School

needs: Taking a day off school

Taking a day off refills everyone’s tank and breaks the fever pitch momentum of a busy home school calendar. First term begins with waking summer minds testing for targeted learning. Term 2 and 3, the winter terms include Naplan and teachers and kids get down to work. The weeks are dotted with excursions, incursions, assemblies. Lots of reasons to break out the hot glue gun and make a costume or pack a multicultural lunch. There are many little events that make school exciting but can drive teachers, kids and parents insane under a persistent gentle pressure of costumes, projects and events. Term 4 ramps up testing for reports, which gives way to Christmas carols and swimming lessons. Between school and end of year parties for classes, teams and activities, the family diet nestles somewhere between candy canes and drive-thru. Managing fatigue and creating ease in term 4 is a challenge. Some days my family needs to opt out. Facebook memories have highlighted this.  On or about the middle of September for the last 3 years, my dudes and I have played hooky and gone to the beach.

The first year I didn’t plan it. I just woke up and the lunchboxes were so far out of reach that I decided we wouldn’t be going to school. The dudes had been on a slow boil towards crumbling and we were free falling into the end of the week. I just grabbed a few things and we left the house and school behind us and went to splash in the sea. My phone took the day off in the glove box. All that pressure just washed away and left us salty and breathing lightly. By the time we went back to school on the Monday, all the things that were making us worry were manageable. Sun kissed, blissed and ready to go.

The following year, funnily enough on the day before the same Friday in September I announced “dudes we are not going to school tomorrow. We are going to the beach”. They were pretty stoked and went to sleep with dreams in their eyes and I went to sleep looking forward to our magic day.  I again resisted the urge to plan and we travelled light. Somewhere between the water and sand, snippets of conversation came up, and without hurry, and push I got to hear their musings and confessions.  We had found the same bliss and all returned a little stronger. Having done it two years in a row, I felt like this magic day off was part of who we were. A Term 3 secret weapon.

Then we get to year 3, it was a hard one. We were all suffering. Our girl had taken a turn for the not quite easy and we were all struggling under the weight of her needs. Keen to give them some hope, I said on the Monday, “Hey don’t worry, this Friday we take to the beach” and they smiled through the frowns.  That afternoon, they got in the car all bent out of shape, she insisted there was a special assembly on Friday and he gave me a lop-sided wink. He had told his teacher he was going to physio on Friday. On the drive home, I tried to suggest in the face of their worry that A: the assembly might not be that important, and B: it wasn’t ok to lie to his teacher. That drive home was a teary mess, for all three of us. Still, that Friday, sitting in the warm shallows I watched them splash, tumble, laugh and fall into waves. I was grateful to the sea and what it meant to us on those secret days.

Of all the things I do with my dudes, I would love it if they did this with theirs. If I close my eyes I can feel the sun on their skin, the coolness of the water and the crunch of the sun and I want it for them, forever.

needs: Relief and Specialist Teachers

There are so many reasons why she melts down in my car after school. Sure, some of them reside in the heavy house of resilience and some meltdowns shack up in the world of normal primary school social glitches. The ones that shit me are the meltdowns caused by an adult who could have known better. It’s a gut punch for me and I feel hostility rise as the ten minutes of re-telling through tears stumble from her lips to my ears. From the driver’s seat mirror, I see she is a mess and he is frustrated. He is angry for her and there are days where he is just angry because he is sick of after school car drama.

She is battling snot, an inconsiderate seat belt and the school bag that never fits where she wants to put it and she never puts it where it does. It’s a lot to navigate when your little heart is frayed. I am navigating 30 odd family cars out of a shoe box car park and waving hello with an “it’s alright smile”. Some of the other cars are playing out their own meltdown scenarios right now, waving “it’s alright to me in return”.  The picture is forming and I am taking deep breaths. It’s not her fault so don’t be mad at her. It’s not his fault, so don’t be mad at him. As she wanders to the point, I am angry. It’s clear. It’s an adult’s fault and could have been avoided.

The PE teacher, always the PE teacher, shouted. She was playing Tee Ball, and the ball came, but she didn’t see the ball, it was just there and then it wasn’t. The PE teacher shouted at the rude girl not paying attention. Everyone was shouted. Then she woke up to find everyone shouting. She cried and was told to go and wash her face.

The art teacher, always the art teacher, shouted. She wasn’t listening to the instructions. She was looking out the window. The teacher shouted at the rude girl not paying attention. She lost time and when she came back everyone laughed. She cried and was told to go and wash her face.

The emergency teacher, always the emergency teacher snapped more as the day wore on. She didn’t pay attention, wasn’t listening, was the last to be ready… She recalls their words, their tone, their pitch in the retelling. Those words mark her. By the end of a paper cuts day, she cried and was told to go and wash her face.

A small aside, washing your face is not a medical, educational or behavioural balm that cures neuro diversity. So, she sits in our car messing up her ever so clean face with a retelling that leaves her blotchy but relieved. I know she is seeking me out in the rear-view mirror. Checking and hedging the balance between her debrief and my rippling anger.

It shouldn’t happen. We have reports. The school has the reports. They should have read the reports about her diagnosis. Sometimes I spray some colourful vivid images across the car windshield almost scarring them with my rage. Not my best moments. Sometimes, I breathe out how pissed I am, pause and look to them both, and know I need to lean in, and listen with all my love and get some kind of car dance party underway. The tug of war between both responses is heavy.

It is always the teacher that doesn’t have her all the time. It’s always the teacher that doesn’t have the time….it is always the teacher that isn’t given the time to have the means to meet her needs.