Big School in the Big Apple
First day of school
After 104 days of summer holidays, today I sent my firstborn child - my big 5 year old - off with a packed lunch and her little backpack, off to work down a mine. Sorry! Not down a mine! That’s just how my Manhattan neighbours react when I tell them where I'm actually sending her: to public school. A school that is funded by the State via us, the taxpayers. A free school that all children can attend. It’s remarkable when you think about it and you’d think it would be uncontroversial. But you’d be wrong.
If you think that Dublin has an unhealthy (and boring…oh, so boring) obsession with private schools, well Manhattan must have looked at Dublin through the Portal and said “Hold my beer”.
When we arrived to live in New York two years ago, a colleague told us that there are two things that everyone wants to know: where you live and where your kids go to school. I experienced this first-hand almost immediately even though our children at the time were just 18 months and 3 years old. I was at a drinks reception and a woman in her sixties, after hearing how old my kids were, asked where they were going to go to school. She added quickly: “Sorry, I know it’s awful that everyone asks! We have a villa in Tuscany and my neighbours there were always saying to me “You Americans are too obsessed with schools”. They really kept us down to earth”. And I thought well thank God for the neighbours in your Tuscan villa to keep you grounded. Not all of us are so lucky.
I've been in company when people are discussing primary schools for their pre-school children and when I say that ours will be going to the local school, a brief but noticeable silence falls over the group. On more than one occasion, someone has approached me discreetly afterwards to say “You know, the Catholic school is actually quite affordable”. (Ten thousand dollars a year, if you’re wondering what affordable is).
Thankfully, we are confident in our reasons for wanting our kids to go to the local school so I am able (now) to find these reactions entertaining rather than stressful.
But I didn’t always find it so easy. Even when you’re sure of your reasons, it’s difficult to remain immune from the unspoken pressure, especially when it is so pervasive. The constant chatter of schools and feeder schools and tours and open days and waiting lists and education consultants and private schools and chartered schools and language programmes and gifted programmes.
The general pressure of keeping up - often we don't even notice we’re reacting to it. Did I make this decision myself or am I unconsciously following the crowd? In the playgrounds in Dublin at the weekends, I’d look round at other couples getting out of their cars (that were some slight variation of the car we had), taking out their buggies (that were identical to ours) with the exact same toys hanging off the top of them, being pushed by mothers wearing the same leggings and runners as me and I realised I was standing on Craggy Island looking across at Rugged Island. We’re all the exact same - are we giving this any thought at all? Am I paddling my own canoe? Or did I get the same canoe as everybody else and unwittingly say: I’ll go where they’re going.
Some of the best advice I received for living in New York City, which is good advice for life, came from the school administrator when I went into the office for enrollment. One of the questions on the form asked “What language does the child read or write in?” The point of the question was to establish which languages the child uses, not really whether they could read or write but when I said “She can't actually read. Should she be able to read? It's just that I know other parents in her pre-school weren’t happy with the progress and are getting tutors over the summer and- " The calm and wise administrator put up her hand to stop me mid-stream and said “Of course they are. This is New York City. It is full of type As. You just have to take a deep breath every once in a while and remind yourself of that”.
So I do. I occasionally have to take a deep breath and think: I’m not getting caught up in this. I know what I want and it is not IQ tests for a 4 year old and it is not an educational consultant for a 2 year old.
Though occasionally, while attempting to navigate the application process, I wondered if a consultant might have been worth the investment. The application for Kindergarten is very similar to the college application process in Ireland. Every child born in a particular year has to register online and apply. You rank your schools in order of preference, there are selection criteria and offers and waitlists and more offers. By comparison, my own school enrollment in 1989 went exactly like this: my mother dropped me to playschool as she always did, a playschool that was located in the garage of a woman who lived down the road. On this particular day, there was a brand new class of 4 year olds and my mother asked “Where is everyone?” to which the teacher replied “They’ve started school”. So we hopped back in the car (not a seatbelt in sight) and drove round to the national school and that was me enrolled.
But that was 35 years ago and today is today.
I didn’t think I'd feel emotional about my daughter starting school. I feel like she has been around forever and I'm a bit shocked that she isn't already in there. In Ireland, she would have been decked out in the clothes of a miniature businesswoman (complete with tie) to match her Linked-in sounding title of “Junior Infant”. Junior Infants was something I had done myself and was familiar with. The word ‘Kindergarten’ didn’t really mean anything to me. It sounded childish and anyway, she would still be wearing ordinary clothes.
She had already done two years in pre-school and that was after starting in creche at 11 months so I didn't really see the big deal of moving to yet another form of school.
But then we toured the school and realised it really was Big School and a serious leap. It was built in the 1950s and looked not dissimilar to my own secondary school which was built in the 60s. The flag flew in the yard and it looked, well, like a state building. A nice state building but a large and somewhat impersonal one, less personal than the cosy pre-schools she’d been in to date at least.
As soon as we entered, we were hit with the universal primary school smell: spilt yoghurt mixed with pencil parings and fart. Class projects hung in the corridors. We were led to the hall which had a stage set into a wood-panelled wall, old velvet curtains and a small piano with a bockety chair down the front. I turned to my husband and said “This is exactly like my school hall”. He said “Mine too” and we realised OK yes, this is a big deal: she is starting formal education and no lack of uniform could disguise that.
Podcast: Navigating New York
I discuss the New York school application process and various other differences between parenting styles in Ireland and New York, with Gemma Allen, on the latest episode of Navigating New York, hosted by Sophie Colgan. You can listen to it now.
You had me at Craggy Island because I lived in Kilfenora for two summers and miss it dearly!