Three things:
1. Try hard with your best. Try to bring your best to whatever you do, every time.
2. Improve steadily. Try to improve a little bit. Every time. If you slip up or fall back or make a mistake, it's okay.
3. Bring a cheerful attitude to learning.
Let the learning commence.
And never stop.
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Monday, November 5, 2018
A Monday : Martians, hiking, maths.
I. Starring: the second best actor of our time.
We watched The Martian over the weekend; a film I enjoyed a great deal the first time, and a film I enjoyed massively the second time with our children. I read a number of parent comments and reviews on it before watching as a refresher, as I couldn't recall what may or may not be appropriate for an 8- and 11-year old audience. A little language, a necessary Matt Damon bare butt shot, and a gruesome self-suturing triage using a stapler. What's not to love?
Not much. What a beautiful ode to problem-solving, to the primal instinct to survive and the human ingenuity, resilience, and resourcefulness of one man facing insurmountable odds. I love how in spite of all the science and all the focus on one man's survival on Mars, those aspects are juxtaposed with the community and teamwork of multiple countries (two) a world away as they fight to save a single man. Although they're entirely different films, it reminded me of the fabulous sci-fi film Gattaca whose tagline is still burned in: There is no gene for the human spirit. Apropos for The Martian as well.
The children loved it. I read some reviews where some parents talked about some sections being too slow and boring for younger children (under 12). What? Of anything you could say about it...slow and boring would not be anywhere in my description. Engrossing, riveting, spellbinding.
I paused, stopped, rewound multiple times throughout as we discussed, argued, and tried to understand different parts. For example, the point where the mathematician / astrophysicist Rich comes in and presents his trajectory analysis where he guarantees "...the math checks out." We had to watch it twice to understand exactly what "option 2" even was.
Fantastic film to discuss and talk about science, math, and most importantly, how to find creative solutions and "...work the problem." One step at at a time.
Also, I have separately been watching Martian director Ridley Scott's film from last year. Alien: Covenant. A strange feeling, seeing the similarities and differences between two space-set stories and the very different ways the same director depicts differing stories about humanity's insatiable quest for knowledge.
II. The blonde one might be four or five inches taller though.
Johannes was telling us about reading his essay on "My Three Things" aloud in class today.
"I got some comments on it,"
he said.
"What kind of comments?"
I asked.
"And from whom?"
"Uh,"
he said.
"They said it was good, I think. It was one of my classmates who's a twin, but I can't tell them apart so I'm not sure which one it was."
"Okay."
I said.
"Next mission: let's work on learning what makes them unique from each other so we can tell them apart."
"Okay."
he said.
"But they look exactly alike."
III. The fall.
I took Ejvindr for a couple hours to a water falls close by. Used to take Johannes there when he was a kid watch salmon spawning and fighting mightily to leap, and fail, leap and fail, leap and fail...
No salmon today. Just pouring rain and a steady stream of commentary from a 22-month old on every leaf, branch, moss, and water droplet.
I love this age. The new words he's fighting to pronounce and use every day. Love so much.
IV. No sleep till Brooklyn, or Battle Ground.
He refused to fall asleep on the car ride back, so I pulled into a parking lot, bundled him into his mom's pashmina, and walked him around a Fred Meyer parking lot singing Old McDonald until he slumbered.
I managed to lie him down on a makeshift coat-bed inside Starbucks at the foot of my chair, where I enjoyed a hot coffee and an hour of work and writing. Not what I had expected. A pleasant surprise.
V. Chomp.
He awoke with an empty stomach; his stomach is perpetually empty, despite the appearance of having a mid-sized hot air balloon tucked away in his belly. I set up lunch in the cafe and he noisily chomped his way through apple slices, carrots, noodles, and a cup of water.
VI. Vote.
The elections are tomorrow. They matter. This year in particular. Does this country support a mandate for a nationalistic, fear mongering, race baiting, dog whistling leadership? Or do we elect those in support of democracy, free press, compassion, and those who say what they mean and mean what they say?
VII. Co-chair.
One of the most difficult things for Ejvindr to do at this stage in his development is to not flip out when he sees his brother or sister after not seeing them for a while. Like five minutes.
I spent a portion of Math class bouncing back and forth between assembling take-home packets for the kids and between trying to prevent Ejvindr from climbing up into Johannes' chair with him. He didn't want to sit by him in a separate chair. He wanted to sit by him in the same chair.
Johannes was very patient to him, as was the teacher, Mrs. Chu, as he tried several times to ascend the chair and join his rightful place next to one of his mentors, teachers, and spirit guides: his older brother.
And the fact that we are able to be in a classroom where academic learning is important, yet is tolerant and encouraging of a family, including sibling, presence, is incalculably wonderful.
VIII. What do extra-credit parents get?
When I was a kid (I know, terrible way to start a sentence), I don't recall ever getting candy for completing extra credit. I got a few points on top of my score. Not candy.
Not the case anymore. I think candy is the new gold star. Forget the stickers, just hand over a Snickers.
IX. Matrix, Bill and Ted, Wick.
"Any good movies this weekend?"
I asked Julie this morning.
(Julie is the crossing guard and also theater director)
"I knew you were going to ask me that!"
she said.
"Let me think about that!"
Seven hours later, she motioned me over as we left after school.
"Have you seen The Lake House?"
"Keanu Reeves?"
I asked.
"Yes!"
she said.
"Have you seen it?"
"No!"
I said.
"Go!"
she said.
"Go see it! You have to see it!"
"Okay,"
I said.
"I will see it!"
And I will see it. I am not racing to see it. I am writing right now. But I will see it sometime. Maybe not soon. But I will see it sometime.
X. My country, tis.
We discussed voting and our system of government on the way back. Executive, legislative, judicial branches. What the branches of Congress are: Senate and House of Representatives.
Is it going to stick?
No.
We've had the same discussion before. This isn't the first time. They'll forget, and they'll forget again and again. It's not all sticky.
But it's stickier each time. Each time. These discussions, these conversations about things that are complicated and challenging to understand and fully absorb...they're not meant to be fully absorbed right away. Each time we talk about it is a layer in their memory membrane that retains a bit. Not all of it. But a little bit. A little bit more familiar for the next time as a foundation is built.
And I want to help build a foundation. A foundation, not of concrete, but of roots. Roots that take seed deep within them, that power not simply their intellect and not simply their imagination, but their character and their ability to form and keep relationships. Roots are organic. They're strong, they're flexible. They grow, they change and modify and adapt and become what they're meant to be, all the while tangled up and intertwined in the (root) systems of others.
A root-based foundation; that is what we seek to build. At the root of helping plant this idea is the notion that we're helping nourish an organic life form with agency, with compassion, with imagination. We're not feeding a robot or building a sentient artificial intelligence. We are helping people become all they can be. That is the hope, the dream.
To help those around us become all they can be; for that to radiate in ever-increasing circles and spread far.
Root-based foundations.
We watched The Martian over the weekend; a film I enjoyed a great deal the first time, and a film I enjoyed massively the second time with our children. I read a number of parent comments and reviews on it before watching as a refresher, as I couldn't recall what may or may not be appropriate for an 8- and 11-year old audience. A little language, a necessary Matt Damon bare butt shot, and a gruesome self-suturing triage using a stapler. What's not to love?
Not much. What a beautiful ode to problem-solving, to the primal instinct to survive and the human ingenuity, resilience, and resourcefulness of one man facing insurmountable odds. I love how in spite of all the science and all the focus on one man's survival on Mars, those aspects are juxtaposed with the community and teamwork of multiple countries (two) a world away as they fight to save a single man. Although they're entirely different films, it reminded me of the fabulous sci-fi film Gattaca whose tagline is still burned in: There is no gene for the human spirit. Apropos for The Martian as well.
The children loved it. I read some reviews where some parents talked about some sections being too slow and boring for younger children (under 12). What? Of anything you could say about it...slow and boring would not be anywhere in my description. Engrossing, riveting, spellbinding.
I paused, stopped, rewound multiple times throughout as we discussed, argued, and tried to understand different parts. For example, the point where the mathematician / astrophysicist Rich comes in and presents his trajectory analysis where he guarantees "...the math checks out." We had to watch it twice to understand exactly what "option 2" even was.
Fantastic film to discuss and talk about science, math, and most importantly, how to find creative solutions and "...work the problem." One step at at a time.
Also, I have separately been watching Martian director Ridley Scott's film from last year. Alien: Covenant. A strange feeling, seeing the similarities and differences between two space-set stories and the very different ways the same director depicts differing stories about humanity's insatiable quest for knowledge.
II. The blonde one might be four or five inches taller though.
Johannes was telling us about reading his essay on "My Three Things" aloud in class today.
"I got some comments on it,"
he said.
"What kind of comments?"
I asked.
"And from whom?"
"Uh,"
he said.
"They said it was good, I think. It was one of my classmates who's a twin, but I can't tell them apart so I'm not sure which one it was."
"Okay."
I said.
"Next mission: let's work on learning what makes them unique from each other so we can tell them apart."
"Okay."
he said.
"But they look exactly alike."
III. The fall.
I took Ejvindr for a couple hours to a water falls close by. Used to take Johannes there when he was a kid watch salmon spawning and fighting mightily to leap, and fail, leap and fail, leap and fail...
No salmon today. Just pouring rain and a steady stream of commentary from a 22-month old on every leaf, branch, moss, and water droplet.
I love this age. The new words he's fighting to pronounce and use every day. Love so much.
IV. No sleep till Brooklyn, or Battle Ground.
He refused to fall asleep on the car ride back, so I pulled into a parking lot, bundled him into his mom's pashmina, and walked him around a Fred Meyer parking lot singing Old McDonald until he slumbered.
I managed to lie him down on a makeshift coat-bed inside Starbucks at the foot of my chair, where I enjoyed a hot coffee and an hour of work and writing. Not what I had expected. A pleasant surprise.
V. Chomp.
He awoke with an empty stomach; his stomach is perpetually empty, despite the appearance of having a mid-sized hot air balloon tucked away in his belly. I set up lunch in the cafe and he noisily chomped his way through apple slices, carrots, noodles, and a cup of water.
VI. Vote.
The elections are tomorrow. They matter. This year in particular. Does this country support a mandate for a nationalistic, fear mongering, race baiting, dog whistling leadership? Or do we elect those in support of democracy, free press, compassion, and those who say what they mean and mean what they say?
VII. Co-chair.
One of the most difficult things for Ejvindr to do at this stage in his development is to not flip out when he sees his brother or sister after not seeing them for a while. Like five minutes.
I spent a portion of Math class bouncing back and forth between assembling take-home packets for the kids and between trying to prevent Ejvindr from climbing up into Johannes' chair with him. He didn't want to sit by him in a separate chair. He wanted to sit by him in the same chair.
Johannes was very patient to him, as was the teacher, Mrs. Chu, as he tried several times to ascend the chair and join his rightful place next to one of his mentors, teachers, and spirit guides: his older brother.
And the fact that we are able to be in a classroom where academic learning is important, yet is tolerant and encouraging of a family, including sibling, presence, is incalculably wonderful.
VIII. What do extra-credit parents get?
When I was a kid (I know, terrible way to start a sentence), I don't recall ever getting candy for completing extra credit. I got a few points on top of my score. Not candy.
Not the case anymore. I think candy is the new gold star. Forget the stickers, just hand over a Snickers.
IX. Matrix, Bill and Ted, Wick.
"Any good movies this weekend?"
I asked Julie this morning.
(Julie is the crossing guard and also theater director)
"I knew you were going to ask me that!"
she said.
"Let me think about that!"
Seven hours later, she motioned me over as we left after school.
"Have you seen The Lake House?"
"Keanu Reeves?"
I asked.
"Yes!"
she said.
"Have you seen it?"
"No!"
I said.
"Go!"
she said.
"Go see it! You have to see it!"
"Okay,"
I said.
"I will see it!"
And I will see it. I am not racing to see it. I am writing right now. But I will see it sometime. Maybe not soon. But I will see it sometime.
X. My country, tis.
We discussed voting and our system of government on the way back. Executive, legislative, judicial branches. What the branches of Congress are: Senate and House of Representatives.
Is it going to stick?
No.
We've had the same discussion before. This isn't the first time. They'll forget, and they'll forget again and again. It's not all sticky.
But it's stickier each time. Each time. These discussions, these conversations about things that are complicated and challenging to understand and fully absorb...they're not meant to be fully absorbed right away. Each time we talk about it is a layer in their memory membrane that retains a bit. Not all of it. But a little bit. A little bit more familiar for the next time as a foundation is built.
And I want to help build a foundation. A foundation, not of concrete, but of roots. Roots that take seed deep within them, that power not simply their intellect and not simply their imagination, but their character and their ability to form and keep relationships. Roots are organic. They're strong, they're flexible. They grow, they change and modify and adapt and become what they're meant to be, all the while tangled up and intertwined in the (root) systems of others.
A root-based foundation; that is what we seek to build. At the root of helping plant this idea is the notion that we're helping nourish an organic life form with agency, with compassion, with imagination. We're not feeding a robot or building a sentient artificial intelligence. We are helping people become all they can be. That is the hope, the dream.
To help those around us become all they can be; for that to radiate in ever-increasing circles and spread far.
Root-based foundations.
Friday, November 2, 2018
The week behind : Oct 29 - Nov 2
I. THINGS WE HIGH-FIVE ABOUT / THE MATH, PT. UNO.
Is learning cursive important in an era of text messaging and digital input?
Is learning to tell analog time important in an era of smart watches, phones, and digital readouts?
In our household, the answer is yes to both.
And guess what?! As of this week, eighty percent of our family can successfully tell the time on a watch, accurate to within an hour or two!! This is exciting.
II. THINGS I GET NERDY ABOUT / THE MATH, PT. DEUX.
Of course we can't live out our dreams vicariously through our children.
Of course we can't mold our children into carbon copy upgrades of ourselves.
Of course we can't hover over them and micromanage every little detail of a project they're working on.
But what about when one is doing a mathematics assignment and it looks like too much fun to miss out on, so you jump in and start trying to solve them faster than her, but don't, but still you stay excited because there's adrenaline and serotonin flying all around and numbers can be so much fun to break down and figure out and...
yeah, so anyway, prime factorizing is kinda cool. If you're into that sort of thing. Which I discovered at 42, uh, yes I am.
III. TO BE OR NOT TO BE, THAT IS THE COGITO ERGO SUM / LANGUAGE.
September was The Merchant of Venice. Big hit.
October has been Romeo and Juliet. Slower go. Harder to get into, but they've been paying attention and slowly getting pulled in.
And what a glorious opportunity to reintroduce some words to everyday conversation. Here's a sampling:
repellant, grotesque, fain, languished, tyrant, enmity, peril, tactless, unprepossessing, sentient, cataclysmic, nucleus, electromagnetic
Two of those are not from Shakespeare. Take your guesses.
IV. MONO LISO.
Johannes has been feverishly drawing this week. One of his opuses has been a pencil rendition of a male that he has titled "Boy With a Pearl Earring."
In the lower left, he wrote "Johannes Vermeer," then drew a line through it and wrote underneath: "Johannes Long."
That would be him.
V. COMPETENCE.
I was helping at RHL in Johannes' class assembled twenty-some multi-page packets for their upcoming Literature assignment. It wasn't until I got home and Johannes observed that his packet was missing one of the pages that I realised somehow, for whatever reason, every packet I had made was missing a key page.
I am reconciled to the fact that I likely let down my own children on a regular basis. But it is a different type of embarrassment to feel that you've let down an entire class of third graders.
Maybe I'll learn from that mistake. But considering that my photocopying this year will always involve having a two-year assistant helping me out, there is a high probability that a mistake such as that could occur again. Possibly multiple times. So it goes.
VI. I GET WORKED UP.
I have a 20-unit outline for Social Studies this year as focus on the Americas. So far, we're still on Unit 00.
Yes, I wanted to create a 20-unit lesson plan. But I also wanted to squeeze in a...long introduction-ish kind of thing. So I called it Chapter 00 and it's focused on the first peoples, and the state of Europe around the time of the Renaissance and Age of Exploration. Point is, we haven't even gotten to Unit 1 yet. Do I feel bad?
No. We've enjoyed marvelous discussions and dissections of THE WHY. I have told them over and over and over:
I don't care about you remembering a bunch of dates. There's certain bookmarks for chronology I want you to remember. For example, the Renaissance began in the 1400s. Remember that. But I don't care about you remembering when Pizarro first plundered Peru, or when Cortés annihilated the Aztec empire, or even the exact year Columbus sailed the ocean green, or whatever color it is.
I don't care.
I care more about the big timestamps. 400s BC. Birth of Christ, give or take a hundred years. Rome falls in the 400s AD. Stuff like that.
And more important: WHY did these happen? Why did events happen the way they did? How did they happen, and does history happen in cycles or patterns?
These are questions to ask and ideas to think about.
So we're going slow and having lots of discussions. Today: Triangle Trade, the colony of Georgia, and how a decent Englishman inadvertently helped accelerate slavery in the Americas.
VII. COPERNICUS.
We're all about Astronomy this quarter. Earth-moon-sun systems, gravity, tides, moon phases, equinoxes versus solstices, and starting this week...stars.
"I don't make you memorize a lot of numbers, okay?"
I said.
"But promise me this: remember that the sun is 93 million miles from Earth. Ninety-three million miles is equal to one Astronomical Unit. Don't forget."
"Okay."
they said.
Then they did.
VIII. UNTITLED.
Perhaps one of the most important things I did earlier in the week was to fix my sewing machine. By using the word "fix," I am hoping it conjures up a vision of me dissecting it into a thousand pieces as I carefully use my engineering skills and amazing spatial intelligence to put it back together properly.
But no. I had to replace a needle, tighten the presser foot, and rethread the bobbin. Things that should realistically not take more than a couple months to do, which is how long I took, or longer.
Important because I got it up and going, and they had a grand afternoon cutting out fabrics and designing several items they'd wanted to sew.
Together, they chuckled and bantered and got excited and simply existed. Together. I loved it. So much.
IX. IN WHICH THE STUDENTS ATTEMPT A COUP D'ETAT OF SORTS.
X. THIS LIFE.
"This life,"
Becca and I say to each other sometimes, shaking our heads and grinning, sometimes with a frown.
This life.
One teaches, one works. The other teaches, the other works. Shift on, shift off. Home, work, work, home.
Get up, get ready, get children ready. Coffee. See the other off. Work or teach. Fast forward. Together again in the evening. Supper, talk, read, play music, watch a film, bedtime for littles, chores for us. Then work or telly. Aah, telly. Thank you, programming curators, for 22 or 43 minutes of goodness after a long day.
Then reset. The next day is ahead.
I would rather be doing this with no one other than my very own Countess Becca.
Messy, messy, we are a messy mass of curious, hard-running, hilarious, inimitable, big-hearted humanity who learns life together. We make a mess. And we make fun.
Together.
Is learning cursive important in an era of text messaging and digital input?
Is learning to tell analog time important in an era of smart watches, phones, and digital readouts?
In our household, the answer is yes to both.
And guess what?! As of this week, eighty percent of our family can successfully tell the time on a watch, accurate to within an hour or two!! This is exciting.
II. THINGS I GET NERDY ABOUT / THE MATH, PT. DEUX.
Of course we can't live out our dreams vicariously through our children.
Of course we can't mold our children into carbon copy upgrades of ourselves.
Of course we can't hover over them and micromanage every little detail of a project they're working on.
But what about when one is doing a mathematics assignment and it looks like too much fun to miss out on, so you jump in and start trying to solve them faster than her, but don't, but still you stay excited because there's adrenaline and serotonin flying all around and numbers can be so much fun to break down and figure out and...
yeah, so anyway, prime factorizing is kinda cool. If you're into that sort of thing. Which I discovered at 42, uh, yes I am.
III. TO BE OR NOT TO BE, THAT IS THE COGITO ERGO SUM / LANGUAGE.
September was The Merchant of Venice. Big hit.
October has been Romeo and Juliet. Slower go. Harder to get into, but they've been paying attention and slowly getting pulled in.
And what a glorious opportunity to reintroduce some words to everyday conversation. Here's a sampling:
repellant, grotesque, fain, languished, tyrant, enmity, peril, tactless, unprepossessing, sentient, cataclysmic, nucleus, electromagnetic
Two of those are not from Shakespeare. Take your guesses.
IV. MONO LISO.
Johannes has been feverishly drawing this week. One of his opuses has been a pencil rendition of a male that he has titled "Boy With a Pearl Earring."
In the lower left, he wrote "Johannes Vermeer," then drew a line through it and wrote underneath: "Johannes Long."
That would be him.
V. COMPETENCE.
I was helping at RHL in Johannes' class assembled twenty-some multi-page packets for their upcoming Literature assignment. It wasn't until I got home and Johannes observed that his packet was missing one of the pages that I realised somehow, for whatever reason, every packet I had made was missing a key page.
I am reconciled to the fact that I likely let down my own children on a regular basis. But it is a different type of embarrassment to feel that you've let down an entire class of third graders.
Maybe I'll learn from that mistake. But considering that my photocopying this year will always involve having a two-year assistant helping me out, there is a high probability that a mistake such as that could occur again. Possibly multiple times. So it goes.
VI. I GET WORKED UP.
I have a 20-unit outline for Social Studies this year as focus on the Americas. So far, we're still on Unit 00.
Yes, I wanted to create a 20-unit lesson plan. But I also wanted to squeeze in a...long introduction-ish kind of thing. So I called it Chapter 00 and it's focused on the first peoples, and the state of Europe around the time of the Renaissance and Age of Exploration. Point is, we haven't even gotten to Unit 1 yet. Do I feel bad?
No. We've enjoyed marvelous discussions and dissections of THE WHY. I have told them over and over and over:
I don't care about you remembering a bunch of dates. There's certain bookmarks for chronology I want you to remember. For example, the Renaissance began in the 1400s. Remember that. But I don't care about you remembering when Pizarro first plundered Peru, or when Cortés annihilated the Aztec empire, or even the exact year Columbus sailed the ocean green, or whatever color it is.
I don't care.
I care more about the big timestamps. 400s BC. Birth of Christ, give or take a hundred years. Rome falls in the 400s AD. Stuff like that.
And more important: WHY did these happen? Why did events happen the way they did? How did they happen, and does history happen in cycles or patterns?
These are questions to ask and ideas to think about.
So we're going slow and having lots of discussions. Today: Triangle Trade, the colony of Georgia, and how a decent Englishman inadvertently helped accelerate slavery in the Americas.
VII. COPERNICUS.
We're all about Astronomy this quarter. Earth-moon-sun systems, gravity, tides, moon phases, equinoxes versus solstices, and starting this week...stars.
"I don't make you memorize a lot of numbers, okay?"
I said.
"But promise me this: remember that the sun is 93 million miles from Earth. Ninety-three million miles is equal to one Astronomical Unit. Don't forget."
"Okay."
they said.
Then they did.
VIII. UNTITLED.
Perhaps one of the most important things I did earlier in the week was to fix my sewing machine. By using the word "fix," I am hoping it conjures up a vision of me dissecting it into a thousand pieces as I carefully use my engineering skills and amazing spatial intelligence to put it back together properly.
But no. I had to replace a needle, tighten the presser foot, and rethread the bobbin. Things that should realistically not take more than a couple months to do, which is how long I took, or longer.
Important because I got it up and going, and they had a grand afternoon cutting out fabrics and designing several items they'd wanted to sew.
Together, they chuckled and bantered and got excited and simply existed. Together. I loved it. So much.
IX. IN WHICH THE STUDENTS ATTEMPT A COUP D'ETAT OF SORTS.
X. THIS LIFE.
"This life,"
Becca and I say to each other sometimes, shaking our heads and grinning, sometimes with a frown.
This life.
One teaches, one works. The other teaches, the other works. Shift on, shift off. Home, work, work, home.
Get up, get ready, get children ready. Coffee. See the other off. Work or teach. Fast forward. Together again in the evening. Supper, talk, read, play music, watch a film, bedtime for littles, chores for us. Then work or telly. Aah, telly. Thank you, programming curators, for 22 or 43 minutes of goodness after a long day.
Then reset. The next day is ahead.
I would rather be doing this with no one other than my very own Countess Becca.
Messy, messy, we are a messy mass of curious, hard-running, hilarious, inimitable, big-hearted humanity who learns life together. We make a mess. And we make fun.
Together.
Monday, October 29, 2018
A Monday : Grand Theft Ghost
"Some of the boys in my class are really, really into video games,"
he told me as we drove back on a rainy afternoon.
"Oh,"
I said.
"Do they talk about them a lot?"
"Yeah,"
he said.
"They were asking what video games are my favorites."
"Okay,"
I said.
"What did you say?"
"I said that I wasn't super into video games,"
he said.
"But that my favorite is probably Pacman."
"That,"
I said.
"Is so, so awesome."
I meant it.
My heart was happy.
___
BROKEN TRIAD.
I watched three kids on the playground. Swinging together.
Then two hopped off, talking. Their backs turned to the third.
She continued swinging. The two boys talked.
My heart was sad.
___
PICKIN'.
"It's okay,"
the kindly mid-60s man said.
"I'll pick up the blocks."
"Well,"
I said.
"My son just dumped those on the floor, so I'd like for him to practice picking them up."
"Oh, it's no problem, I can do it, it's a grandpa thing,"
he said, bending down to pick up the two dozen wood blocks my 22-month old had deposited on the floor.
"Well,"
I said, gently shoving the squirming boy over to the blocks and sticking a block in each of his meaty little hands to put in the box.
"He needs to help pick up. It's a parent thing."
Okay, truth be told, I didn't say the very last sentence. But everything else.
Where have adults gotten the idea that kids aren't capable of learning to take responsibility for their actions? Even if it's as simple as helping them develop an understanding of the value - and even joy - in their ability to be part of a web of community; part of a social network and family and ecosystem that values their help and their ability to respect and start learning how to take care of what's around them?
So yeah. I don't care if he hasn't had a second birthday yet or not. He's old enough to practice how to pick up and put away what he gets out.
And guess what? Most of the time, it can be a fun thing. But that's up to us. Us the adults. It's up to us to be consistent, to model the importance of respect, and to help make these habits easy and fun.
___
Mrs. R talked about slugs and slime today. Photos and slides accompanied a presentation and discussion on viscosity.
"Ooh, slugs are so gross!"
a girl said.
Mrs. R looked at her.
"No, they're not."
She continued going into an in-depth analysis and discussion, for this group of 3rd and 4th graders, of the amazing way in which slugs and snails move and secrete the "gross stuff" that allows them to travel pretty much anywhere.
What a beautiful little lesson. The intricate and unique workings of creatures that so often get called "gross."
Let's face it: slugs are gross. I can't say I disagree with that girl. I have requested that our children please not bring any pet slugs home from our hikes. I'm not ready to visit a slug petting zoo. I can't promise I'll never intentionally execute a slug again.
But I have a newfound respect for them. And a bit of empathy.
Oh, what you can learn in 3rd grade when you're 42.
___
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Homeschool, a day in the life : what I plan to happen, what actually happens.
I'm so excited! Today we're going to learn so much stuff! It's going to be a mix of hands-on and academic learning and we're going to make so many great memories and everything's gonna stick and there'll be smiles all the way around!
I'm going to outline a simple sample day, picked out of many, for what I have planned, and for what happens:
(Italics are what I have planned. Regular is what actually transpires)
___
5.15am
I'm going to outline a simple sample day, picked out of many, for what I have planned, and for what happens:
(Italics are what I have planned. Regular is what actually transpires)
___
5.15am
I'm going to wake up and do some yoga (been planning to start for nine years), maybe a quick run, perhaps start meditating so I can fully be present for the glorious day ahead, take a quick 15-minute hot shower.
I don't.
6.05
I don't.
6.05
Drag myself out of the comforting comforter, where I am surrounded by multiple limbs at impossible angles, and possibly a soggy mattress that inexplicably smells like urine and cereal.
I do not shower, do not do yoga, do not meditate, and do not fully remove the urine smell from myself. But I do find a hat to wear.
6.09
I'm going to make a simple breakfast of fried potatoes, turmeric-flavored tofu, homemade whole-wheat bread, and three kinds of whimsically-sliced fresh fruit. Also, I will make lattes with a dollop of whip cream.
Cold cereal with over-ripened banana slices. I try to feed the brown mushy parts to the youngest child. Even he won't have it. Fell on the floor? Too bad. Eat it.
6.50
I'll have my wife's lunch lovingly wrapped with all the right food groups, plus a morning and afternoon snack, and I'll stick a little note inside with a secret message for her as she heads to work.
"Sorry I couldn't find any lunch for you. But you can walk to Trader Joe's on your break and find something. Try to keep it under four dollars."
6.57
Those lattes.
Nope. I make an Americano in a to-go container for Becca. I am mortified to acknowledge how many shots I pull off a single pod. Out the door she goes. We wave farewell until she's out of sight, as we always do.
7.04
Down to business. Crank some Tchaikovsky or Hayden or Ellington, inspire the children to not only do their morning chores with reckless joy and infectious enthusiasm, but to sing and dance as they do them.
The children do their chores with recklessness. The joy is not evident, and the dancing is on hiatus. But the music is loud. Good.
7.47
I will potty train the youngest today. It's time.
I change one of the grossest diapers in the history of diaper-changing. Some poop falls on the floor, but I pretend I don't notice and slide a book over it.
7.51
School starts at 9am, so I should have time to read a couple chapters of Jay and Mark Duplass's book on brotherhood and moviemaking, zero out my email inbox, and finish learning JavaScript.
I check out Instagram.
8.12
I'll sip a second cup of coffee at the bar counter, watch the birds outside, and contemplate some fresh ways to integrate hands-on project-oriented learning into our science course today on Astronomy.
I look for the first cup of coffee I started drinking forty-five minutes ago, misplaced, and finally find it in the microwave, where I reheat it for a third time.
The children are drawing or reading or something, I don't know. I tell them to knock it off because we haven't started school yet, so they should be playing. So I force them to play, and it reminds me what an incredible gift I have for inspiring children to play before nine o-clock in the morning.
8.50
"Can you read some more Shakespeare with us today?"
they will ask.
"Can you read some more Shakespeare with us today?"
they ask.
"Yes."
I say.
"But not yet. School hasn't started. We can't school yet."
They grumble. Children grumble. That's what they do.
9.00
We will start school on time. Period.
Another poopy diaper. Timed to coincide with when I was trying to start school.
9.13
We start school.
9.15
Raised hand.
"You sure are a wonderful and patient teacher, Daddy!"
Raised hand.
"I have to go poop. Can I go now?"
9.23
For the next three hours, I will captivate and astound my young charges with an incredible balance of academic and hands-on learning as we explore the universe of ideas together.
We'll take a beautiful journey through Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, a quick refresher on the Greek and Roman glory days and the ways they inspired a northern European Renaissance fifteen hundred years later. I'll make mathematics exciting and applicable to real life and they'll be begging to diagram more arrays and do just ten more multi-digit decimal-by-decimal division problems. I'll hold firmly to a short and efficient primer on German and Latin and connect it to our explorations of the Bard. We'll examine the relative strengths of Hungarian composer Bela Bartok over that of Hungarian composer Franz Liszt and the impact the Bauhaus School of the 1920s had on urban housing development today. We'll write Wolf point-of-view versions of Little Red Riding Hood using no more than three adjectives. Somewhere in there, we'll build a scale model of the Earth-Sun-Moon system and how they magically work together, and probably pivot for short discussions on Copernicus, Galileo, and Isaac Newton during recess. Although this will take us to lunch, the overwhelming eagerness to learn will cause us to cram in just a few minutes of Python coding before lunch, which they will make and present as a three-course picnic.
We do math, some writing, and get in an argument over why we're listening to Baroque music instead of What Does the Fox Say. There are tears and an adult raises their voice in frustration. Becca is gone working.
12.00 noon
We will eat a lovely picnic lunch and talk about our favorite Sherlock Holmes stories and the role Edgar Allen Poe had in developing the trope of the modern detective.
I find some old pickles and cobble some sandwiches together. We sit around and laugh about the time that guy tooted during church.
12.30pm
We will resume formal learning.
The children run off and hide so they don't have to listen to me talk, lecture, monologue, or teach anymore.
I find them by 12.55 and drag their living carcasses back to food-covered chairs. It's time to switch from Classical to Jazz. Charlie Parker, Count Basie, or Duke Ellington.
12.56
They run away and hide together. Again. I give chase.
1.17
We resume formal learning.
"You sure like to make yourself sound important!" one of them says disparagingly.
The others nod.
1.18
I will wrap up and review the recent learnings in mathematics, literature, social studies, and science to ensure they have embedded the fundamentals.
I try. But there's an airplane, or a bird or something outside. So I send them out, with cameras, to take photographs and film interesting happenings.
They come back with pictures of animal poop and video of smearing dirt over each other's faces.
I do not shower, do not do yoga, do not meditate, and do not fully remove the urine smell from myself. But I do find a hat to wear.
6.09
I'm going to make a simple breakfast of fried potatoes, turmeric-flavored tofu, homemade whole-wheat bread, and three kinds of whimsically-sliced fresh fruit. Also, I will make lattes with a dollop of whip cream.
Cold cereal with over-ripened banana slices. I try to feed the brown mushy parts to the youngest child. Even he won't have it. Fell on the floor? Too bad. Eat it.
6.50
I'll have my wife's lunch lovingly wrapped with all the right food groups, plus a morning and afternoon snack, and I'll stick a little note inside with a secret message for her as she heads to work.
"Sorry I couldn't find any lunch for you. But you can walk to Trader Joe's on your break and find something. Try to keep it under four dollars."
6.57
Those lattes.
Nope. I make an Americano in a to-go container for Becca. I am mortified to acknowledge how many shots I pull off a single pod. Out the door she goes. We wave farewell until she's out of sight, as we always do.
7.04
Down to business. Crank some Tchaikovsky or Hayden or Ellington, inspire the children to not only do their morning chores with reckless joy and infectious enthusiasm, but to sing and dance as they do them.
The children do their chores with recklessness. The joy is not evident, and the dancing is on hiatus. But the music is loud. Good.
7.47
I will potty train the youngest today. It's time.
I change one of the grossest diapers in the history of diaper-changing. Some poop falls on the floor, but I pretend I don't notice and slide a book over it.
7.51
School starts at 9am, so I should have time to read a couple chapters of Jay and Mark Duplass's book on brotherhood and moviemaking, zero out my email inbox, and finish learning JavaScript.
I check out Instagram.
8.12
I'll sip a second cup of coffee at the bar counter, watch the birds outside, and contemplate some fresh ways to integrate hands-on project-oriented learning into our science course today on Astronomy.
I look for the first cup of coffee I started drinking forty-five minutes ago, misplaced, and finally find it in the microwave, where I reheat it for a third time.
The children are drawing or reading or something, I don't know. I tell them to knock it off because we haven't started school yet, so they should be playing. So I force them to play, and it reminds me what an incredible gift I have for inspiring children to play before nine o-clock in the morning.
8.50
"Can you read some more Shakespeare with us today?"
they will ask.
"Can you read some more Shakespeare with us today?"
they ask.
"Yes."
I say.
"But not yet. School hasn't started. We can't school yet."
They grumble. Children grumble. That's what they do.
9.00
We will start school on time. Period.
Another poopy diaper. Timed to coincide with when I was trying to start school.
9.13
We start school.
9.15
Raised hand.
"You sure are a wonderful and patient teacher, Daddy!"
Raised hand.
"I have to go poop. Can I go now?"
9.23
For the next three hours, I will captivate and astound my young charges with an incredible balance of academic and hands-on learning as we explore the universe of ideas together.
We'll take a beautiful journey through Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, a quick refresher on the Greek and Roman glory days and the ways they inspired a northern European Renaissance fifteen hundred years later. I'll make mathematics exciting and applicable to real life and they'll be begging to diagram more arrays and do just ten more multi-digit decimal-by-decimal division problems. I'll hold firmly to a short and efficient primer on German and Latin and connect it to our explorations of the Bard. We'll examine the relative strengths of Hungarian composer Bela Bartok over that of Hungarian composer Franz Liszt and the impact the Bauhaus School of the 1920s had on urban housing development today. We'll write Wolf point-of-view versions of Little Red Riding Hood using no more than three adjectives. Somewhere in there, we'll build a scale model of the Earth-Sun-Moon system and how they magically work together, and probably pivot for short discussions on Copernicus, Galileo, and Isaac Newton during recess. Although this will take us to lunch, the overwhelming eagerness to learn will cause us to cram in just a few minutes of Python coding before lunch, which they will make and present as a three-course picnic.
We do math, some writing, and get in an argument over why we're listening to Baroque music instead of What Does the Fox Say. There are tears and an adult raises their voice in frustration. Becca is gone working.
12.00 noon
We will eat a lovely picnic lunch and talk about our favorite Sherlock Holmes stories and the role Edgar Allen Poe had in developing the trope of the modern detective.
I find some old pickles and cobble some sandwiches together. We sit around and laugh about the time that guy tooted during church.
12.30pm
We will resume formal learning.
The children run off and hide so they don't have to listen to me talk, lecture, monologue, or teach anymore.
I find them by 12.55 and drag their living carcasses back to food-covered chairs. It's time to switch from Classical to Jazz. Charlie Parker, Count Basie, or Duke Ellington.
12.56
They run away and hide together. Again. I give chase.
1.17
We resume formal learning.
"You sure like to make yourself sound important!" one of them says disparagingly.
The others nod.
1.18
I will wrap up and review the recent learnings in mathematics, literature, social studies, and science to ensure they have embedded the fundamentals.
I try. But there's an airplane, or a bird or something outside. So I send them out, with cameras, to take photographs and film interesting happenings.
They come back with pictures of animal poop and video of smearing dirt over each other's faces.
2.00
We'll close out the school day with music. Piano, guitar, ukulele, maybe some GarageBand recording and mixing. Who knows, maybe we'll even get around to finally starting a podcast.
After the grumbling has calmed, a timer is set. Music practice begins, and ends the instant the timer goes off.
2.50
We'll close out the school day with music. Piano, guitar, ukulele, maybe some GarageBand recording and mixing. Who knows, maybe we'll even get around to finally starting a podcast.
After the grumbling has calmed, a timer is set. Music practice begins, and ends the instant the timer goes off.
2.50
Let's talk about what we learned today, okay? A quick recap? They will jump in with enthusiastic recitations of the many activities and areas they progressed in.
"Uhh, what did we do again today?"
3.00
The formal school day will end, and I will be flooded with hugs and squeezes and comments of affirmation and love for the tremendous job I did educating them in a patient and effective manner.
"Are we done? Do we have to do anything else? Okay, bye. I'm going outside."
"Okay!"
"Uhh, what did we do again today?"
3.00
The formal school day will end, and I will be flooded with hugs and squeezes and comments of affirmation and love for the tremendous job I did educating them in a patient and effective manner.
"Are we done? Do we have to do anything else? Okay, bye. I'm going outside."
"Okay!"
I say.
"Fine! But come back in 30 minutes because we still have some physics, geography, coding, and didgeridoo to finish up!"
They must be too far away because I don't hear any reply.
I turn to the 22-month old, who is still a squirmy character, but a captive audience of sorts, due to his plumb legs not being swift enough to escape from my clutches every time.
"Have I ever told you the story of Robert Bruce?"
I begin.
He knows what's coming: more mandatory learning. With a shriek and a toot, he spins around and tries to take off for the forest and freedom.
But I am fast, and strong, and sit on him gently to make sure he can't leave until I'm done.
This is the gift we give to our children, those precious angels. The gift of having knowledge shoved and thrown and dumped onto them; thickly and incessantly. Someday, they'll thank us.
Or write a book about us, and maybe we'll get some royalties.
Tonight, I'm either going to sit down and bang out a chapter of my great American novel, or I'm going to watch a couple episodes of The Office, season 3. It's a tossup. We'll see which one seems more relaxing by 9.30pm.
And thus is the day done.
___
___
Monday, October 15, 2018
Samaritan mom.
Twice a week, we make a trek to an Alternative Learning Experience (ALE) public school approximately 45 minutes away. Forty-five minutes in a straight shot, an hour with traffic. There's frequently traffic.
There's a couple hundred students from grade 1 through high school. Many are on different schedules, different blocks, different programs, but all are attending there to complement homeschooling. That means that parents - or other guardians - are not only welcome, but encouraged and even expected to participate in classes. Every single one if they wish. But at the minimum, parents are expected to be in each of their child's classrooms a certain amount per month.
Not as volunteers. As teachers. Sometimes that means a parent sitting there with a phone in hand, scrubbing through Facebook while their child's class learns ten feet away. That happens, and that's the worst. But the best is when parents are in the classroom, roaming and helping and contributing to an encouraging environment for all; for all learning styles and personalities and bringing a bit of extra teaching assistance into their child's classroom.
Ours are in 3rd and 6th...and their little brother, 22 months, attends alongside, lounging in beanbags reading books, sitting at a big person desk furiously drawing, and sometimes, sometimes fighting enthusiastically to ensure his voice is heard when the teacher is lecturing. That's the point where I have become adept at attempting inconspicuous exits.
I walked through the library today and overheard two mothers talking in reference to their children's academic progress. My fave:
I didn't get into the math of things with her, but I am reasonably certain her child is fighting a losing battle if that's the situation.
So basically, never give up. Unless you fall fifteen steps behind with every step forward. Then maybe rethink the situation.
As we walked out to our automobile after school, a nine-year old struggled along with his backpack, lunch pail, coat, books, etc. as he approached his car, where his mother sat behind the steering wheel, idling, rolling through her phone.
Mom! I need help! Come help me!
She looks up. Starts laughing.
MOM! I need help! I'm dropping everything!
She frames carefully with her phone and calmly screams at him as he limps forward.
I'm trying to get a picture, I HAVE TO GET A PICTURE OF YOU FIRST!
So much to unpack. I giggled and loaded our also-loaded kids, and we headed home; they dug through for uneaten lunch morsels.
There's a couple hundred students from grade 1 through high school. Many are on different schedules, different blocks, different programs, but all are attending there to complement homeschooling. That means that parents - or other guardians - are not only welcome, but encouraged and even expected to participate in classes. Every single one if they wish. But at the minimum, parents are expected to be in each of their child's classrooms a certain amount per month.
Not as volunteers. As teachers. Sometimes that means a parent sitting there with a phone in hand, scrubbing through Facebook while their child's class learns ten feet away. That happens, and that's the worst. But the best is when parents are in the classroom, roaming and helping and contributing to an encouraging environment for all; for all learning styles and personalities and bringing a bit of extra teaching assistance into their child's classroom.
Ours are in 3rd and 6th...and their little brother, 22 months, attends alongside, lounging in beanbags reading books, sitting at a big person desk furiously drawing, and sometimes, sometimes fighting enthusiastically to ensure his voice is heard when the teacher is lecturing. That's the point where I have become adept at attempting inconspicuous exits.
I walked through the library today and overheard two mothers talking in reference to their children's academic progress. My fave:
"...it's one step forward and fifteen steps back!"
I didn't get into the math of things with her, but I am reasonably certain her child is fighting a losing battle if that's the situation.
So basically, never give up. Unless you fall fifteen steps behind with every step forward. Then maybe rethink the situation.
As we walked out to our automobile after school, a nine-year old struggled along with his backpack, lunch pail, coat, books, etc. as he approached his car, where his mother sat behind the steering wheel, idling, rolling through her phone.
Mom! I need help! Come help me!
She looks up. Starts laughing.
MOM! I need help! I'm dropping everything!
She frames carefully with her phone and calmly screams at him as he limps forward.
I'm trying to get a picture, I HAVE TO GET A PICTURE OF YOU FIRST!
So much to unpack. I giggled and loaded our also-loaded kids, and we headed home; they dug through for uneaten lunch morsels.
Friday, September 7, 2018
There's a bizarre sheriff in town.
We do a spelling test every Friday. The kids grumble, but it's a cheerful grumble. I'm okay with that kind of grumbling. The kind where they groan and moan a little out fear that they'll sound too excited, but guess what?...
...I call their bluff. They do get excited. Because it's fun. Spelling is fun. I always give a 20-question test, with two bonus at the end with an extra fun one, like Mozambique, so they have the potential, should the stars align, to get 22/20. Whoa.
So their first test of the year. I do a lot of pacing and giving of stern looks to make them know just how serious it is. Most of my pacing is in front of a giant whiteboard where I write important stuff, such as their chores, and what sounds good for lunch. Also, I write spelling words they're struggling with.
Magdelana was unsure of the word for the primary county law enforcement authority. Otherwise known as sheriff. I administer spelling tests a little differently than you might have seen in the movies, such as the fantastic documentary Spellbound, or the inspiring film Akeelah and the Bee, or the very not-okay for children Bad Words. What I do is give them a chance, if they're unsure, to write their various iterations of a word on the board. The whiteboard.
I want to write this one up there.
she said.
So she gave me the different iterations.
sherriff
or
sheriff
She agonized over each, going back and forth. Finally, she made her decision.
I'm going with the second one,
she said.
The one with one r and two ff's.
Okay...
I said.
Are you sure?
She hesitated.
I think so...
Initially,
I said.
You went with the first option. Two r's, two ff's. That could be right.
I know,
she said.
But I'm pretty sure it's the second one. With only one r.
You positive?
I said.
Your first inclination was to go with option 1. Are you absolutely sure you want to change your mind? Are you certain? Do you know? Do you KNOW?
She sat up and jutted her chin out.
Yes.
She said.
I know that's what I'm going with.
Well good.
I said.
Because that's correct.
___
We went through a variety of words, bouncing between 3rd and 6th grade:
herd or heard?
amendment or ammendment?
bizzare or bizarre?
I think spelling is great. But it's not even about the spelling. It's not even about the attention to detail, the importance of effective written communication, or the power of learning Latin and Greek roots to build vocabulary. Those are important.
It's about the conversations that ensue and evolve as we do our Friday spelling test. Our tests are not full of decorum and adherence to protocol. They are lively and energetic and sometimes involve arguments as I pull words from various topics we've been studying throughout the previous week.
And...
...they are about learning things like how to stand your ground when people are pushing you around. When you know what's right and people are trying to get you to change your mind.
Even your teacher.
You gotta be nimble, flexible, and mentally and emotionally strong enough to change your mind when it's warranted.
But equally important, you gotta learn the importance of changing your mind on your terms, not anybody else's.
Not because you're getting pushed or shoved or railroaded into it.
Not when it comes in a friendly voice and in the guise of an authority figure.
You gotta learn to listen, absorb, synthesize, summarize, make a decision and stand your ground.
If evidence comes along with a reason for why you should, then change it!
But otherwise: stand for what you believe to be right and don't get nudged into changing your mind because others think you should.
Even when they're a teacher.
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