Slow burn

Alisdair and Will started school on Wednesday. Alisdair has a new teacher. Three days in, and I'm already on a slow burn toward her.

See, I met with her before school started to check in, inform her of Alisdair's budding ADHD and how bored he can get, and generally make sure she checked in with the special ed teacher and that his IEP (Individual Education Plan) was put into place. I get some platitudes on how she will, but she's sure it'll be fine. Me, I'm seeing how she's going to have 30 kids in her class this year with no help, and I don't think fine is the word, but I let her know I was available to help whenever if she needed me.

Today, she sends a note home with Alisdair. Basically he has problems listening, problems focusing, problems being off in his own little world and forgetting where he was, and was "shooting off rockets" during Math. See, when he's bored, he pretends his pencils are rockets and makes them fly around above his desk. In this case, he's bored because he's mastered addition and subtraction, and his daddy's teaching him multiplication at home. Meanwhile, here at school, they're covering the basic numbers again for the benefit of the kids who haven't seen a number all summer and forgot. So yeah, he's bored. It was also rainy today, so they had no recess -- no chance for him to run around and work off extra energy.

She said "I hope his behavior improves next week." Well, unless they find a way to put him in a smaller class, let him run around, give him the attention needed to keep him on task, or start covering material he hasn't known for a year now, I personally don't see how it could. We've talked about it. It's just not altogether under his control, and I've not had the money to get him to a doctor to be tested and diagnosed formally for ADHD beyond the assessment the school gave last year. Nor do I want to resort to medicine straight off the bat just to keep him sedate in class. So I'm frustrated and pissed off, and so hoping I get to move in the next month or so, whether Seattle or just to the charter school in Wichita Falls. Anything but putting him through this.

Argh.

Poetry No One But Me Will Like

I'm sort of on a poetry kick, so last night I wrote the first poem I've written in ages. I have to say, it's a fair sight better than the drivel I wrote in college. I've decided there are two things, however, that will never win me any sort of poet's laurels (aside from my general lack of talent).

1) The last poets I generally like are late 1800s, early 1900s. My favorite poet of all is John Donne. I like things to have structure and form and rythym, and even rhyme from time to time. Not couplets, though, except as a part of a larger scheme. Ergo, that's what I write. I suck enough that I don't remember any actual structures, so I just end up appropriating "structure" generally and using it, which doubtlessly would horrify most real poets who know what they're doing -- unlike me. I don't really enjoy free verse as such... I can write it, but it's just prose for me with odd line breaks. I think that counts as "not getting it." I get it a bit more now, but I'm still a bit too uncertain of my goal to rely on free verse to get me there.

2) I have written precisely one dark poem in my life. Not to say that they're all happy or anything, they just aren't... dark. I dunno. They're also not ambiguous. Given that I'm not particularly dark or ambiguous, I suppose this is fitting. It's highly unpopular as far as modern poetry goes, though.

So.. yeah. I wrote a poem. It's behind the cut. I have no illusions as to its quality. If you enjoy critiquing poetry, I'll be happy to listen, but I already know it's crap so suggestions may fall on deaf ears. Still, it won't hurt my feelings any either. Oh, and if you are a poetic fossil who feels similarly to me, I'd be amused to learn of it. In any case, it might amuse someone, so here goes.

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