A surprising number of her good friends in 2nd grade aren’t in her class this year. There are some, including one friend who lives up the street from us, but not as many as I had hoped. Some people I recognized, others were new. The hardest part is making small talk with the other parents that I know. Really hard. But School Girl was excited and ready to go, so that made it a little easier.

Her teacher came up and introduced herself to me, which was nice. She seems very pleasant – Best Friend Bear’s big sister had her and said she was very nice. I feel a little better about having her in her class. I wish she had sent School Girl a letter like her teacher did last year, but I’m sure things are chaotic.

This year I left right before they went into the school. I held myself together until I got back into the car this year, too.

The day started around 9 or so. It was already hot and humid; not a good combination for us out here, mostly because we’re not used to it. Many parents were craning their necks to look for the inevitable storm clouds. And there were many, many parents there.

I do know of some schools were “field day” is just that – a whole day devoted to different track and field events, primarily to eat up another state-mandated instructional day when nobody felt like being instructed or instructing. Ours is a little different. It’s all games, designed to give the kids some fun, provide embarrassing videos when said children are of dating age, and thoroughly wear them out to give the teachers a nice, peaceful pre-Memorial Day weekend afternoon.

There were tug-o-wars. There were relay races (in the nice shady gym! Huzzah!). There were various balancing games. There were even a couple of kids who had heat exhaustion (counting mine). And there was School Girl, having a great time with her friends for one of the last times in 2nd grade.

It was pretty amazing to watch the kids, especially School Girl. Bless her, she’s only gotten marginally more coordinated this year; but she’s more willing to try, more willing to participate than even at the beginning of the year. She’s got friends who encourage her and cheer her on, as she cheers for them.

Now that today’s almost over, there’s three more days to go. Not sure if any of us are looking forward to that or not.

On Friday the TX State Board of Education approved sweeping changes to their social studies/history curriculum. Among the changes, approved by a 9-5 vote, are eliminating mentions of slavery…pretty much anywhere (the “slave trade” will now be referred to as the “triangular trade”), and almost complete elimination of one of our founding fathers from history texts among other changes:

The new standards say that the McCarthyism of the 1950s was later vindicated — something most historians deny — draw an equivalency between Jefferson Davis’s and Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural addresses, say that international institutions such as the United Nations imperil American sovereignty, and include a long list of Confederate officials about whom students must learn.

Who gives a damn about what Texas children learn, you might ask? It matters because the state of TX is the second largest textbook market in the US. TX standards are the de facto standards of the US. No mention of slavery? Most likely no mention of what happened to all of the people who were here when the Mayflower landed either. Best of all, the propagation of the fantasy by Christian Dominionists that the US is a Christian nation founded on “Christian principles”.

California, the largest textbook market in the US, is taking action with a newly introduced bill to define their own history and social studies standards

Does anybody know of a decent US history book geared toward grades 4-6? School Girl won’t be in 4th grade yet, but she’s reading at a 5-6th grade level and I figure the options will be more varied. Hit me up with some suggestions in the comments if you wouldn’t mind. Good luck to our children. They’ll need it.

Here are the scary, scary remarks President Obama gave this morning. Quake in fear at teh Indoctrination!!!11!!!

How shameful. That schools would be afraid of showing this to children. I’m guessing/hoping that the speech will be up on YouTube by tonight, so that the three of us can watch it together. I’d really like School Girl to write about what she thinks of his speech, and how she can apply what he talked about to her own school experience.

Her classroom is closest to the door, almost exactly where her 1st grade class was save for the location of the hallway. Last Wednesday Evil Dad and I walked School Girl over, along with 2 bags filled with school supplies. This year, parents were allowed to go in and help carry the bags-o-stuff into their classroom. Last year, we had assessments/form completion time for the first two days of school, so parents were expected to go in and helped set up all the supply stations.

I also got to briefly meet the teacher. She’s an older, much more experienced teacher, with an East Coast attitude. I like her already, and I think School Girl likes her too. They’ve been busy this past week setting up the classroom, doing “getting to know you” activities, and generally doing what they can without actually breaking the kids into ability groups right away.

School Girl has loved, and really needed, getting back to her routine of school-reading-evening stuff. Without getting too involved, it’s been an upside-down sort of summer here; so a return to some sort of normal is very welcome indeed.

We talked about her reading level last night. Apparently it’s even higher than it was last spring, which opens up the possibility of letting her read some of my favorite SF books from when I was a kid. I think we might give this one a try, primarily to try to counteract some of the things she’s been watching on TV/at the movies this summer. It’s nice, and rare, to see an intelligent girl as the hero in any sort of story; and frankly, the plot of this one is pretty damn cool. I haven’t decided whether I’ll be reading it to her or letting her give it a shot on her own.