Brilliant … But Bouncy

I Saw Just a Flicker of Sadness.

Now that it is summer, Dylan stays up very late. We’ve taken away his bedtime rule, allowing him to stay up as long as he likes. Bill and I often go to bed before Dylan now.

Shane, meanwhile, goes to bed at 9:00. If it’s a late evening for some reason, he doesn’t go to bed until 10:00. It doesn’t matter, though, because Shane wakes up at about 7:00 every, single day. Then he sits there, alone, reading, practicing magic tricks, and listening to Adventures in Odyssey – sometimes for two hours, before considering breakfast.

Shane adores this alone time.

But sometimes, I think, he doesn’t.

Yesterday, we were planning to take Shane along to do something that Dylan had to do. Shane’s job would have been to sit, for two hours, and wait.

“Do we have anything else to do tomorrow?” Shane asked.

“Well, Dylan has church,” I told him. Dylan’s youth group meets on Wednesday nights – and this week, they are watching a movie.

“Can I go?” Shane asked.

“Sorry,” I said, “it’s only for middle school kids. So, are you going to be okay sitting there for two hours tomorrow afternoon? You can bring a book or something.”

Shane nodded, not in a despairing way. But I caught a glimpse of something I hadn’t noticed before. He nodded … with some anxiety that I might notice his disappointment.

Shane didn’t want me to be angry that he didn’t want to sit there for two hours. So he gulped and nodded and I saw just a flicker of sadness.

When you’re a mom, you can see these things, clear as day, right in your child’s eyes.

I always wondered how my mom knew things that she couldn’t possibly have known – when I ate a cookie, for example, if she wasn’t even in the house when I did it. But she knew.

And now it’s so obvious. I just know.

So I picked up the phone and called my dad, who is the greatest grandfather in the whole world.

“Shane doesn’t have anybody to play with tomorrow,” I said.

“Well, I don’t have anyone to play with tomorrow either,” he said.

So Shane gets some time with Grandad now, instead of spending two hours just sitting there, waiting for Dylan.

And this evening, when Dylan is at church, watching a movie with his youth group, I plan on watching a movie, too, with Shane.

Sometimes I have to see past the acquiescence, and give him something really special: time.

We Don’t Have a Lot of Money.

My husband, Bill, is not excited about private school. He doesn’t talk about how wonderful it is, that we’ve finally found a place for Dylan to succeed. He doesn’t wake up every morning relieved, or excited, or even somewhat content.

He says things like, “You have to teach him to deal with the problem, not remove the problem completely.”

The problem to which he refers, of course, is public middle school.

“I totally disagree,” I say, continuing to research the school, the administration, the teachers and the Quakers – just so we can be as prepared as possible, should Dylan be accepted.

Bill is worried about the money. He is only worried about the money. With all that worry, there is no room for excitement.

It is, after all, a lot of money. And we don’t have a lot of money.

“We might be able to do it for one year,” he says. “But if he wants to go to private school all the way through high school, we just can’t afford it!”

“Why don’t we do this one year at a time?” I say. We might be eligible for financial aid next year. There are a handful of private high school scholarships, too.

Plus, maybe I will actually work enough to pay the tuition for Dylan.

I have recently been cleared to work in – ironically – the public school system, as a home and hospital teacher. I can make reasonable money, if I actually start teaching. It’s just that, so far, I haven’t taught anyone.

The public school system kind of forgot about me, and I didn’t call to remind them that I am available. But now… I have an opportunity and a reason to teach!

I do find it to be incredibly ironic, though, that I’ll be teaching for the public school system in order to pay for my son’s private school tuition.

And – oh yes – we have to wait and see if he’s accepted. Then we can panic.

Seek and Speak Truth and Love.

We have found the school for Dylan.

We drove into the middle of nowhere to find this school. We went through miles and miles of farms and fields with birds drifting overhead. After about 45 minutes, we turned into the driveway of the school.

As I got out of the car and stepped into the quiet, Shane asked if he should take a book. (Shane came along for the tour.) I said almost without thinking, “You can come back and get it out of the car if you need it. We don’t need to lock the car here.”

It felt safe.

While there were no kids to meet, and only two adults to greet us, we gathered a lot of information from the grounds. The welcome sign said, “Seek and Speak Truth and Love.” The 54 acres showcased an enormous soccer field, a garden area, two tether ball poles (my kids’ favorite) and woods with a small stream running through. The small campus included only two major buildings – one for elementary ages, and one for middle and upper grades.

Inside the middle school, where Dylan would attend, artwork was everywhere. There was a small lunchroom for a population of around 50 students, with an adjacent kitchen. The library consists of two sofas and a huge shelf full of books. There’s a full-sized gymnasium with a regulation basketball court, and a theater with a stage where they do several dramatic productions each year.

There’s also a room with keyboards for music classes, and several student-art-enhanced classrooms. Even though we toured in summer, we could see the circular arrangement of the desks. The teacher is part of the circle, rather than a lecturer. Discussion is encouraged rather than forbidden, and the kids are all engaged in learning rather than being quieted while all facing forward.

We learned even more from talking with staff – and there is so, so, so much I could say about what I learned from this tour. But in trying to keep it short, I can say that this is an academically centered Quaker school. It is an environment of caring and kindness, while encouraging kids to find their place in the world – to develop their talents and strengths, while also learning the subject matter and study skills required to succeed in school and the real world.

And to make everything just a little bit better, the kids practice a brief morning routine where they reflect on a topic (“like courage,” said the headmaster) as they center themselves and get ready for their day. So Dylan would be able to learn the art of calming himself – something he needs maybe more than anything else – so that he can go forward from there and accept himself.

He could excel here, really excel – not just struggle through each day, fighting the cruelties and trying to wait until college. Dylan would be able to pull himself up and out of the dust, and go on to succeed beyond even his own dreams.

When we left the tiny campus after more than two hours, I was ready to start Dylan there tomorrow. But … I hadn’t asked Dylan what he thought of the place – and he had been exploring with Shane (on his own) for more than an hour.

“So,” I asked tentatively. “What did you think?”

“I want to go there,” he said.

And that was that.

You Don’t Want To Get His Hopes Up.

In my quest for private schools, I found one for grades 6 through 12 that specializes in teaching students with “learning differences,” including processing disorders (Shane) and attention disorders (Dylan).

The website on this school was vague, so I scoured the web for more information, while I waited to go on my tour of the school. I found almost nothing, except one generic school site listing the population of students as 9.

That can’t be right, I thought. There can’t only be 9 students in the whole school!

But indeed, there are. Well, actually, two students just graduated so with Dylan, there would be 8.

The school is located inside a church that was having Vacation Bible School, so there weren’t any classrooms to tour. But I was able to sit with the school’s principal for an hour and get a good grasp on what the school is like.

While the small size concerned me, it was the principal’s comments that knocked me nearly across the room – and right out the door.

“We do have some gifted students,” she said, in response to Dylan’s brilliance. “It often boosts their self-esteem that, when they are done with their own work, they can help the students who are not as high-performing.”

I could imagine Dylan sitting with his three-day project finished in 20 minutes (although he probably forgot to put his name on it). Then I imagined him spending the next three days helping someone else finish that project.

Then there was the story of the incredibly gifted boy who, in spite of his learning differences, excelled in science.

“We had to buy him a new textbook,” the principal said, as if that would really help the gifted boy go far.

I pictured Dylan with his new textbook, bored to tears. Dylan wouldn’t ever open a new textbook, even if someone said it contained the secret to life itself.

But the creme de la creme – and the final straw – came when the principal said to me, “I noticed you mentioned Dylan wanting to go to MIT. You really shouldn’t do that.”

After some story about a kid who dropped out of high school because he couldn’t play college basketball, she said, “You don’t want to get his hopes up.”

I DON’T WANT TO GET HIS HOPES UP?!?

Actually, Miss Principal, I do want to get his hopes up. I am well aware of the MIT reputation for admissions – only 8.2% of applicants were accepted in 2014. But if Dylan wants to work toward the goal of acceptance by MIT (which he actually does not), then he has every right to do that – whether or not he has “learning differences.”

I expect great things from my boy – most especially happiness and the ability for him to do whatever the heck he wants to do. If the kid wants to go to MIT, he will apply to MIT. You will not squash his dreams – any dreams – even if his dream is to be a world-famous quarterback in the NFL, or a taco truck driver, or a heart surgeon or a ski instructor or a door-to-door lava lamp salesman!

So.

Dylan will NOT be going to school at Private School Option #1.

Unless, of course, he really wants to, because that would be his choice.

But, he says, he does not – and I didn’t even tell him about the whole MIT thing.