Uniforms & Trees

Choosing which "battle" to fight...first

Listen if you prefer…

Do you know that riddle about the guy who lives on the twenty-sixth floor of an apartment building and every day he rides the elevator all the way down but most days he only rides the elevator up to the twelfth floor and takes the stairs the rest of the way up except on days it’s raining, he takes the elevator all the way up to the twenty-sixth floor. Your job is to figure out why. What’s special about when it rains that makes him ride all the way back up?

Photo by Gaurav Baya on Unsplash

I’ll let you ponder that one.

I felt like I was living in a similar riddle when my seven-year old, Clara, came home from her new school and said,

“I can’t reach the monkey bars at school. On Tuesdays, I just climb up the side pole. Other days, my friend lifts me up.”

Clara is obsessed with monkey bars, and as her obviously objective mother, I can say she’s quite good at them, too. This goodness takes on many forms. It looks like choreographed monkey barring with a buddy where both girls travel side by side in unison or start from opposite ends and time their travel to finish in unison. Sometimes she does skip bar, where she grabs just every other bar, but that only works on sets that have close enough bars because she is still quite small and can’t reach across two if the spacing is too wide. Monkey bars do not have a standard gate.

About a year ago, we were at a birthday party at one of these “soft play” centers in a mall (I didn’t anticipate those last six words being part of my life, so insert a shrug and eyebrow scrunch on that subject). At this particular soft play center, there were a bunch of trampolines and aerial playground features over foam pits and the kids ran wild bouncing and playing and falling into foam.

Much to Clara’s delight, one of the features was a set of monkey bars like a bridge, with five ascending bars to climb up before about seven bars parallel to the ground and then five descending bars on the far side. All over a colorful foam pit. For about 20 full minutes, I watched Clara try over and over and over to do this in what a friend described as a ‘Daniel Tiger episode on perseverance.’ It really was remarkable. She would climb, fall into the foam, laugh, and manage to be both earnest and cheesy by saying something like, “Well, I didn’t get it that time, so I’ll try again!” or “That wasn’t quite what I planned” or “I can’t do it yet, but next time!”

I wondered how tired her arms must be after fighting gravity more than a dozen times. I weighed the diminishing probability that she would succeed after so many attempts. I marveled at her sticktoitiveness (side note: sticktoitiveness is among my fave make-a-words).

Undeterred, Clara kept at it. And then, just like that, she did it and immediately ran up to join the other kids for pizza and cake. (Apologies: although I had been recording so many attempts, I didn’t manage to catch the completion — so the video you’ll see is just part way across).

So the monkey bar riddle matters because it’s about Clara’s new school. It’s a blend of uptight British curriculum with Montessori style. In general, I think it’s a good option for Clara and our family. Still, it’s a big transition after three blissful years at Terra Moyo, a forest school located on a forested plot with official forest days where students visited a big (Karura ❤️) forest one day a week.

Among other things at this new school, like Clara coming home telling me that all of the girls are in desk pairs with the boys “so they listen’ (we have since reviewed stereotypes, the fact that there’s nothing biological or gendered about listening skills, and that it is not hers or any of the girls responsibility to make the boys listen), her new school is not a forest. There are, in fact, just two big beautiful trees on school grounds. It’s worth noting that these trees used to be in the middle of what is now the sports field and the school administration made the valiant effort to transplant them rather than chop them down. That gives me hope for their overall orientation toward trees.

Clara is concerned about the tree situation. Knowing me and my work, she has put in a direct request, “Mom, can you puhleeease get my school more trees?”

“Yes,” I say. And then, “More plants, at least.” I’m picturing the school grounds and speculating how many full sized trees can be accommodated given the diehard football (soccer) and cricket culture and the relatively vast amount of land dedicated to sport. Which I like ok. I mean, sports have their place (but don’t ask me to use sports metaphors correctly, or I’ll be up a creek without a racket).

I just think trees are more important.

And then there’s the uniform. I put in a half-hearted effort to have a good attitude about it. I reviewed with myself the compelling arguments in favor of uniforms.

Becca, they are a great step toward equity so everyone has the same things rather than some kids sporting expensive, designer clothes. (I still remember somewhat less-than-fondly those middle school years where I just had to have Doc Martins and Girbaud jeans, which, by the way, did not succeed in making me cool).

Photo by graphic mu on Unsplash

Becca, this will make for smoother mornings with fewer battles of wills regarding what to wear to school. And, of course, you won’t have to navigate conversations about cleavage and midriff and thighs and being respectful…so yeah. I get it.

It’s just the school has chosen that girls ages eight and under must wear pinafores (which I honestly thought was a type of pastry until about a month ago). News to me: a pinafore is a dress. In Clara’s case, it’s more of a gray sack because she’s tiny and the sizing is all wonky. Literally she and her friend who is a full foot taller (not kidding) are wearing the same size pinafore. Why can’t they all just wear pants (we can call them trousers if we must) and a shirt? I can even get on board with a polo shirt. But dresses? Clara wears shorts or tights under hers so she can hang from the monkey bars. And the two trees.

In the uniform we have the answer to the riddle. Not the elevator one. The punchline on the elevator riddle is that

– like Clara – the guy in the elevator is really short. So on days when it rains he can ride the elevator to the top floor because he uses his umbrella to push the high floor twenty-six button, but on other days he can only reach the button for the twelfth floor where he gets out to take the stairs from there.

In terms of the monkey bars at school, here’s what I’ve deduced.

On Tuesdays, when she can climb the side pole to reach the monkey bars, she is wearing her “sports kit” – a skort and t-shirt instead of a dress – so her skin grips the pole and she doesn’t slide down.

But on pinafore days (every other day of the week), the dress is too slippery and her tall friend has to lift her up onto the bars.

I love Clara’s problem-solving here. I love that her friend helps her. I love that she gets to swing like a monkey. But I don’t love that this contrivance – this vestigial visage of a proper British schoolgirl – is creating an extra and wholly unnecessary problem for Clara to solve.

So I’m left thinking about choosing my battles.

Supposedly I’m having fewer of them in the mornings on account of the uniform, so I should have some extra energy stored up to focus on other things. But last week, Clara refused to wear her pinafore which put me in the unenviable position of fighting her to just please wear the (God-damned) uniform that she knows very well I don’t believe in.

And, the battle she’s directly asked me to take on is over trees.

That’s one I can really get behind.

So, I think, trees first.

I’ll do some sleuthing to find a few pockets where trees can be accommodated – on the edges of the football pitch, maybe. In the courtyard. We can certainly tuck in some grafted fruit trees. Then, Goddess willing, some of our incredible Good Natured Learning alumni can train and equip all of the teachers at Clara’s school to regularly teach outdoors and with nature, for better learning and wellbeing for students and teachers alike. For love of the earth sewn like seeds into each students’ school journey.

Then, we can work on the uniforms.

❤️,

B