This Magic Moment

The other day I learned that my 7-year-old best bud, who is in second grade, is on a 7th grade reading level. Seventh. Grade. Seven. Years. Old.

While there are likely many children doing similarly remarkable things, his story makes me quite happy, especially because last school year he was enrolled at a charter school (that shall remain nameless) run by people who all but handed him his hat and invited him to leave the stratosphere, and most definitely the school.

You see, my best bud is a VERY spirited young man with a steel trap of a mind, which he uses at the whim of his 7-year old emotions. Like just about any child, if he senses that one adult or another has dismissed him as a bother, he doesn't regard the matter fondly at all. At this nameless school, it seems the administration, which was heavy-laden with fresh-faced college grads who were both upwardly mobile and clueless, refused to reach beyond their OWN emotions and get to my buddy's extremely hungry mind. Too often and out loud they wondered if there were there problems at home, with his family or his very existence.  Never once in all the meetings his mother moved heaven and earth to arrange did they consider their own ineptitude, forged by inexperience, bigotry and good old-fashioned classism. My bud's mom told me about the scads of cash the parent body raised and the parental snubs that threatened budding friendships naturally formed during my bud's first grade days. Every time she told me of another incident, my skin crawled and my fingers twitched, wanting to write a tell-all in the local paper.  Rather than engage my vengefulness, my bud's mom held on, got him some support AND moved him to another school where being Other Than White and Monied was not a punishable crime. It was at his new school that he began to flourish like Michael Phelps, and his superfast mind was respected and understood as tough to manage in a 7-year-old body.

I believe an important take away is that while charter schools CAN be a good thing, they are NOT the answer. Quality education is to charter schools what fluffy pancakes are to a whisk--if you don't know what you're doing, you'll get flat results. As with all organized efforts involving humans (because the animal and plant communities just don't HAVE these problems), a school's quality really rests on the emotional, psychological, intellectual and spiritual health of its leaders. As they say, fish begin to stink from the head.

I believe another important tidbit this story offers is the ageless truth that ugly isn't divinely favored. On the first day of school this year, this stinky school experienced an unfortunate occurrence, forcing it to close its doors.

And it just so happens that the day I learned of my bud's Olympic reading feats was the same day I learned of the closing.

And I smiled. A lot.