First of all, when you cleverly park behind the building, it’s not really easy to get into the building, especially because everyone else is meeting in the gym, which you’d know if you’d gone in through the front door.

But as each year passes, the academic gap widens and yet I’m never quite prepared. So it hits me again, right in the feels. Thankfully, Kepler’s resource teacher is great at texting and she let me know she was in the resource room. 

I’d been sitting dutifully in the classroom listening to all the plans and practices. The teacher is outstanding. Whatever all nonsense you read about public schools doesn’t seem to apply here. These are great teachers who love their students and want them to be lifelong learners. 

But the typical kids are learning three digit addition and subtraction, and will catapult into multiplication and division in October. That was when I realized that their talk didn’t really apply to me very much and I headed out to talk to the resource teacher.

  
Here’s what she said in response to my comment about the widening gap. “Susan, Kepler has something special that the world needs. He gives love to people and the world needs a whole lot more of that.” 

I’ve known this teacher since before she went back to teaching 11 years ago. Our grown-up kids were on swim team together. She is absolutely wonderful and we are very privileged to have her expertise in our lives.

So, yeah, Kepler is kind of beginning to grasp the idea of addition, but clearly academics are not going to be his strength. But the world has plenty of academics. The world does not have plenty of Keplers. There’s only one and I get to be his mother, which is amazing. He’s a great kid.

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