps an eye on who is disciplined, and often reports to me at the end of the day if anyone got a Green, Yellow, or Red. Poor Carter...I hear his name a lot.)

I remember when I figured out what being an extrovert really meant for the Tiny Tornado. We were at the Midwinter Gathering when he was 2 1/2, and I realized halfway through the weekend that, whereas taking the Older Two to a conference at that age always meant managing their stimulation level, the Tiny Tornado was more focused and better-behaved than he ever was at home. Being in a group of people actually calms him down, I think by giving him the stimulation he needs.

So: school. It's all crowds. It's all doing things. It's all processes. For the Tiny Tornado, it's all good.

I make no predictions for the future; if he stays in school in coming years, he may find the shift to more seatwork and less hands-on activity not to his liking. But Begindergarten? That's where he's a viking.