I am Simon Jester

Last Day of School

Posted by Ted Bronson | Filed under Patriot's Journey

The Boychild finished elementary school today.

I will repeat that for those of you in Rio Linda (h/t RL).

My son has finished elementary school.

He wasn’t at the top of his class, but he wasn’t at the bottom either. He has learned how to be a serious student, though. He has learned, with much prodding from his mother and I, that reading is fun, that math is the key to understanding science, and that girls ain’t really that icky. I could ask for more, but he at least has the important stuff figured out now.

He got an education in how to BE a student, how to be organized, and how to interact socially to the kids and adults who surrounded him.

He learned that somethings that are supposed to be fun, turn out to be work. And that sometimes work turns out to be fun.

I learned a helluva lot myself. Our public schools are wonderful, when the parents and the community support the teachers and help the kids. I also learned that sometimes the only way to get anything done in a bureaucracy is to break it. And I learned that our kids learn just as much from our actions as from our lessons.

In this first rest stop on my son’s Patriotic Journey, I have given him advice, offered him books, answered his questions, and hugged him fiercely. The road ahead of him is long. It has pitfalls and roadblocks, wonderful scenic routes and national monuments, and the twin joys of his growing independence from his parents to become his own person and the discovery that he has learned HOW TO LEARN on his own so that he can someday answer his own questions.

We rant about the state of our public education system sometimes, but you really can’t beat a country where every kid in the nation has at least the head start over the rest of the planet of having been given the opportunity to learn.

This is a Patriot’s Journey post. Remember to check out the other Patriotic Journeyers: Drumwaster, The Bastage, Inessential Musings, and The Edge of Reason