Ear Tubes

Today Molly went to Primary Children's Hospital to get tubes in her ears. In the last 2 weeks, she's had an appointment with Dr. Havlik and then Dr. Child, an ear, nose, and throat specialist. She's actually been pretty pleasant, but both doctors agreed her ears are still infected and that she should probably get tubes in her ears. Even though it's a relatively simple and short procedure, it's treated as a full-blown operation at Primary's and seems like quite and ordeal to prepare for.We had to wait until Thursday afternoon to get the surgery schedule. No formula or food after midnight. No water or juice after 5:00 a.m. We were to be at Primary's by 6:30 Friday morning and her procedure would be done at 8:00. James and I juggled our work schedules. He was able to take the day off, except that he had one appointment he couldn't miss in the morning. I would, of course, go with Molly, but then really needed to get back to school.

Molly and I made it to the hospital around 6:40 a.m. The first waiting room was already packed. We got a light-up pager like you would at a restaurant and took our seat with all of the other little kids and nervous, tired parents. Some kids were sad, some were grumpy, others were fine. Molly was fine. We watched the fish tank and all the other kids. Our pager had to go off twice before we could move to the next room.

The next room looked like a regular doctor's office room and we waited there, changed into fancy hospital pajamas, talked with an MA and then a Nurse Practitioner. Molly was still doing great!

The next room was waiting room #2. We met back up with several of the kids who had been in waiting room #1, all wearing the same fancy jammies. A couple of other kids were getting ear tubes, one was getting something removed from her eye/forehead and the doctor came out to the waiting room and marked the left side of her eyebrow with a sharpie. During this time, James met up with us and Molly got super grumpy. We blew bubbles, we colored, and we wandered. I think she was starving and tired and didn't want to be there anymore. Both the anesthesiologist and Dr. Child came out to talk with us, then we walked down a long hallway, handed Molly over to the anesthesiologist and walked back the other way to waiting room #3.

The whole procedure . . . takes 12 minutes.

Pretty soon, we were called out of waiting room #3. Molly's ear tubes were in and it was time to go find our child, our screaming child. The anesthesiologist (I just like seeing if I can spell that) told us earlier that most little kids either wake up still sleepy or they wake up feisty. Molly . . . well I guess you could call it feisty! She SCREAMED. She was so mad at the world. She kicked. She yelled. She was covered in snot, slobber, and tears. She wanted nothing to do with the water they were trying to give her in a bottle. She wanted nothing to do with me, or James, or the bed, or anything. Who knows what she wanted. We sang songs, we looked at different things, we emptied some toys out of the diaper bag, we tried a regular bottle, we picked her up, we laid her down, she flipped around . . . she just kept screaming!!

After a very traumatic 20-30 minutes, a nice little hospital worker lady came and brought Molly a noisy car toy with a horn to honk. Crying immediately stopped. She played with it for a while. She settled down enough to drink her bottle, change her clothes, and off we went. James said she had a 3 hour nap at home and an otherwise pleasant day!

The procedure went fine. She has drops for 3 days. No direct pressurized water in the ears. Follow up with Dr. Child in 3 weeks. She should be a happy camper from now on!

The End!

Waiting for Superman

I finally watched the documentary "Waiting for Superman." It came out quite a while ago and was playing at the Broadway for a while. I wanted to go see it, but never made it, so it's been on the top of my Netflix queue awaiting release.

So, what did I think? It's good. There is a lot of truth to it.

1. Our system is bad. It was good during the post WWII era, but hasn't changed since. It's not producing people competent enough to work in the high tech fields we are known for (hence the large numbers of people from India and elsewhere working for U.S. companies).
2. Teachers unions block a lot of needed change. Teachers are extremely influential and can make nearly all the difference for a child sometimes, but because of strong unions, tenure, and contract constraints, it is nearly impossible to get rid of bad teachers. Thus one of the most poignant lines in the movie was that education then becomes, "all about the adults."
3. The facts are there and are inarguable. We have greatly increased the number of per pupil spending in our country, but our math and reading scores have remained stagnant while our overall international rankings in reading and math have plummeted.

The film shows positive schools that are working, but then it also focuses a lot of attention on kids trying to get past a lottery system in order to get into the charter schools of their choice (though it does point out that only 1 in 5 charter schools is even successful). It's really depressing, actually. Maybe that's the point. Anyway, unfortunately, the movie doesn't really offer a lot of suggestions until the final credits. The final credits say that this is what we know works:

• Quality Teachers
• More Classroom Time
• World Class Standards
• High Expectations
• Real Accountability

So, I'm an educator . . . what about me? I buy it. I get it. Our system is stuck and it needs change. But, I also just graded two class periods of tests for my sophomore Algebra students. 4th period - average 66% and 8th period - average 60%. I try. I care. I try to get to know kids and build a rapport with them. I think I hold kids to high expectations. We never have a wasted day in my class. I try to work with kids one-on-one as much as I can, but I also am fortunate to have an adult aide in these two classes who also pulls kids out to work with them. I make parent contacts frequently. I work with the special ed. teachers well. My kids are noisy and very irreverant, but usually good and respectful. This year we are even giving them more time in class, by requiring them to come to math every single day on the block schedule. So why don't they get it? Is it me? Is it them? Is it the system? Is it their parents? Is it their elementary teachers? Is it their environment and community? What is it? It's probably a combination of all of those factors.

The movie focused a lot on the extremes. It focused on the extremely bad schools and then the extremely good schools. What about the middle-of-the-road schools like mine? We're better than some, but not wonderful. I don't think I am damaging any students, but I don't know that we are really catching the ones falling through the cracks either.

"Waiting for Superman" brings up some great topics for discussion and urges a call to action. The title, itself, implies that we cannot wait for a super hero to fix the problem, rather we all need to act. Unfortunately, the film didn't offer me any ideas on how to improve the 60% average for my students. I guess I'll have to still work on that.