I have a great job that I love. I only rarely come into conflict with anyone in my office – they just leave me to do my thing. Still, I dig this sub.
I was kind of bemoaning the fact that I had very little to contribute to the conversation, when my wife reminded me of something that happened years ago…
My son was born in December. Where we live, January 1st is the cut off for school attendance. As a December baby that would have made him the youngest in his class – putting him at a significant disadvantage. He also seemed very young (at 3) to be going to school. So we decided to keep him back a year and register him when he was 4 instead.
When we registered him they recognized that he had “missed a year,” and they wanted to push him ahead to the older class right off the bat. We explained our reasoning – adding that, since he was an only child we felt it was important for him to have the social experience as well.
We got some pushback – so we arranged to meet with the school principal. He was friendly and seemed like a good guy, but right away it was clear that he imagined that he was there to “manage” us. It was a little like meeting with a vacuum salesman, who asks questions that can only reasonably be answered with a yes. He expressed that it was evident that we were caring parents who had the best interest of our son in mind. He he talked about the board's policies and his long experience in the educational system. Finally he said this – “We all want the best for your son. I recommend that he jump ahead to senior kindergarten. That way he will be able to enter the work force a year earlier than he would otherwise.
That's where I stopped him. I told him our priority wasn't getting our son to work as soon as possible, but rather to help him to become the best version of himself, and that had very little indeed to do with any consideration of his employment. I told him that I had read his policies, which allowed for exceptions. We also presented the results of our research into the progression of December babies in school – which clearly indicated that they struggle to keep pace with their peers. Finally we told him that if he would not support us, we would be going to the board.
He relented, sort of. He arranged for our son to be placed in a split class and said – we'll see how he does and decide next year. He obviously intended to assert his decision, and defer the conflict until later.
That later conflict is another story, and not so much relevant here. In the meantime, if you're wondering who it is that might look at a 4 year old and think, “Boy I can't wait until we can exploit him,” the answer is (distressingly) the entire education system.