phatDonna

The EX has been pressuring me to investigate a local private school for Bridget. I have been digging my heels in about this because my liberal heart does not believe in private school. I feel that if everyone who can afford to check out of public school does, then public school has no chance of survival.

However. (You knew there was a however coming, didn’t you?)

I am so displeased with the state of public education here in Texas especially, but I think it’s very similar throughout the country. This is hard for me to say because I have so many friends who are teachers. The problems I’m talking about have nothing to do with teachers. It’s the entire idea behind public school. Kids aren’t encouraged to think and learn, they are encouraged to memorize facts and spit them back out on a standardized test. I used to think that I got a good education from public school, and maybe it was better than some public schools in the country. I was deemed “smart” or “gifted” early on. But here’s the thing. I’m not really. I have a good memory and am fantastic at spitting facts back out on tests. When I got to college, I realized very quickly that I had no idea how to study or make the leap from knowing a fact to putting that fact to practical use.

Private schools can present their own problems. I imagined a school with blazers with crests and plaid skirts, and rich kids with attitudes and rich parents with even worse attitudes. I didn’t want Bridget’s peer group to be a bunch of entitled little snots. I didn’t want her to feel like the poor kid amongst all that wealth. And would the quality of the education really be that much better?

The EX had attended an information session at a local private school a few weeks ago and was wowed and really wanted me to go too. In the spirit of cooperation, I went, reluctantly.

And boy howdy, did I learn a lesson on being prejudiced. This school was amazing. First of all, they don’t call themselves a private school, they consider themselves independent of the state school system. Second, the other parents there were in no way the stuck up douches I fully intended to meet there. The founder of the school and the head of the school talked about the mission and the curriculum and I was bowled over. The kids will come out of this school bi-literate (not bi-lingual. Bi-literate. Meaning she could read, write and speak in both) in English and Spanish, and proficient in Mandarin. The mission of the school is to produce people who are “global citizens of the 21st century.” That really impresses me. I want Bridget to be curious about the rest of the world and understand that everyone in the world is connected to each other.

I could give you more details about the whole thing but that would be very boring to you, I’m sure. Suffice it to say, that I want her to go here.

The question of money is not insignificant. I’ve told The EX that I can be of little to no financial help but he seems to think he can afford it. There is also financial aid available so that’s an option too. The other little bonus to this school is that since I wouldn’t have to worry about school districts, it opens up parts of the city to me that I figured I could never consider living in.

So I’m struggling to reconcile this wonderful opportunity for Bridget with my own liberal agenda. I guess I need to set that aside and realize that if Bridget has the chance at a world class education, I should not try to hold her back because of my politics.

The longer I live, the more I have to remember to never say never.

My dear friend Erica is hosting a contest on her review blog. Go on over to Made of Awesome and enter to win some really awesome Dinosaur Train stuff. If you have a kid who is into dinosaurs, I’m sure you’ve seen this really cool show on PBS Kids. Betsy loves it. I often hear her calling out in her room, “La La Loooooo!” I’m not sure what that phrase has to do with dinosaurs, but one of the characters on the show says it all the time.

As an aside, WTF is up with that image? A dinosaur digging for dinosaur bones? That seems a bit odd. But it made me laugh and so that’s the one I chose.

In the few short years of Betsy’s life, we have bought and been given several toys and puzzles by Melissa and Doug. I think their stuff is genius, I absolutely do. I often enjoy playing with them alongside her.

But I have a complaint. As she has gotten older, the toys that are age appropriate for her have lots of smaller pieces. But the toys don’t have a way to store the pieces. For example, I bought Betsy this about a month ago

She LOVES it and plays with it all the time. And the container it’s in is pretty good for putting the pieces all back inside. But it has no lid. So there is no way to keep the pieces all inside and not spill out. Especially because she loves this one so much and has wanted to take it with her on trips. I have to say no because I don’t want her to lose all the pieces.

These toys are kind of on the expensive side. Not prohibitively so but a bit pricier than other things. I don’t mind because they are good quality, they are well loved and they last. I know we can pass them down to others because they will last. Assuming we can find all the parts when the time comes. It couldn’t be that hard to add a lid to the boxes, even a cheap plastic one that slips over the wooden part to keep tiny shoes and such inside.

I’m going to email them right now with my little piece of brilliance. I am sure they live for that shit.

If you read my site through a reader, then you probably haven’t seen the button over on the sidebar for SweepsU.com. Go ahead, take a minute and go check it out. I’ll wait.

hum dum dee dum, hum dum dee dum….

You back? Good.

OK, so I am in the midst of my free seven day trial on SweepsU, and I am already planning to subscribe. Why, you ask? Because entering contests is some seriously addictive stuff. The site aggregates about a bajillion and a half contests from all over the webosphere for your perusal and helps you track them and enter them. And it will even help you remember to enter those contests that you can enter more than once. I love this site!

And I’m not going to lie, I feel confident I’m going to win something because after the year I’ve had, I deserve to win something, even if it is a year’s supply of peanut butter.

So you should sign up for the seven day trial. It’s no obligation and you don’t even have to give them a credit card and then remember to cancel, which is totally stellar of them.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have my eye on a free iPad…