Do CPS Kids Need 90 Minutes More of ‘Struction?

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

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With all the recent headlines and battles over longer CPS school days, I've been desperately hoping for the extra 90 minutes. For me, it's not about the education. It's not about competing globally. It's about me. With different start and end times for assorted schools, I have very limited time alone. And I like me. I'm funny. I enjoy singing Journey songs at the top of my lungs without being asked to stop. I prefer buying groceries without getting suckered into cereal with marshmallows. I like pretending that if I had more time, I'd actually join a gym and lose the baby fat.

Yet my arguments were trumped this week by my 7-year-old son. I was going through a stack of graded assignments and came across his persuasive essay against the longer day. It read:

This talk (of a longer day) is weird because 90 minutes is more than an hour (my "gifted" child!). 90 minutes of school is relly not nice because if we have 90 minutes I will miss the park and swim class on Tuesdays and not get my 'struction (instruction).

If we have 90 minutes of class, I will not get my homework done and the next day I'll walk in without my homework and get an F-.

If we have 90 minutes more of class, I won't get fresh air. And instead of fresh air, I will get dirty air.

In conclushion, I don't like work for these reasons. You can see I disagree.

Lastly, I get hot in school.

Seriously, how do I compete with that? He got an A+ with a teacher's notation that read:

You have written a great paper. Good solid support. Bravo!

I have a serious suspicion that Daniel's teacher and I may be on opposite sides of this issue.

Whatever the case may be, I will always be grateful to the wonderful educators who have provided my children many years of amazing 'struction. I could never perform the daily miracles of teachers. Plus, if you've ever read this blog, you are probably aware of the fact that I really don't like other people's kids.

I'm told that could be a problem if I ever went into education.

Marianne is mother of three sons and the wife of a southside Irish fireman. She has learned that sometimes you're just too dumb to know what makes you happy. She blogs regularly at We Band of Mothers (webandofmothers.com) and curses with even greater frequency. Her material is written for the imperfect, the imprudent, and the impatient mothers who know that all this stuff is really very funny if you just give it a minute.

See more of Marianne's stories here.

Contact Marianne at walsh200@comcast.net