Today was a beautiful day, meant to be enjoyed outside. I however spent most of it inside, actually a lot of it inside my car. School is in session for me and my daughter. We both love learning but the stuff that goes along with it can make you nuts. I have now driven up to Minneapolis twice for no point whatsoever. My first day was supposed to be a 2 hour lecture on motor control! Yay! I was so excited and then panicked as I realized that I was going to be a few minutes late thanks to I94 traffic. I ran to class got there just as she started roll call and then promptly ended the class after reviewing a total of 8 slides. Total time: 20 minutes. Total frustration: very high knowing I was now going to head back through all of that nasty traffic. Today was even better though. I made the drive for a lab. A lab which I discovered upon arrival is being taught by a kid I was in class with a year ago and who's idea of class was telling us he was going to be good friends with us and then making us play rock/paper/scissors until the grand champion was crowned (no awards were handed out; just pride of possessing the motor skills to play). Total class time: minutes. Total frustrations....don’t even get me started.

My daughter is in the same boat. Five days of public school and the only teacher really doing anything is in Geometry and even that took a couple days. She is at a point that she is realizing how much wasted time kids have in school and returning to being home and charting her own schedule is looking pretty good.

Teaching is hard but I'm a teacher too. Planning for class is just part of the job. I'm paying for both educations and to see time that is paid for being wasted - literally wasted at my school - we are actually ending the class, is disturbing and irritating as a consumer. For my daughter, the final day to drop is this week and she pointed out that it would be great if the teachers would start teaching so she could make a judgment call on things but right now it is just a competition of who hands out syllabi the best. The other element for her that I find bothersome is that each time I mention to others," my daughter is attending public school for the first time" , no one talks about what a great education she will get but simply say, " That's good. She will learn to deal with all the crap that high school has in it. “To me, this is a sad commentary on our education system.

I know my classes will get better. By the end the teachers will be wishing they had an extra day to do more. Too bad they wasted it now.