October 19, 2007
..................
Current post
First post
Categories
RSS
..................
Miscellany
The mommy heart medal
(aka Death to the California elementary school "Asset Development Program.")
From the principal's letter:
"Our school has held a long tradition of educational excellence coupled with character building. We strengthen character when we recognize attributes in our students during our monthly spirit assemblies and daily when we "catch students being good" in their routine activities."
A few weeks ago I picked up both Sydney and Hannah from school. Hannah ran up to me first, waving something she'd colored in class, and just bursting to tell me about Sydney, who had received a "loyalty" medal that morning in the school's general assembly. And how happy she was for her (Hannah's scripted text). Syd landed next, out of breath, shyly waving silver dog tags on several chains around her neck.
This was my introduction to the "Asset Development Program," a monthly ceremony where awards for good behaviour are bestowed on a select handful of students. Previous awardees are encouraged to wear medals on the day of general assembly, so we were looking at Sydney's proud stash of loyalty bling, accumulated over three years.
And later that same night Hannah started to cry: she had wanted to get a medal too.
I was expecting it, and still I wasn't prepared. How do you explain something you don't yourself understand: what is loyalty in a class of 6-year-olds, who can only see that all but a couple of them had been excluded from a public distribution of shiny trophies? The vacuum in my head was enormous, I wanted this to be the one time in my life when the brilliant thoughts coloring my brain actually coalesced into something useful. I wanted poetry.
So I began carefully picking my way through a tale of a mommy medal, made of love, which she couldn't see, but which always hung on a silver cord about her neck. And it was lighter than air, and bigger and shinier than any medal anyone would ever give her. It wasn't poetry, but she hugged me anyway.
Afterwards, she told me she'd also received a paper certificate of "good citizenship," which she had forgotten to bring home. I didn't know what good citizenship was either, so I was equally at a loss there.
But, thrown a preserver, I took it.
(Found a week later at a local studio)