Saturday, September 13, 2008

no intenet! and I survived!

Our modem has been dying a slow death. About a week ago, it stopped working, but sporadically gave us a minute or two each day of internet. Then, mid-week, it just died. Finally, today, someone from the cable company came out and brought us a new one.

It's amazing how much a complete lack of internet changes your daily life. I read books. Whole books. Read the "The Abstinence Teacher" at one sitting.

Despite the "no internet," it's been a busy week. Let's see...I turned 40; hosted a birthday party for 14 friends of my turning-6-this-week son; worked like a madwoman at my job; dealt with the usual school stuff...and more.

School is going really well for the kids.

One benefit of being in a low-income school in Wisconsin is the class sizes. Daughter D has 11 kids in her 3rd grade class.

One of the challenges of being in a low-income school in Wisconsin is that they can never predict class sizes accurately. (It's a very transient population.) Son D has 18 kids in his class - so on Monday, they are going to create a brand new class and many of the Kindergartners will move to the new class. I know everything will work out fine - whether he moves to the new class or stays in his current (fabulous) class, but this not-knowing stage is always hard. Bottom line is that he'll be in a class with less than 15 kids, no matter what happens. So that is good.

He's having a great experience though. His class includes many kids who don't speak English. There are a few kids who no absolutely no English. He is fascinated by this. So far, his main contribution to their education seems to be the teaching of what we would deem "bathroom words" - but hey, I guess everyone needs to learn those words somewhere.

I didn't have a problem with turning 40 on Monday. It felt like it was time to be 40. I'm at a very "40" place in my life. I have a job I enjoy, a husband I adore, healthy (and wonderful) children, a home that feels like a home, amazing friends and all the rest. It feels like 40 should be to me.

But, son D will be 6 on Wednesday. That just doesn't seem possible. Really - he was JUST born. Like yesterday. Really. He's 6?????

3 comments:

Vicki aka Diva Mom said...

Wow, 15 is awesome for K. I'm really happy Bittyman has only 20 in his class. There is no cap on K size in our state (crazy) so it's up to the individual schools. I know some schools have K classes of 30+ kids with just one teacher! That's just herding cats!

I've often though about going on an internet fast - especially around Lent. My piles of 'must read' books I've gotten off of paperback swap is enormous.

You don't look a day over 30, which helps when you're turning 40!

LisaS said...

11? 18? we're in similarly low-income school and we're lucky to stay under 25. in fact, for a few weeks last year, the Boy's class had almost 40 kids in it.

obviously the State of Missouri (which took over our district a couple of years ago) has a great committment to making sure poor kids learn ... believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you ...

btw ... tag!

Bridgett said...

Lisa--it's been a long time of that, ya know. When I was given a class of 14 fourth graders my first year in the st louis public schools, I was moved the first week of October to a different school and given 16 first graders. Any teacher with 11 kids would have been in grave danger in SLPS.

Sophia (in an evil charter school stealin yur moneys) has 24 in her class. But two instructors.