Parent Rant

OK, so here we are, 9 months later, and I am absolutely not a runner. I am NOT training for the Chicago Marathon. It took me a month to recover from the Detroit 10 K Turkey Trot, and that's enough of that. My daughter wants me to run the 5 K Turkey Trot with her this year, primarily so that she is allowed to wear the race shirt during Thanksgiving dinner, and I probably will.

As for reading, I'm still going strong. I have spent the past two months reading books based in France, as I just got back from a trip to Paris and London. Of the books that I read, I most strongly recommend Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland. Currently, I am reading Waiter Rant by Steve Dublanica. It is ok, but not nearly as good as Service Included by Phoebe Damrosch.

Speaking of ranting, however, I have one that I have to get out of my system. Why do teachers lie? It drives me crazy. As a parent we have to depend on them to give us advice about what is best for our kids. Of course, we also rely upon doctors and other professionals, but the ones who see our child every day and know him or her best are the teachers, so I tend to give their advice a lot of respect. This year we had a great teacher for our daughter who is learning disabled. We had an opportunity to send her to a school for learning disabled kids, for free, and we really struggled with the decision. Her current teacher asked us not to switch schools, and to "give him one more year" with her. We trusted him, and so we agreed. Then he decided that the best thing for all of the learning disabled kids in the 5th grade, was to have them in one class, together, with him "co-teaching". Although that sounds like seclusion to me, which I am opposed to with my super popular and secure child, I agreed to the placement because he recommended it so strongly, and he would be the co-teacher. Yesterday, July 7, when all of the buildings in my district are closed for the summer, he told me that he had decided to take a job at a different building. This was not an involuntary budget driven transfer, but apparently he had interviewed for another job and gotten it. Now I feel like the worst parent ever for making decisions that affect my child's future based on the recommendations of someone who clearly sees her as just another cog in his machine. UGH! I feel like sending him a seething email, but haven't got it composed properly in my head just yet. I would also like to send the principal a similar email for allowing this to happen, but really, he probably could not have stopped it.

So maybe Waiter Rant is an appropriate book for me right now after all. If anyone can teach me to properly rant and to compose the perfect guilt inducing hate filled email it will probably be Steve Dublanica.

Next Up, Eating Animals, by one of my favorite authors, Jonathan Safran Foer.