Day 2 of curriculum nights. I really enjoy curriculum nights. Not only because you get to meet other parents but because I get to sit and listen to other teachers. I love teachers. It is interesting and I still get surprised and actually blank in my head when it comes to questions. How can people think so differently. We read the same literature and have the same intentions, to educate kids and get them ready for life and everything that involves growing up. And I realize that after 6 great years in excellent schools and with amazing teachers I still feel very Swedish. And it is not all about the language, I know English will always be my second language. It is the way we think, the way we treat children, the way we act and the way we talk. I am not saying that one country does it better than the other, it is just different, totally different. Even if I love our schools here I will never agree about the homework load our kids get. It is in my opinion completely unnecessary. As a teacher I really avoid homework but there are always parents that asks for it, strange. Why? If we want kids to learn and develop a healthy lifestyle let them be kids and let them have time to enjoy life a little bit more. 3-4 hours of homework after 7-8 hours in school (with no breaks and no time outside) is crazy. No wonder everybody has to eat Vitamin D here. I don’t think kids learn from huge amounts of homework, it comes to a point when it get to much and it’s does the opposite. School becomes negative and they focus on the stress and the fact that they don’t have enough time to finish every night. Check out the high school kids at our volleyball games, they don’t have time to watch their friends play because they are trying to squeeze in a couple of extra hours of homework when they are not playing so they don’t have to stay up after midnight. That’s how you create stressed and overworked kids and teenagers. Add on bad eating habits and not enough sleep. And don’t get me started on PE. I love PE, my kids loves PE but there sure are ways to kill the joy of moving and running. Get a stopwatch and ask kids to run a mile fast and they hate running. And grade their throws and kicks, jumps and shots and they will feel like they’re never good enough. Hopefully not for the rest of their life. And why are some sports worth so much more than others, how can you grade sports? And why do we think some sports are cooler than others? We just want our kids to move and enjoy working out. Simple.        

Day 18 of no family dinners. It’s easy, high school sports = no time to eat dinner. 3 out of 5 are taking high school sports and 1 out of 5 takes middle school sports this year that means that 1 person get to do everything else that has to happen around the house every night (without sitting down). If it’s not a game night that has been happening 3 out of 5 nights, then the whole family gets involved and usually gets home around…extremely late for a child. We are on a crazy schedule and somehow I have forgot that I need to get groceries to cook dinner five days in a row. Went to the store twice today since it seems like I lost the ability to think and write notes. Who needs to eat anyway. Well, everybody gets hungry all the time and every time I am around the only question I get is what’s for dinner? The kids cooked tonight and I went to curriculum night, again. Win-win!