Two.

I promised this would be a newsletter about school, but here's the thing: I haven't gotten into school yet. I'm taking what are called non-matriculated classes which will transfer if I get into a program for the fall. So, I keep writing drafts of this newsletter and then deleting them because, you know, I'm superstitious.

            Luckily, I have plenty to say about school as a general concept. School is a big theme in our family in 2023. In addition to my graduate applications, we have applications out to a kindergarten and to several middle schools because in NYC you have to apply (via lottery) to public schools. Plus, I've been working on final edits for THE WORLD DIVIDED BY PIPER, which involves a lot of school, and a full Academic Decathlon.

            So, I've been thinking a lot about school. If you're diagnosed with ADHD at forty, you're probably destined to think a lot about school.

            The big question is this: What is school and what is learning, and how can I make them happen at the same time, for all three of us?

            My newest attempt at school got off to a rocky start. In the first minute of my first class on the first day of twenty-first grade, the classroom computer malfunctioned. The professor started scrambling, the class around me settled into patiently waiting, and I panicked. My brain does not know how to wait.

            I remember my dad once telling my mom over breakfast that he'd had The College Dream. When I asked about it, I was warned of a dream, really a nightmare, that haunted people throughout their academic lives and for decades after. In it, you show up to a school of some sort to find out there's a test of some sort, and you're not ready. Panic ensues. I'm not sure if this dream is universal, or if it's one that tends to hunt down Carters in particular, but I've had quite a few College Dreams. They're awful, but they aren't the worst.

            The worst is what I call the Nothing Nightmare. In this one, I arrive at a school of some sort to find....nothing. A classroom with no teacher. A teacher with no plans. A universal feeling that we have to wait.

            I guess I'd rather take a test I'm unprepared for than wait in a desk to take one I know I'll ace.

            This inability to wait use to get me in trouble. In first grade, I got punished for peeling paint off a piano bench when the music teacher stepped into the hallway. In fifth, I was held in from recess to scrub a desk I had doodled on during a lull in a lesson. And, holy cow, did I get lectures for talking at inappropriate times. Eventually, I learned to filter my un-waiting so that it wouldn't make problems for others: I doodled in my notebooks instead of on desks; I took pens apart and put them back together; I chipped off my own nail polish. It was still horrendous. When the lesson resumed, I wanted to pay attention. I wanted to listen. I wanted to learn. But I'd be exhausted from making myself blend in to all the effortless waiting around me.

            And, no, this isn't some Typical Millennial Short Attention Span Problem because A. I'm not a millennial and B. my waiting ineptitude predates AOL by at least a decade. In fact, I used to avoid going online because of how hard it was to wait for the modem to dial.

            So, back to twenty-first grade. I'm in the front row of the classroom, laptop open on the tiny desk in front of me, hands poised over the keyboard, ready to take notes and then, wham. The Smart Board goes dark. It's the Nothing Nightmare.

            Immediately, my brain started scanning for strategies to get through waiting. Doodling was a no-go because I didn't have a pen or paper, I only had my computer. Of course, that meant I had the entire internet. I could check my email. I could open my manuscript. I could resume browsing for that dress I need to buy for my brother's wedding. But I knew if I did any of that, it would be hard for me to regain my focus. 

            Then I noticed my fingers. It had been a few minutes and they were still on the keyboard. They weren't even twitching. The panic-y feeling had dissipated. My body wasn't moving or itching to move.

            So, I waited. Successfully. For an entire fifteen minutes.

            Yes, this is a skill one is supposed to learn in preschool, and yes, I am a forty-one-year-old who has successfully completed preschool. But no one taught me to wait because people didn't teach executive functioning as skills in the 80s. So, I think that may be my PR. My personal record. Longest time spent waiting without subsequently messing up the thing I was waiting for. 

            It was also the first sign that school, the concept, has changed for me. Finally.

          I love learning. I've been hungry for it for a long as I can remember. I have a much more complicated relationship with school. I struggled in the beginning. I repeated first grade. The hardest year of my life, academically, was fifth . After that, school got progressively easier.

            I'm pretty sure that's not how it's supposed to be.

            But I learned to pay more attention to the structure of school than the content of the lessons. I learned to do what I needed to get the grade. I felt like I was tricking everyone. Like I was playing a system. Like each A was me pulling a fast one on the world. People always tell me that that was smart, that a lot of people go through school like that, that all of us are still educated. I agree, completely. I no longer really feel like I was tricking everyone. I now feel like I earned my grades.

            The sad thing is, though, I wanted to learn everything.

            On one of my first days in my (first) graduate program, a professor asked us to share what we would learn if we could learn anything in the world. Most people said some sort of life skill (i.e., cooking), some sort of artistic talent (i.e., playing an instrument), or a foreign language.

            I said, "Math".

            Everyone laughed. This was literally days after our college graduation where I could have taken any math class I wanted. But that wasn't how I approached school. And I was talking about fourth grade math.

            I'm going back to school this fall (hopefully) for a practical degree that makes sense right now. And that's why this move is adjacent to a mid-life crisis rather than an actual mid-life crisis. Because what I really want is to go back to fifth grade and do it all again, Billy Madison style.

            I keep trying not to fantasize about pulling a Billy Madison while I research middle schools for Elijah. In Brooklyn, there are so many. There's the very academic one where every child learns Chinese. There's the freedom-focused one where the students have a lot of say in what they learn. There's the experiential learning one where the kids rarely sit down. There's the environmentally focused one where they're outside all the time. There's the traditional one with six classes and study hall and a basketball team. There's the one that has an odd emphasis on chess. (And these are all public middle schools within about a two-mile radius of our apartment.) School has changed a lot since I was a kid, and thank God, and maybe I could learn if I were a kid right now, but I can't be my ten-year-old's classmate.

            Instead, I've parceled together some of the education I long for using things like DuoLingo, YouTube drawing tutorials, and an Environmental Science textbook someone had left on a curb. Thanks to Zearn, a free online platform that teaches the New York state math curriculum to kids (and me), I do finally understand fourth grade math.

            I don’t want to give up learning by going back to school. And it feels like I'm in school, the concept. I have homework assignments, quizzes, research papers, and grades, which actually matter in order for my credits to transfer.

            My unspoken fear on that first day was that I would fall into the same old patterns. That the ADHD diagnosis and treatment that help so much in life wouldn't make the difference in school. That I'd end up playing systems to get the grades I need. That I'd be too busy with all the remembering to actually learn

            I mean, graduate school should be harder than, say, fifth grade, right? I'm balancing classes with taking care of a house and two kids and, you know, my actual job. But somehow, it's easier. For the first time the way assignments build to assessments is making sense. For the first time I'm using my planner to organize myself instead of to torture myself. For the first time, I can wait.

            Everything is easier. Everything is clear.

            There's an itch in my brain and if I stopped to scratch it, it would say, I could have loved learning this way for forty-one years. My academic life could have always been this fulfilling. If I'd only had teachers who understood me. If I'd only been believed when I said I was interested, even if I didn't do the work or pay attention.

            Or, If I'd only had Adderall in high school.   

            But I'm not going to scratch that itch. I can't go to middle school with my kid, I can't fulfill the Billy Madison fantasy, but this has to the next best thing: I'm in school and I'm learning. I'm loving it.

            I'm going to be grateful I didn't let my age stop me from taking the risk.

            I'm going to live in the joy of learning for now.

FUN STUFF

Lists!

Here’s what you recommended in content that features women over 39:

1. And Just Like That, TV (HBO MAX)

2. Somebody Somewhere, TV (HBO)

3. Mare of Easttown, TV (HBO)

4. Hacks, TV (HBO)

(My takeaways: We need more content and also HBO, good job.)

What I’m looking for:

1. What would you learn if you could learn anything in the world? I’m very curious about this, especially as we think about our big kid’s move to middle school.

2. Keep the recs coming for books, TV shows, movies, etc that star or heavily feature women over 39! We gotta make that list a little longer!

3. Still looking for a book that takes place in Ashville, NC. Also, one that takes place in Naples, FL and one in Los Angeles. If you know of any at all (especially for the first two) send the titles my way!

My recommendations

Reading: This article from the beginning of The 1619 Project blew me away when I read it for school this week (hint, hint). It reframed American history for me, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Read it!

Watching: I’m on my third rewatch of Jane, the Virgin and this time (thanks to DuoLingo) I understand most of what Abuela Alba is saying without subtitles! If you’ve caught the DuoLingo Spanish bug, this is a really fun show to watch.

Doing: It’s a little obvious, but this week I’m recommending learning something just because you want to. :-)