WTH just happened there?

Two nights ago I went to my son's 6th grade curriculum night.

What. The. Hell...

Waaaay back in 1989, when I was in middle school, I can remember my dad going with me to curriculm night.  We all had to go with our parents, and they walked with us class to class, and got to see what we were going to be doing.  It was fun, and gave my parents some insight into my day.  But at the end of the day it was my responsibility to get my crap done, keep my grades up, and turn my stuff in on time.

Oh my how times have changed dear readers.

I should have known that I was in trouble when on the first day of school they sent home a note about getting on the school's website on Schoology.  Schoology is kind of like facebook for school.  You have to have an account and Log in and password, but once you are on, it is kind of nice.  All of the teachers post the homework, and what they did in class that day, so when I ask the question to Your Royal Highness "What did you do today?"  and I get the requisite answer of "Nothing" from him, I can go on and see that, yes, indeed, he is learning while he is there at some point in the day.  Cool.  However the fact that they want the parents so keyed in to the goings ons in the school, should have been my foreshadowing.  Then later that day,  I started getting daily emails from the school about events that were going on.  Daily, people.  As in every day at 3pm I get a ping in my inbox from his middle school.

So I leave to go to curriculum night, no kids allowed,  15 minutes early, thinking, I better get there a little early, because I will need a parking spot.  I go, and I still end up having to walk 15 miles to the school.  I am almost excited for high school simply because there will be ample parking for parent stuff.  I go in, find the library and make my way to the back, as all of the chairs are pretty much full.  We also just moved here, so I only know like one other person, and she wasn't there yet.  So I found a mom sitting there alone and thought, "well, maybe she would like a friend.."  So I ask if that seat was taken, and she says, "No." I sit down and try to make small talk.  She is obviously good on friends and doesn't need another one, so I just look through the packet I was given at the door.  Stupid me trying to be friendly.  (Side rant:  You know, I have always been really good about making friends.  I usually make friends everywhere I go, because I don't know how to shut up for 5 seconds, so I talk to everyone.  Walking in to this school it feels like obviously everyone knows someone, and I don't know anyone, so I feel like I am in middle school all over again myself.  I just want to find the coolest mom and walk up to them and be like, "You're going down chicka" and take a swing at them so that they know I am not to be messed with.  Oh wait, that wouldn't be middle school.  That would be prison.  I have been watching way too much Orange is the new Black lately.  Sorry.  Back to original rant)

The meeting starts, and all of the teachers for our team get up there, and each goes over what they are going to be covering in their class.  I am immediately aware that I am unprepared.  I didn't bring a pen, and they are giving us a whole  lot of info that is not on the packet.  But halallujah!!  My friend, I will call her Barbra, just walked in and has her purse and whips out a pen almost before I could ask.  See, she knows me.  We are all writing furiously,  testing dates and expectations, and then they start telling us websites that we need to know.

*record scratching*

Wha-what??  Why do I need to get on the computer for more than Schoology?   What is Powerschool?  Why do I need that?  YRH should need it, I shouldn't need it, right?  Online textbooks???  What are you talking about, won't he just bring one home?  Oh, you don't have a physical textbook.  Oh I see.  We have to get online to read the textbook.  Crap.  Ok, So I write down the info to get in on that.  I hear one teacher say, "We encourage kids to bring their electronic devices to use them in class to look up information."  Now wait a minute, Huh???  I have been told for the last 5 years to leave all devices at home!  Now he is encouraged to bring them?  He has an IPOD 4, which is like older than dirt, I think they are on 7 now or something.  We can afford to get him a better one, but WHY?  That one works, and he already has a crack in it because he obviously isn't all that responsible.  Now I feel like I need to get him something better to keep up with school.  I DON"T EVEN HAVE A SMARTPHONE! Why on earth would I get my child something better than what I have?  But never the less, here we are.  We finish up and Barbra and I head over the the Cafeteria for Unified Arts info.

On the table is a bookmark shaped thing that has all of these websites that apparently we need, and none of them are the same as the ones I just copied down in the last room.  Awesome.  More
technology.  The Librarian gets up there:

"Hi there, welcome.  I am the Librarian.  You can follow me on Twitter at _____________ or on our other Twitter feed at _____________, you can also follow some of what we do on Instagram at ___________ and we post pictures.  We are also doing 10 minutes a day school wide reading session that you can read more about on our library website at ____________"  Then the Academic Lab teacher gets up there, and goes, "Here are the sites you will want for your kids through the duration of their time here.  Google drive will have all of your spreadsheets, word processing, graphs, formulas, PowerPoint.....but you can also use Haiku Deck or Prezi, whichever one you are more comfortable with......."  It is about this time that my mouth drops open, and I quit writing entirely because my brain has just gone into survival mode.  All it can think is ,'breathe in .....breathe out.....breathe in.....breathe out......'

Before I know it, it is all over, and I look over at Barbra who has about the same look on her face.  She looks at me and says, "are you ok?"  I furrow my brow at her and say, "Yeah, what just happened there?"  She laughed (she also reads this..so why Barbra, why did you laugh?  You were in that room with me.....how did your brain not also explode?)  and she said, " I gotta go meet up with that guy, I will see you later."

I start walking back to my car, and the entire time I am walking my brain is just repeating the same mantra, "What the hell just happened?"  I arrived at my car, I don't remember how I got there, but I did.  I immediately call my sister,

"Hey T!  How are you?"
" I did 6th grade, right?  I mean, I passed?  I did 6th grade.  I got all A's and B's, I was an Honor roll student.  I did my time.  I don't do 6th grade anymore, he does 6th grade.  I don't do school, he does school.  I did school.  I am done with school.  He does school."  She laughs, (again, WHY?)  and says, "What happened?" 
"I have to get a Twitter account."
"Why?"
"So I can know what they are doing in the library."
"Why do you need to know what they are doing in the library?"
"I don't know, but it has to be important because it is on Twitter.  I also have to get Instagram."
"Why on earth do you need Instagram?"
"Because the school posts things on there."
"And you can't get this information anywhere else?"
"Apparently not.  Oh, and I apparently also need to know Google Drive to get spreadsheets and PowerPoint."
"YOU have to do PowerPoint?  Why do you have to do powerpoint?  Doesn't YRH need to do that?"
"No, they said I needed to know this stuff so apparently I need to make a powerpoint presentation for conferences.  But I can use Haiku Deck or Prezi as well, whatever I am most comfortable with."
"You don't even have a smartphone."
"Probably never will because I now have to get my son an IPad and an Iphone because his education is more important than me having a smartphone and all I will ever have in life is a flip phone.  Ever."


Dear readers, I share all of this with you to say this..... What the hell is Prezi or Haiku Deck???????  Anyone????