Flashes of Color, Faces, and Light
By Rue
Kream
My memories
are very visual, like snapshots I store away in my mind. The memories I have of sending Dagny to kindergarten fill an album, flashes of color, faces
and light that still have the power to make me feel frustrated, confused, and
sad.
The first
picture in my album is from a time years before we’d have to send her to
school. I remember asking my sister how she got used to sending her daughter
off every day. Didn’t they miss each
other? She laughed and replied that when
the time came I would be more than happy to see her go. The conspiratorial gleam in her eye left me
feeling that maybe I was too attached
to my daughter. Didn’t other people feel
a joy in their children’s presence?
Too soon we were shopping for “school clothes” and special
pencils. A friend gave Dagny a book about going to school. Page two of my album:
snuggled up close on a beautiful summer afternoon I read this book to her, all
the while wondering about the fact that books are published to try and convince
our children (and maybe ourselves) that although going to school is scary and
doesn’t feel right, really it’s going
to be a wonderful thing. Looking down at
the freckle on the part of Dagny’s hair I knew that
no matter what the books said, I didn’t believe that sending my child to be
raised by strangers was a wonderful idea.
But what choice did we have?
Page three
has a picture of my beautiful daughter standing in line, waiting to go into her
new school. She looks small and brave
and shiny clean, with a small paper teddy bear pinned to her jumper that says,
“Miss Kearney K-1”. Jon and I go home
and paint our living room in a frenzy of activity to keep from having to think
about our baby lonely or scared just down the street in a classroom filled with
other parents’ lonely and scared children.
How can this be the right thing to do?
I turn the
page and see us only a few days later, sitting with the principal and the teacher,
trying to explain that Dagny is not comfortable
reciting the pledge of allegiance because she is an atheist. The principal is accommodating in trying to
find a way to occupy Dagny’s time for those five
minutes every morning without making her feel too different from the other
children. We think, but she is
different! We love her
different-ness! The well-meaning teacher
asks, “Is it ok for her to sing patriotic songs?” I say, “Yes, we are not communists, we’re
atheists. God does not belong in school.” Maybe we
do not belong in school?
I become a
volunteer and I find myself amazed that other parents are not taking a more
active role in their kids’ day to day lives.
Little children who only met me last week hug me, snuggle me, crave any attention they can get from me when I walk in the
door. These kids are starving for
affection. One beautiful little boy with
chocolate brown skin and eyes that seem to see right through me has a twin
sister in the classroom next door. They
have been separated so that they can become more independent. He seems the most in need of holding, and
sits on my lap sucking his thumb and staring up into my face while he feels my
hair, which he says is soft and a pretty color.
I tell him that his hair is shiny and fun to curl around my finger, and
I save this moment rich in texture on page five.
One morning
when we drop Dagny off Rowan, who was one at the
time, began to cry. She didn’t want to
leave her sister anymore. The novelty of
having me to herself had worn off. As I carried her across the parking lot to
our car I chanted, “Only a few hours and Dagny will
be home…” as much to myself as to my inconsolable
baby. I see Rowan in her little purple
hat, face scrunched up, trying to imagine when Dagny
would be home. She squeezed me tight,
and I thought about the fact that someday, much too soon, she too would leave
our home every day.
Dagny
began to complain in the morning. She
was tired. Her stomach hurt. She didn’t feel well. She didn’t want to go
to school. Jon and I would huddle in the
hallway whispering. Did we have to send
her? If we didn’t would she think she
could just cry every morning and she wouldn’t have to go to school anymore? Some days we would tell her we had decided
she was tired and should stay home.
Others we would get her dressed and calm her down enough to get to
school, where she would begin to cry as we entered the building. I would stay with her in her classroom until
she felt ready for me to leave. Kneeling
down, face to face with her, I saw her struggle with trying to be the big kid
everyone was telling her she should be.
Standing above her, I saw how small she really was. Page seven.
For some
reason the picture that brings tears to my eyes today is the one from the day
when I got to school early to pick Dagny up. As I looked in the door I saw 25 little kids
running around, yelling, talking, grabbing, and laughing, and Dagny, sitting by herself at her table, hands folded on top
of her backpack, waiting for me to bring her home. We decided to go out for ice cream, but as I
watched her eat I found myself picturing my child in the midst of chaos,
waiting for me. Did she spend all day
waiting for me to pick her up?
I began to
pick her up earlier and earlier. As I
pulled into the parking lot one day I saw Dagny’s
class following a man I had never seen before.
As I parked I saw Dagny fall. This man, this stranger, leaned down to
comfort her as I ran across the lot. On
page nine I see my little girl with a bloody knee, a stranger with his hand on
her back, asking her if she is ok. As I
approached them he stopped me to ask if I knew her. A substitute, a stranger to me and to my
child, got in the way of my mothering her.
We made it
through the school year. Rowan and I
spent a lot of time at school. Dagny made friends.
She loved her teacher, who was kind and didn’t yell like the one in the
next room. At the end of the school year
we started looking into Montessori, and had some good conversations with Dagny’s teacher, who was leaving the school. Page ten shows Miss Kearney looking up
earnestly as we sat in child sized chairs to talk about Dagny’s
year and saying very gently, “She doesn’t belong here.” What she couldn’t say all year came out at
last. We as a family did not belong at
this school. She didn’t seem quite sure
where we did belong, but we weren’t
alone in feeling that we did not fit in.
I began to
jokingly say, “Maybe we should homeschool”, but in
fact I didn’t think it was a legal option.
I began to wonder on the edges of my thoughts about how to find
out. One day I was watching TV, and I
saw an interview of author Sandra Boynton.
She was asked about her children, who were teenagers, and she said that
they were unschooled. She gave a brief
description of the ways her children learned by following their interests. I mentioned it to Jon, and we began to more
seriously consider homeschooling as an option.
Summer was
flying by and I began to feel our time was running out. A few weeks after I saw Sandra Boynton, Jon
told me that he had seen a woman on TV who said that homeschooing
was legal in all 50 states. She had written a book, and Jon had written
down the name of it for me. It was
called “Getting Started On Home Learning”. That little scrap of paper covered in my
husband’s handwriting changed our lives forever. It gave me my child back.
The last
picture in my album is also the first picture in our new album, flashes of
color, faces, and light that make me feel joyful, peaceful, and happy. At a party, sometime in August, I looked
across the room at Jon and mouthed, “Should we do it?” He said, “Yes, let’s just do it.” When we called Dagny
over and told her it was ok if she never went to school again her face lit
up. Relatives who heard our
conversation, and knew that we had been struggling with this for a year, looked
on with a mixture of skepticism and hope that I’ve now become used to seeing
when the word homeschooling is mentioned. Outside in the backyard Dagny
ran with her arms out at her sides and I thought, “She’s free. We’re free.”
How much
richer and fuller this new album is already, filled with laughing, playing,
crying, fighting, thinking, growing, and dreaming together. Life.