Tunesday : Are You Gonna Go My Way?

Are You Gonna Go My Way?

(Ross, C / Kravitz, L) Performed by Lenny Kravitz

I was born long ago 
I am the chosen I'm the one 
I have come to save the day 
And I won't leave until I'm done 
So that's why you've got to try 
You got to breathe and have some fun 
Though I'm not paid I play this game 
And I won't stop until I'm done 

But what I really want to know is 
Are you gonna go my way ? 
And I got to got to know 

I don't know why we always cry 
This we must leave and get undone 
We must engage and rearrange 
And turn this planet back to one 
So tell me why we got to die 
And kill each other one by one 
We've got to love and rub-a-dub 
We've got to dance and be in love 

But what I really want to know is 
Are you gonna go my way ? 
And I got to got to know 

Are you gonna go my way ? 
'Cause baby I got to know, yeah

I know I've said it before, but I've gotten pretty bored of my own life story (it's strange that, even today, stories from my childhood feel more urgent and interesting than the things I've done as an adult; and all those childhood stories have been told by now). I haven't added to this project since early July, when I wrote about my decision to go back to college, so I think today I can summarise those two years of school, and hopefully, get to something a little more interesting next week. As for today's song choice: The first time I heard Are You Gonna Go My Way was on Saturday Night Live - I had never seen or heard of Lenny Kravitz before, and I found him absolutely mesmerising; the guitar playing, the swinging dreadlocks, the absolute cool radiating from him, the driving beat of this song; it was an instant infatuation. The lyrics don't have deeper meaning for me this week, but this was one of the few songs from 1993 that have stayed with me (funny how the songs from my childhood are also more vivid in my memory than those that came later).

My two years of college are a bit of a blur to me now, the days all running together, but the most important thing I can say about that experience is that it was the first time I ever put any effort into my education, and I succeeded completely. Getting a diploma in Early Childhood Development meant studying everything from the psychological theories of Freud and Piaget to safety, nutrition, and conflict resolution. I loved the homework, loved learning in an all female environment, and I was just old enough (at 24) to feel like a peer to my professors; I thrived.

Now, this was in Edmonton, and for my first year I had to attend classes at the far southside campus of Grant MacEwan. We lived north of downtown, and although it could have been an easy bus ride for Dave to get to his job at Theatre Network, he didn't think that would look professional and he insisted on having the car every day. Which put me on the bus; which took two transfers and about an hour and a half travel time in each direction. Which in the end, I didn't really mind: That was a whole lot of reading time I could enjoy each day and I was able to read everything even tangentially related to my courses; how could I not do well? Even in the winter, when Edmonton famously gets to forty below, I would be dressed in my long down coat, at the bus stop, in the early morning dark, and just happy to be doing exactly what I wanted to be doing. I'd bring a thermos full of coffee to school with me every day and have my first cup on that first bus - warming up down to my toes - enjoy my reading time, and when I got to campus, would go find my friends and sit for another cup. Sometimes different professors would sit with us before class started, and we would have interesting conversations beyond the scope of what we were being taught. I had more than one instructor ask me why I wasn't at the university instead and I took offense to that - I deeply believed in the philosophy of early childhood care that we were being taught, and on behalf of all the future preschoolers I could be moulding, I figured that they deserved to be cared for by "book smart" people such as myself; if I was considered bright enough for university, then I was just bright enough for ECD as well.

The first year at the southside campus went well - even if it would be annoying for me to get home at the end of a long day to find Dave and Curtis playing Nintendo, waiting for me to come and make dinner for everyone - and the following summer, I decided to get ahead on my second year by taking the mandatory English class and writing a challenge exam for the second year nutrition course (I had read that you could challenge this course, so I taught the syllabus to myself over the summer, and when I went to write the exam, I was nearly not allowed: this "challenge" was meant for people who had extensive experience in the field and wouldn't benefit from further instruction, but since that wasn't stated in the course handbook, I was finally allowed to write the exam and I aced it. I can't really explain why I didn't want to take that course; I guess it just seemed like an opportunity to advance.) The English class was taught by a professor from the U of A, and although I didn't technically need to take it - having taken a couple of English courses at the University of Lethbridge that I could have transferred over - I was really keen to take what was advertised as a University-level course, now that I was actually trying. This course had a lot of reading - we needed to read and pretty much memorise countless short stories and essays - and a lot of writing, and I loved every minute of it: I remember spending long days out in the warm sun on the back deck, my big dog Moe by my side, and closely reading Orwell's fiction and nonfiction; finally understanding how to write a proper essay. I loved this course and the professor praised me often. (I told a couple of stories at the end of this book review, which I won't repeat here.)

The second year was transferred to the newly renovated downtown campus, which was one short bus ride from my house, or when the weather was fine, a less than thirty minute walk that I took often (even if it meant being on foot in some dodgy neighbourhoods; I wasn't scared of much in the daylight.) Again, I loved the learning and my classmates and my professors, and most of all, I just loved feeling successful.

I could write about what I remember from my courses, but more interesting in my memory were my practical placements and how they evolved my thinking about child care. My first placement was at a public school in a very poor neighbourhood. The school offered free breakfasts, had a couple local bakeries donate day old products that any parent could help themselves to, had a clothing exchange (or, if the parents had nothing to exchange, they were free to just take what they needed), and one of the free programs they offered was a preschool drop off. Three of my classmates and I were given totally free reign: We could design any program we wanted, request whatever snacks we wanted to provide, decide on our own what age ranges we could care for. The program room had toys and books and supplies for any aged baby/toddler/preschooler, and it was totally gratifying that my first practicum was in providing a service for parents who needed some time out; but more so, for children who might not be getting enough "proper" stimulation at home. I was intimidated by the idea of being totally on our own in this project, but as the other three in my group had all worked in daycares before, they knew the drill and we ran a great program. I really felt like what I had decided to do with my life would make a difference.

My second placement was in a kindergarten, and there I had far less freedom and responsibility. The teacher was very good at her job - the children were all well behaved and engaged - and I was pretty much a gopher. It was an interesting look into how a kindergarten runs, and when the teacher asked me why I wasn't at university, where I could certainly handle becoming a teacher myself, I was taken aback: after seeing the difference I could make on my first placement, I really believed that my destiny was to prepare preschoolers of every situation for kindergarten; that making sure every child had an equal footing before school even began was the most noble of aspirations.

I really was starry-eyed about the importance of Early Childhood Education and I totally swallowed every progressive theory that I was taught. I believed that the government should fund universal daycare because I was being indoctrinated to believe that properly-trained ECE workers were better qualified to prepare children for school and life than even their own parents. It wasn't until I began to see this philosophy in action in my second year that I started to have doubts.

My third practicum was at a publicly-funded daycare; what I had been led to believe would be the very highest quality of care. The workers were ECD educated and unionised, and it was stressed to me that it would follow that that would mean the best care possible. This daycare was in a federal building, and for the most part, served the federal employees. What I soon discovered was that these daycare workers were totally by the book - the program was run with military precision (changing from this activity to that despite the children's levels of engagement), workers' breaks likewise ran by the clock instead of following the flow of the day - and for the most part, these workers had little affection for the children, and zero for their parents; complaining about the one mother who insisted on coming in to breastfeed her two-year-old before naptime; raging about the parents who left their children in for the maximum time, despite the workers knowing that these parents were done work at four and went grocery shopping after work every day instead of picking up their kids immediately. (There was one federal holiday during my placement and it drove the workers nuts that any of the parents who worked in the building would drop their kids off like usual and take a day to themselves.) At every turn, these educated and unionised daycare workers believed that they knew better than the parents what their children needed, but as these were secure and higher-than-average-paid jobs, they were treated like any union jobs; there was nothing creative, spontaneous, or child-focussed about the daily programs. As this was presented to me in school as the Cadillac of programs - so much more beneficial than anything you would find in a soulless, capitalistic, for-profit daycare - I began to experience a crisis of faith: where were the high quality, progressive, equality of opportunity programs that I would want to emulate in my own career?

My last placement just made me sad: This was in another low income neighbourhood; this time in a community center that also offered free food, clothing, laundry and resume services, in addition to a drop-in preschool program. This program was run by two butch lesbians (I assumed they were a couple), and they took an immediate dislike to me and my trembling dreams of wanting to make the world a better place. They mocked my inexperience, made jokes at my expense, and challenged me with their stories of the "real world" of the families we were there to help. One of them told me that the mother of three little siblings that we cared for daily (children were only supposed to be dropped off a max of twice/week, but they allowed these kids to come any time; they never enforced the maximum numbers they were supposed to, by law, care for) was a drug addict who once disappeared for a week after dropping her kids off at the centre. These women took the kids home with them, never notifying the police or Social Services of what had happened, and with her chin thrust out at me challengingly, she said she'd do it again in a heartbeat; wouldn't I? No. No, I wouldn't. 

This placement destroyed the last of my ideals. When I learned that my two year college diploma, along with the three years I already had at university, would give me enough credits towards an Education Degree that I could be a teacher with just one more year of schooling, I seriously began to think on that. 

But here's the most important factor that kept me out of working in the ECE field: I was pregnant, by design, in my last year of school. And after having had placements in a variety of care situations - each of which was presented to me as the best of its kind - I knew I would never want to put my own children into daycare; that this progressive notion of the state knowing better than parents what is best for their children is utter bullshit. I complained to my mother that I now had zero plan for where or how to work as a mother while keeping my children near me, and she asked me why that was my priority; who said I needed to work outside the home? I answered that it was common knowledge that the days of a single income providing for a family were long gone, and again she challenged me with, Says who? We may not have had a second car or fancy vacations, but my parents had gotten along on one income; by focussing our priorities, Dave and I could, too. And somehow, that's what happened: After being raised in the 70's, and being told repeatedly that when I grew up I could be anything I wanted, except a housewife, I became a housewife; a stay-at-home Mom. 

And I may have felt undervalued in that role if I hadn't taken my two year ECD diploma: I was able to transfer everything I learned about early childhood needs and development into the way I parented my girls; they will never remember it, but their preschool days were filled with planned and spontaneous activities, lots of toys and books and guided play, periods of stimulation and rest that followed their own rhythms. They could not have received that kind of personalised attention in group care, and I was confident that I was giving them the very best of me. 

So, there's no such thing as a wasted education: The two years I spent in college proved to me that I could succeed in school if I actually put some effort into it, and that experience still makes me feel like I haven't wasted my life. And those years also taught me how to be an effective early childhood caregiver for my own children; I had no idea at the time that I would eventually provide care in my home for other people's children after all.

And that's all I've got to say about that.