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Classes keep interrupting recess
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___It took two weeks, but we've finally reached the whines of "I don't want to go to school." That's actually a new record for our boys, who generally like school and do well there but seem to take comfort in complaining early and often about the interruption to their pl
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MARK WINGFIELD
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ay time.
___ "It seems like a year until lunchtime comes," Luke wailed Sunday night at bedtime as he made his unsuccessful case for why he shouldn't have to go to school the next morning.
___ Garrett chimed in to explain that in his measurement, it seemed like certain individual activities of the day passed as slowly as a year.
___ I had heard this argument all the way from dinnertime to bedtime, and my heart was not full of compassion.
___ I encouraged them to find something positive about school (knowing full well there were many positives to be noted).
___ Nothing positive could be said, they intoned, because the subjects they like the best pass the quickest, leaving them to roast in torment during the subjects they like the least.
___ "Music seems to last a year, but art only lasts 10 minutes," Garrett said, giving away his preference for the highly creative art teacher over the unknown quantity of the new music teacher.
___ Surely they're studying hyperbole, I thought, after hearing these extreme declarations.
___ When asked by family friends over the last two weeks what they like best about school so far, both Luke and Garrett have quickly replied, "Recess." Everything else is almost unbearable, they added.
___ Funny, then, that Luke came home one day last week with an eager explanation of how the lungs work in conjunction with the diaphragm. He even told me in explicit detail how you could do an experiment with two balloons and a plastic Coke bottle to demonstrate the in-and-out effect of breathing.
___ Sounds really boring, huh?
___ Maybe they'll both come around to realize how much fun they're having learning. I won't hold my breath, though.
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___If you haven’t already figured it out, our children tend to be a bit melodramatic. We foresee drama sometime in their future (as if they don’t create enough of their own drama around here).
___ The
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ALISON WINGFIELD
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first week of school, all I heard about was how boring it was and how the teachers just went over the rules and everything was a repeat from last year. Complain, complain, complain.
___ The second week was a different tune. Now everything was too hard, and they didn’t understand it, and how were they going to survive. Whine, whine, whine.
___ How quickly things change. I asked Luke how he was doing with this new math concept introduced in class that he had told me was impossible to understand. "Oh, that," he replied offhandedly. "That’s easy, Mom. I just didn’t understand it at first."
___ I had to bite my tongue so the famous words "I told you so" wouldn’t pop out of my mouth.
___ Now that we’re into the third week, I’m waiting for the big homework to hit, and then we’ll get a combination of complaining and whining along with a bit of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Life is interesting when school starts.
___ My strategy with the boys is to help them find the good in the day and focus on that. And then I pray that God helps me to do the same.
Mark Wingfield is managing editor of the Standard. Alison Wingfield is a freelance writer. The Wingfields moved to Texas from Louisville, Ky., where Mark had been editor of the Western Recorder, in which this column appeared weekly. |
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