Finding Peace

In March my middle child experienced a situation at the school he was then attending, which resulted in him being disciplined. He wasn't allowed to participate with the track team, and he was given a written disciplinary notice that went into his file. The situation happened during a field trip, and after much discussion between the parents of some students involved as well as some of the teachers involved, I was convinced the teachers were more at fault than any of the students. It seemed the teachers were not supervising the rather large group of students carefully, which resulted in some of the students behaving badly. My son, though he did not actually participate in the bad behavior, was deemed guilty by association. Needless to say, I was furious with how the teachers as well as the administration of the school handled the discipline. This was the beginning of the end for my son attending this school.

The end of his attending this particular school came after two teachers involved in the field trip incident continued to treat my son badly. I was quite vocal about my feelings about the whole matter, and in response, these two teachers took it upon themselves to do everything within their power to prove to me what a bad child I have. It got so bad that my son refused to get out of bed in the mornings to get ready for school. He refused to do his homework, ending up in tears each evening as we sat at the kitchen table, me encouraging him to continue on, him sitting there with tears on his cheeks. Everytime I asked him to talk to me about what was happening, he would just shake his head. Finally, one day I emailed both teachers, asking them if they could possibly send me the homework assignments so I could have them, look over them before the nightly session at the kitchen table. Both teachers refused to send me the assignments, saying the students spend ten minutes each day copying the assignments into their agendas. My question was while the kids are doing this, why couldn't the teachers use that same time to shoot me an email with the assignments listed? Both replied if they did it for me they would have to do it for all the parents. My answer was, yeah, so and this is a problem why? It's not difficult to make a group email account. It's not difficult to attach documents. It wasn't lost on me that these two just didn't want to work with me. So much for parents being involved with their kids' education.

The day these two teachers refused to help me out, I took my son out of that school and enrolled him in the public school not far from our house. The change has been absolutely dramatic. This 12 year old boy went from not wanting to get out of bed to getting up early to shower, dress, eat, and make sure he had all his schoolwork together. His whole demeanor went from dark and gloomy to sunny and happy. His grades went from C's and D's to A's and B's. At the end of the school year, my son thanked me for taking him out of his old school and putting him in the new school. Today, that boy is still eager to go to school, is earning honor roll grades, and is finding out there are nice, caring teachers out there.

So, why tell all this? Because one of the offending teachers used to be a good friend of mine. We have sons who are in the same grade and are friends. Now, however, we don't speak and our sons don't spend time together outside of school. For awhile I tried to talk to her, tried to mend fences, tried to keep our boys together, but she continues to offer the cold shoulder. She no longer speaks to me unless I make a point to speak to her first. She no longer allows her son to spend the night with my son, and if her son does come over, she will not pick him up herself; she sends her husband or her oldest to get him. I've been very sad about the whole situation. The other day, though, I finally gave myself permission to let it go. I decided she didn't want to be friends any longer and nothing I do is going to change that. I also decided I did not have to be friendly to someone who didn't want me to be. Interestingly enough, at that moment, I saw this individual walking towards me as I was dropping my youngest off at school (he still attends there since that's the only school he's ever attended and all his friends are there). I simply turned the other way and left. A feeling of relief flowed through me, like with this decision I had created a kind of peace for myself.

I like peace.

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