Over the Drop-Off

A wee quotation to start the day. To be honest the quotation is long, but the font, at least, is wee.


Is it not ironical that in a planned society of controlled workers given compulsory assignments, where religious expression is suppressed, the press controlled, and all media of communication censored, where a puppet government is encouraged but denied any real authority, where great attention is given to efficiency and character reports, and attendance at cultural assemblies is mandatory, where it is avowed that all will be administered to each according to his needs and performance required from each according to his abilities, and where those who flee are tracked down, returned, and punished for trying to escape - in short in the milieu of the typical large American secondary school - we attempt to teach 'the democratic system'?

Royce Van Norman, "School Administration: Thoughts on Organization and Purpose," Phi Delta Kappan 47(1966):315-16

Well, the dropoff is done.

Clem was awake and dressed before I woke up this morning. Evelyn was proving that she doesn't need to go to school by rising bright and early and working on her story which is 2500 words or so at this point. Her typing has gotten quite good, so she types it in gmail and sends me the new parts as she goes. That makes it easy for me to include the beginning of her story at the end of this post.

At 8am Edward from next door knocked to see if we were ready to go. Ev and Clem's hair was wild and witchy after sleeping on it wet with new haircuts. I still had to tame the hair and appease Greta ("Brush Greta hair." "Greta backpack where are you?"). Ok, I also had to find my own shoes.

We set off and picked up poor little Courtney, the girl on the corner whose single dad hadn't gotten her any school materials, on our way. Soon the sidewalks were thick with kids and parents. Everyone seemed to be shuffling very slowly forward. Yes, I did feel like part of the herd.

Ev and Clem were bouncing along happily, though. Clem's bounciness increased when I relieved her of her very heavy backpack, chock full of paper towels, baby wipes, crayons, glue, markers, scissors, ziplock bags. Evelyn is proud and thrilled to be allowed to have a rolling backpack. They are forbidden for first graders. I explained that she would have a lot of heavy books to put in it but failed to dampen her enthusiasm.

At school everyone was milling about until the bell rang. Teachers were blocking the way so you couldn't go to line up at your classroom number before the bell rang. After the bell we shuffled through the gate and lined the kids up at their numbers. 29 for Clem. 12 for Evelyn. I followed Clem to her class. Ms. A seemed nice but a bit serious. She asked us all to leave promptly so the kids would know "they were here to stay and couldn't go home."

I ran over to Ev's room and watched as Ms. Q taught the kids what a parade wave was and had them turn to their parents crowding in the door and parade wave them goodbye.
Must find way not to get overloaded to different school. I had to dash forward and introduce myself and explain that it was Evelyn's first day at school. If Evelyn had ever been at school before she would probably have been embarrassed.

Worries for the day: Someone will make fun of Evelyn for having a Triceratops lunch box.
Clem's teacher will be shocked at her handwriting.


The Prologue to Evelyn's story


The Lost Shifters

Prologue


It was a warm summer morning in Morning Meadow and Crystal, a filly, was taking a cool drink from a pond. She had nothing to worry about and she had anything she could possibly want . Crystal had lots of flowers and she had a nice, loving mother and a protective father . Crystal had other colts and fillies she could play with and lots of sweet grass . Yet she was still not happy . Crystal knew the valley had not been found out by the hunters yet and she knew the stallions could protect it but Crystal sensed being watched every minute and she didn't think the others did. Crystal decided to ask her best friend if she felt like someone or something was watching her . Her friend said "What are you thinking! This is the safest place in the UNIVERSE !! " and trotted away . Then Crystal whipped around to see a ghost-like stallion rearing and then disappearing . She was scared . She thought ghosts were just supposed to be some scary bedtime stories but now she wasn't so sure . And that was the start of her troubles .