Trouble in __________ City

a. Lace

Before I go in too deep let me say that I have overcome (?) and now have 5 repeats done, but not before needing to take a break after noticing a dropped stitch at least 1 repeat down. I haven't included lifelines in this piece because this yarn does not frog. It just breaks and knots. So I fixed it as best I can and am now working on accepting my imperfection. But I was mega-disappointed.

b. School

The last few weeks Z has been laothe to go to school. He bargains with me every morning to not go. The last two days I kept him home since I had the (admittedly weak) excuse of impetigo on his face. So we went to the school's Thanksgiving feast today and I had a disturbing (to me) conversation with another parent who helps in the class regularly (I can't since we don't have childcare for B right now) about how the teacher invalidates, ignores or is downright disrespectful to Z's feelings etc. She had several specific examples that sounded as unbiased as she could make them. (her characterizations of my son were fair but accurate to both his good and not so good characteristics) Apparently during "Magic Circle" (which is a time where the kids are encouraged to share their feelings with their classmates) many of the kids have taken to saying I like so and so (whoever they played with at recess that day) and one day a child named many many people in the class and left Ezra out and he said "what about me" in a hurt way and rather then acknowledging those feelings and helping him and the class through them and using it as a learning experience, she told him he wasn't allowed to comment on someone else's words and he probably just wasn't listening anyway. The other parent also told me of a few other incidents from Magic Circle and also of times where the teacher has corrected him in such a way in class as to embarrass him instead of simply to correct him.

I don't agree with Magic Circle in general, but the point of it is to help the kids to understand and process their feelings and the feelings of others. If real true deep feelings are being ignored, then not only is it not helpful, but it is truly deeply detrimental to their emotional health.

Tomorrow is our parent teacher conference (as luck would have it) and this needs to and will get brought up. At this point, even though I am loathe homeschool, I am beginning to feel as though I have no choice. He is still just a baby and he will learn soon enough that people are cruel and mean, at 5, he should still think things are lovely and safe.