The Little Scholar Factory

A little more than a week ago, my wife and I had the opportunity to visit my son's school for "Back to School Night" and it what struck me what just what a big deal this was to the administration, teachers and most of the parents. It was quite a production, with spread of hors d' oeuvres on the back table and the principal up there with his wireless mic, working the crowd like Jerry Lewis at an MDA telethon. Actually, the analogy of President Obama at the fundraiser might have been more apt, with him punching out accomplishments of the school, each punctuated with raucous applause by parents. I was tempted to stand up and chant, "FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS!" but my wife would've kneecapped me right there in the school gymnasium.

After the general session, we walking around and trying to come up with witty and insightful questions to the school librarian and music teacher who obviously barely knew our son. During this 45 minute block, we spoke to two teachers and ten other parents, almost all of whom were people known by my wife but not me. It sort of helped me appreciate my wife for putting up with my work-related social events and the awkwardness of not knowing anybody. On the plus side, I did manage to have a chat with another husband who didn't want to be there about our respective fantasy football teams.

Eventually, we did get to my son's classroom where his teacher gave a little presentation of the typical class schedule and her philosophy of education. All of the parents nodded politely, suppressing the instinct to be provocative and argumentative and question why she would place math in the morning instead of the afternoon despite recent studies from Teachers College at Columbia making it clear that early development specialists contend that math is better retained after the kids have been fueled by an afternoon snack of juice and cookies. Okay, I made that up, but it would have been interesting to see how she would've reacted if I tried to call her on that.

My highlight was actually hovering over my son's desk and rapidly writing notes on pieces of paper and paper towels and cramming them in his books and desk so that he might find them later. Notes which said things like:

• "Dear Son, Your mom and I love you very much and we're very proud of you. Listen to the teacher and learn. Love, Dad"
• "Dear Son, Listen to the teacher and play well with your classmates. You only have one chance for 1st grade. Enjoy it! Love, Dad"
• "Dear Son, Study hard. If you don't get into an Ivy League school, we won't pay for college and you're out of the will. Then you can look forward to a depressing and lonely life eating government cheese. Love, Dad"

Okay, I made up the last one. Leaving notes for my son in his desk was probably the only worthwhile part of Back to School Night. As far as everything else, I'm not convinced it wouldn't have been as effective or more convenient for me to get a newsletter. And the parent-teacher conferences where you actually get to engage with your kid's teacher for 30 minutes or so seemed to make this redundant and unnecessary. I didn't need to nibble on brie cheese while the principal held a rally for the PTO.

Granted, this is the first time I've done this as a parent (my wife had to go solo last year when our son was in kindergarten), but the whole thing struck me as a little over the top. I do wonder whether the "vibe" of these things have changed since my parents used to go to mine. Maybe I've been scarred by too many movies about education, but at my school, the rigor and pressure seems almost palpable. Maybe because I can sense that administrators and teachers are singing for their supper, convincing parents of a challenging educational path that will enable their children to get into Harvard. Maybe it's because I see so many parents taking this so seriously. Who knows? Maybe I'm not taking this seriously enough.

I just hope his day to day experience at this place is a lot more enjoyable that my three hours.