Dear Fellow Student who feels the need to bring her child to class,

I appreciate that it must be difficult to have children and be in school while your child's school has not yet begun. I understand that sometimes there is a need to bring your child to class because of this and honestly, I don't have a problem with that.

However, is it necessary to be ten minutes late to class every single day? I'm amazed that you accomplish this for almost every class; you were late for the 11:30 class, which may be because you had to drive behind a tobacco truck or someone who mistook the 55 mph speed limit sign for 25. Why, though, were you ten minutes late for the 4:00 class that was postponed until 5:00? Did you drive the hour long commute home? Or is it planned?

It's your grade, though, so I shouldn't be too harsh, except when you're late, you pull your suitcase/backpack into the room, causing more noise than should be possible. And you have your child, who you then need to settle in. He's in the 3rd grade, but still you find it necessary to give him coloring books and crayons from your backpack.

Here's an idea. Give him a backpack and let him be responsible. Cut the apron strings. His future wife will appreciate it. Seriously, I've had parents with children younger than him attend classes and they were responsible for their own entertainment. Guess what? It worked.

But your excuse is that he's dyslexic. How do I know this? Why, you've felt the need to discuss this in every. single. class. We have five classes on campus together and you've mentioned this, in detail, in every single one. Listen, I understand that he's your inspiration for entering the field of special education and that you're proud of him. Here's a secret, though: all of us entering this field have something for inspiration. You are not special in this. Special education is not a field someone enters because it seems easy, or because it pays so well, or because there is no paperwork involved. On the contrary. But there are at least 8 other people who have to listen to you tell the same story over and over and over, every day, in five different classes. We're tired of it.

(You have yet to post on the online class's discussion board. The instructions tell us to use our own experiences as well as what the book writes. Experiences in this case refers to in the classroom, not what classes and special schools your son has attended.)

One more thing. Remember that there are 8 other people trying to achieve this same degree (though sometimes the classes have 25 students)? This means that maybe, just possibly, we'd like to hear about something other than your son and his experiences. We probably are more interested in hearing about, say, how to teach math than we are interested in hearing you discuss that you didn't know your son knew where the year is located on a penny. I know I'd love to learn more about mathematics in particular because that is the one subject I have the least amount of experience in. If you monopolize all the time, though, you're shortchanging us and really, that isn't fair.

You don't need to get a babysitter; feel free to bring your kid to class. He seems nice and he's fairly quiet. But really, all of the attention does not need to be on you.

Signed,
The chick who wants to learn about something else.