I’ve often thought the same thing that Pete Holmes suggests. At 5-years old, I had zero interest in being dragged from my cozy bed, to be hustled off to a mysterious place where I soon learned I was legally required to stay.
This reluctance was enforced by a woman I learned was the kindergarten teacher on my very first day, and on several days thereafter. She would hook both of my small shoulders with her talons, then tell me that the school police were lying in wait for bad girls who ran away, which I was informing her I would like to do between sobs. Talons in place, she would then proceed to carry out her promise to “Shake the shoes off of you!” If not for my little friend Karen, who’d mastered the skill of shoe tying, I’d have been in a terrible predicament – and so a lifetime friendship blossomed, and I purchase zip-on shoes to this day.
It’s a different time. Kids wouldn’t believe any of that ‘school police’ BS nowadays. If this didn’t bring tears to your eyes, then perhaps the realization that we’re doing things ass-backward (again) will. Pete Holmes makes a very convincing case for letting kids be kids – they’re good at it, and they’re not at all interested in what we have planned for them at their very first institution.
We – on the other hand, would love to go to school! There’s Reading – check! Writing – another plus, and even a bit of Mathematics before treat and nap time…We also do these activities with a happy heart. Add a few games, a story, and those big fat crayons and it would be a glorious day!