where wildly different is perfectly normal
Colorado’s hurricane
Colorado’s hurricane

Colorado’s hurricane

Hurricane Paul has hit Colorado. Yes, a hurricane in a land-locked state. No lightning, thunder, or tornados, just a crapload of snow. Four inches in my backyard and it’s still coming down. It’s worse south of here; we were only supposed to get freezing rain and maybe a little bit o’ the white stuff. A’s field trip to the pumpkin patch was cancelled THANK GOD (I really didn’t want to tromp around outside in this crap) and we’ve finished the only bad weather activity I have up my sleeve: playing with mommy’s stamps. The satellite dish is covered in snow, so we have no tv or XM radio (agh! mass panic!). It’s still too nasty to throw the boys in the backyard and it’s only 9:30 in the morning. We still have power and internet so it’s all good.

But I have to comment on something I keep hearing on the news. Separating classes by gender. While this sounds good, and there is research to back it up, I disagree with it. It’s a personal thing. Right now I have a kindergartener who is so bored in school he hates to go. I’m gathering my resources to go fight for him, to have him grouped with first graders in reading/literacy. He has tested gifted (by a reputable gifted center), but his teacher has a hard time recognizing how much he really does know because he doesn’t participate in class. He is a classic twice-exceptional kid. He is so bright, but something is hampering his learning and advancement; that something has been my mission in life for the last year and keeps taking twists and turns. But he needs to be grouped with others in his level and he’s not getting it in K. He is so bored, all they do are worksheets of things he learned last year in preschool. I talked to one of his preschool teachers the other night. Her son was in A’s class. She homeschools her kids and he was so far past K work that she advanced him to 1st grade. A needs that too, but I sure as hell can’t homeschool him, we’d kill each other. So I’m advocating for all kids who need ability grouping (which A’s school does have, but not really until 1st grade; he can’t wait that long), and to hell with gender grouping. I had coed P.E. in high school and loved it. Hated single-gender P.E. because the girls never wanted to get messy. Gimme a break. I’m certainly not a jock (whew, far from it), but I always gave my all and it was great to finally be in a class with others who did too. Ability grouping.

And now I must go play with the kiddies. The snow is not slowing. In fact, the wind is kicking up worse now. Dang, I’m so glad this is not my week for carpool and I don’t have to go anywhere today.

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