All I Need to Know I Learned in Elementary School

My youngest child has his promotion ceremony this afternoon, which means I’m really, really, really close to no longer being a parent of an elementary school kid. Here’s what I’m taking away in my personal final Friday folder.

• 11 years is a very long time to be in prison, work at one job, or have kids in the same elementary school.
• Good principals make all the difference.
  
• Sadly, so do bad principals.
• The same goes for teachers, by a factor of five.
• Working mothers take far more grief about not being in the classroom or volunteering at the schools than working fathers do.
• Some working parents carry so much guilt that the slightest plea for help is seen as a reprimand.
• Some non-working parents go so far overboard in the schools that other non-working parents start to consider getting a job just to get away from them.
• 11 years is a very long time to be in prison, work at one job, or have kids in the same elementary school.
• A few of the kids pegged in kindergarten by a snarky mother as future serial killers of America grow out of that label by second or third grade.
• More of those kids in fifth grade are right on track to stay true to their presumed career path.
• One will leave the country and the snarky mother will toy with warning that country about him.
• You can sneak in booze at Father/Daughter Dances and family picnics so long as you have accomplices. And an insulated coffee cup.
• The folks who complain the loudest about the idiots parking in the circle are the same ones who will park in the circle “when it’s really important” or when they just “have to have a quick word” with someone.
• 11 years is a very long time to be in prison, work at one job, or have kids in the same elementary school.
• Other people talk about you and your children as much as you talk about them and theirs.
• Your child will never be the best at everything. N-E-V-E-R. Sorry to have to break that to you.
• A few teachers will forget that you’re there to help your child and not the teacher.
• Charter school supporters and opponents will still manage to be cordial to each other. To their faces.
• 11 years is a very long time to be in prison, work at one job, or have kids in the same elementary school.
• Much like the universe, the school existed before you and your kids arrived and will continue after you and your kids depart.