Our daughter goes to an "exemplary" school- you'd think that would be great, but in Texas, "exemplary" means that 95% of the kids made at least a C- on their high stakes standardized tests, not what my English teachers taught me that "exemplary" means!
We have turned our public schools into glorified training institutions. The kids are trained on how to take tests- they're taught "strategies" on how to take tests, not strategies on how to learn, but on how to take the damn tests.
IF we really want to know how they're doing, then let's stop the multiple guess tests, take away the extremely high stakes pressure on the testing, and let the districts develop tests that cover what the kids have learned. Let's use them as assessments, and give them in the fall, so that the teachers know what they need to work on to bring all students up to higher grades, not to a C- status.
If you've not looked at a test recently, I encourage you to go to your local school and ask to see one. The answers will usually have 2 that are clearly wrong, then 2 that are very close, so that they sometimes trick the kids. Instead of these, let's go to tests where the kids show their work, and get some credit for doing the skills. Let's let THEM give the answers, not some person who is being paid to make sure that testing continues so their bottom line stays lovely. Let's turn public schools back into educational facilities, not worker bee training facilities.
I do not fault teachers for this- they do their best in a system that is all about punishing them at every chance. It is no wonder that more and more families are homeschooling when you see what is going on in our public schools.
I help in our daughter's school each week and although I love her teachers, I'm often appalled at the lack of depth of their texts and, frankly, the textbook writing, which is often poor, and appears to be written by another 5th grader. It is all due to the teaching to the test.
Parents hate the test, teachers hate it, administrators hate it, only (some) legislators, the test companies and real estate agents like them. Real estate agents like them because then they can exploit the "exemplary" schools for sales. I wonder how many folks would be willing to move into expensive areas with "exemplary" schools if they understood:
1. "Exemplary" means C-
2. Schools with those ratings more often than not teach to the test, to the exclusion (for most students) of much, if any, enlightening, exciting actual teaching and education.
I know I've heard from other parents in our school who moved here who where shocked to see how much is "taught to the test"-they thought "exemplary" meant that the school's curriculum was, well, "exemplary"- in the old meaning! Our administrators insist they dont' "teach to the test", but they will also tell you that no new programs will be introduced unless they somehow help the testing grades.
The new STARR tests start a week from today. There are parents around the country who are keeping their children home on those days, as they believe that these tests are harmful. h Some of the folks on some of the lists are pretty far right, but there are also a lot of liberals- it boils down to this- we want the best education for our children. We don’t want their education to be about “test-taking strategies”, but about learning to learn, and understanding that education is a journey, not a destination.
I can tell you that when I picked up our daughter a few weeks ago, after a CBA, which is basically a training test for the STARR, she came up to me, with a distraught face, laid her head on my car door, and wailed, "I'm dumb, I can't do it" and then told me she failed the math CBA. This is a child who routinely makes strong A's and B's in class. Her teacher is no slouch; he works with the kids to be sure they can do the skills in class. I know she knows the material, but the tests just defeat her, time and again. How is that productive? How does it help a child who is eager to learn to come to me, wailing that she is "dumb" and "can't do it?" How does this help our education system? We are debating keeping our daughter at home next week, but worry about several things:
1. Does this make her feel that we don’t think she can do it, or will she understand that we believe the tests are not there to help, but, rather to hurt public schools & the kids in them?
2. If enough people hold their kids out, does it do enough long term good to justify the short term harm (the school could lose even more funding if enough of us hold our kids out, they’ll lose the daily funding anyway, but if more than 5% don’t take the test, then they could lose additional funding from the state)
3. Will there be enough people keeping their children home to make a noticeable difference? If it is just a few, we’ll be looked at as “extremists”- however, as was pointed out recently in a TED Talk, it just takes folks joining the group to move something from a “lone nut" to a movement. Are we ready for a movement? Want to join?
Monday, March 19, 2012
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Learning to Learn with Competition
Last Saturday, Lettie competed in the UIL Music Memory program. Those of you who know me know that I dislike competitions where someone has to win and someone has to lose, however, in this program, there is a standard, and theoretically, everyone can win. All they have to do is know the music, the composers, and how to spell the names of the music and composers.
Lettie actually came in 1st place at the school level, and this was with leaving off 3 of the pieces. Prepping for the District Meet, Lettie listened to the music every night before going to bed, and often as we drove home from school from my iPhone; she knew every one of the pieces and the composers. In the coaching sessions, she told us she was consistently making 100’s, which means that she knew all the names and pieces and spelled them correctly. We even did some research on the composers and found out how they all died, and it was interesting, from Mozart to modern times. For Language Arts, Lettie decided (OK, at my suggestion) to do her biography on the only woman composer in the bunch, Amy Beach. (Turns out, Ms. Beach was quite interesting to Lettie. She had a condition called “synesthesia”- which means she saw colors when she heard certain keys, for example, if she heard a song in G Major, she saw the color red, Ab Major was blue, and so on. Lettie found this very interesting, as did I.)
We didn’t check Lettie’s spelling (OK, sometimes we did ask her to spell Tchaikovsky, Gabrieli, Humperdinck or Zawinul, but we didn’t drill her.) I figured if she wanted to do a good job, she would study them, as she loves spelling and the harder, the better.
After the “test” on Saturday, Lettie told me she forgot the movement on the Hayden 88th Symphony, which surprised me, as she had really studied it and the Handel “Hornpipe,” because she’d been getting them mixed up. I’d played snippets of each of them for her several times, and she’d gotten them both correct, down to the movement. (It is “Alla Hornpipe”, not just “Hornpipe” as I’ve known it for years.:)
When Lettie came in 4th at the district meet, I figured she’d either missed more than just that one piece, although she insisted she didn’t, or misspelled some of the words, which she also insisted she didn’t. It would have been possible for the other children who finished 1-3 to have gotten everything correct and then 2nd & 3rd to have misspelled 1 and 2 words and finished in those places. However, yesterday in the UIL ceremony at her school, they were giving special awards for those who did spell every word correctly in the Art and Music Memory programs, and neither Lettie nor the child who finished in 2nd place got them (the other top finishers were from another school.)
Lettie was so disappointed on Saturday, she thought she’d come in 2nd, for missing that one. We’d told her that to place high for this district meet, she couldn’t miss any, that everyone will have been studying hard and the winner would likely have perfect paper. She insisted she didn’t misspell any words, but since she didn’t get a spelling award, she must have- or her handwriting was so messy they couldn’t read it, which happens more often that we’d like.:(
I used to do floral design competitions, where, rather than an exacting standard of “perfection”, the judging was a lot more subjective. I won some contests I thought I should have lost, and lost some that I thought I should have won. Early on, I came to the conclusion if I was going to do competitions; I had to find the “winning” within myself. My standard of a “successful competition was this:
1. Did I learn something?
2. Did I do my best?
3. Did I have fun?
If all three of those were “yes,” it was a successful competition for me. If I won, that was just icing on the cake.
We’ve tried to instill that into Lettie, too, but at age 10, it is a bit harder of a “sell.” As tears welled up in her eyes Saturday after they posted the results, I reminded her that one of the school’s team didn’t even show up, so she showed courage in just doing that! Somewhere I read that half of success is just showing up, and that was certainly true on Saturday. We told her we were proud of her for having the courage to extend herself and do this competition. She could have played it safe and not done it, but playing it safe is not always the way to have a great adventure, especially in education.:)
I’ve asked her teacher if we can get a copy of Lettie’s test, so that Lettie can see her mistakes and learn from them. While she won’t need to list these pieces from memory any more, learning how to learn is so important. Learning how things are graded is also important. If it was sloppy handwriting, then hopefully she’ll learn that she needs to take more time, if she just outright misspelled some words, then she’ll learn that she needs to practice spelling more, if she missed the names of the music, then hopefully she’ll learn that she needs to work on the big things, too and not to get too cocky or nervous (she was a bit of both on Sat. morning.:). I know she’s only 10, but learning from our mistakes is how we “fail forward,” as Herb Mitchell used to say. We all make mistakes, but the difference is those who learn from them and don’t do them again do better than those who continue to make the same mistakes over and over. At age 10, trying to stop the repetition of mistakes is sometimes a bit of a merry-go-round, but we’ll continue to work on that.
In the meantime, we’re very proud of our daughter- she knows these great pieces of music (one of which she’ll be working on in piano in the spring.) She knows about Amy Beach, who was a remarkable woman, even back in the late 1800’s, when it was pretty difficult to be a “remarkable” woman. Music Memory gave Lettie some knowledge, and hopefully some skills that will help to sustain more learning as we go. Our thanks to Beth Schuman, her music teacher at Rooster Springs, for the time she put in coaching the team for the past 2 months, and to Mollie Tower, who started the Music Memory program many years ago. What a nice gift for our children.
I hope that even with the additional $3.1 cut DSISD will suffer next year, it is possible for the elementary schools in DSISD to still compete in UIL next year, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Looking at the faces of the children called up to the stage for the UIL Awards Ceremony, from those who had “participated” to those who “won," it was clear that each one of them was a winner. That is how education should be.
Lettie actually came in 1st place at the school level, and this was with leaving off 3 of the pieces. Prepping for the District Meet, Lettie listened to the music every night before going to bed, and often as we drove home from school from my iPhone; she knew every one of the pieces and the composers. In the coaching sessions, she told us she was consistently making 100’s, which means that she knew all the names and pieces and spelled them correctly. We even did some research on the composers and found out how they all died, and it was interesting, from Mozart to modern times. For Language Arts, Lettie decided (OK, at my suggestion) to do her biography on the only woman composer in the bunch, Amy Beach. (Turns out, Ms. Beach was quite interesting to Lettie. She had a condition called “synesthesia”- which means she saw colors when she heard certain keys, for example, if she heard a song in G Major, she saw the color red, Ab Major was blue, and so on. Lettie found this very interesting, as did I.)
We didn’t check Lettie’s spelling (OK, sometimes we did ask her to spell Tchaikovsky, Gabrieli, Humperdinck or Zawinul, but we didn’t drill her.) I figured if she wanted to do a good job, she would study them, as she loves spelling and the harder, the better.
After the “test” on Saturday, Lettie told me she forgot the movement on the Hayden 88th Symphony, which surprised me, as she had really studied it and the Handel “Hornpipe,” because she’d been getting them mixed up. I’d played snippets of each of them for her several times, and she’d gotten them both correct, down to the movement. (It is “Alla Hornpipe”, not just “Hornpipe” as I’ve known it for years.:)
When Lettie came in 4th at the district meet, I figured she’d either missed more than just that one piece, although she insisted she didn’t, or misspelled some of the words, which she also insisted she didn’t. It would have been possible for the other children who finished 1-3 to have gotten everything correct and then 2nd & 3rd to have misspelled 1 and 2 words and finished in those places. However, yesterday in the UIL ceremony at her school, they were giving special awards for those who did spell every word correctly in the Art and Music Memory programs, and neither Lettie nor the child who finished in 2nd place got them (the other top finishers were from another school.)
Lettie was so disappointed on Saturday, she thought she’d come in 2nd, for missing that one. We’d told her that to place high for this district meet, she couldn’t miss any, that everyone will have been studying hard and the winner would likely have perfect paper. She insisted she didn’t misspell any words, but since she didn’t get a spelling award, she must have- or her handwriting was so messy they couldn’t read it, which happens more often that we’d like.:(
I used to do floral design competitions, where, rather than an exacting standard of “perfection”, the judging was a lot more subjective. I won some contests I thought I should have lost, and lost some that I thought I should have won. Early on, I came to the conclusion if I was going to do competitions; I had to find the “winning” within myself. My standard of a “successful competition was this:
1. Did I learn something?
2. Did I do my best?
3. Did I have fun?
If all three of those were “yes,” it was a successful competition for me. If I won, that was just icing on the cake.
We’ve tried to instill that into Lettie, too, but at age 10, it is a bit harder of a “sell.” As tears welled up in her eyes Saturday after they posted the results, I reminded her that one of the school’s team didn’t even show up, so she showed courage in just doing that! Somewhere I read that half of success is just showing up, and that was certainly true on Saturday. We told her we were proud of her for having the courage to extend herself and do this competition. She could have played it safe and not done it, but playing it safe is not always the way to have a great adventure, especially in education.:)
I’ve asked her teacher if we can get a copy of Lettie’s test, so that Lettie can see her mistakes and learn from them. While she won’t need to list these pieces from memory any more, learning how to learn is so important. Learning how things are graded is also important. If it was sloppy handwriting, then hopefully she’ll learn that she needs to take more time, if she just outright misspelled some words, then she’ll learn that she needs to practice spelling more, if she missed the names of the music, then hopefully she’ll learn that she needs to work on the big things, too and not to get too cocky or nervous (she was a bit of both on Sat. morning.:). I know she’s only 10, but learning from our mistakes is how we “fail forward,” as Herb Mitchell used to say. We all make mistakes, but the difference is those who learn from them and don’t do them again do better than those who continue to make the same mistakes over and over. At age 10, trying to stop the repetition of mistakes is sometimes a bit of a merry-go-round, but we’ll continue to work on that.
In the meantime, we’re very proud of our daughter- she knows these great pieces of music (one of which she’ll be working on in piano in the spring.) She knows about Amy Beach, who was a remarkable woman, even back in the late 1800’s, when it was pretty difficult to be a “remarkable” woman. Music Memory gave Lettie some knowledge, and hopefully some skills that will help to sustain more learning as we go. Our thanks to Beth Schuman, her music teacher at Rooster Springs, for the time she put in coaching the team for the past 2 months, and to Mollie Tower, who started the Music Memory program many years ago. What a nice gift for our children.
I hope that even with the additional $3.1 cut DSISD will suffer next year, it is possible for the elementary schools in DSISD to still compete in UIL next year, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Looking at the faces of the children called up to the stage for the UIL Awards Ceremony, from those who had “participated” to those who “won," it was clear that each one of them was a winner. That is how education should be.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
What's Important: our stuff or our kids & future?
While Dripping Springs is locked in a tough battle to keep from having to cut an additional $3.1 million out of our budget (on top of the $2.1 cut this year,) the truth is, with the same Legislature going back in 2013, it won't get any better. I'm angry that we've come to this- I'm really angry at Jason Isaac and the so-called "leadership" of our state. We should never have to be in the position of having to raise our taxes this much, but since they cut Dripping Springs more than most schools (only about 10 got cut a larger percentage,) despite the fact that we've had top financial ratings, (meaning we have little to no "fat" to cut,) we've got 2 choices:
1. We can vote to raise our taxes or
2. We can vote to greatly diminish our schools.
Raising taxes is really hard right now, but I know that the School Board will lower them the minute the Lege steps up to the plate and does their Constitutional duty to fund public schools.
(from the Texas Constitution)
"It shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools."
Does anyone think the Lege made "suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public schools" this last time? I know we're in a hard place, I get that, but this Legislature made NO EFFORT to fix what got us into this funding mess- the "tax swap" of 2006. When they passed that bill, they knew that, barring some pixie dust making magical things happen, there was no way the "Margins Tax" would raise enough funds to fund schools at the level they'd been promised in past legislation. Yet, they passed it anyway, kicked the can down the road, and this year, they kicked it down the road again. They didn't fix the funding problem in legislation, and the first thing they will have to deal with then they return in 2013 is to pay 2 delayed bills that were put from this biennium's budget into the next one- 1 for a school payment & 1 for a big Medicaid payment, so we start with a huge deficit in 2013, too, not to mention that the margins tax STILL won't have brought in enough funding, so there will be even less money in the budget then.
So, now we're to this: many of us are hurting, and asking us to pay more taxes won't be easy, but when I realize that it is less than $10 a week for us, I can certainly justify $10 a week for our daughter's education. Then I realize that won't just cover her, but all the over 4,000 children in DSISD and it becomes something from which I can't walk away. So, we'll cut something from our budget, and it may mean that we literally eat beans and rice one a week or so, but the question becomes- what do we value? Our kids? Our future? Our stuff?
I'm working on a devotional for our church's Advent book, and just about all the scriptures I was given are about transitoriness and/or justice. Could these verses have come at a more opportune time? I look at them in the context of this tax election and see that this sacrifice that we're being asked to make is just a short term one, but the investment we will make may well make a difference in the lives of these kids. Indeed, we may be nurturing the next Steve Jobs, or the next great artist or musician or researcher who may discover a cure for cancer, or just a lot of productive citizens. If we have to cut all classes that promote imagination and originality, if we have to pack science and math classes with more children that a teacher can ever hope to help individually, what level of disservice are we doing not only to our kids, but to our future? Psalms 90 is titled "God's Eternity" and Man's Transitoriness"- I think that about says it all.
This is a link to an editorial from Channel 2 in Houston, about what our Lege did in terms of not funding our schools and what it means. While Dripping has an election on Tuesday that means a lot, the primaries in March and election in November mean a great deal to all our children and to our future. Whether you homeschool, outside private school or public school, public schools educate the majority of our children and having good schools are important to our future. We can get into discussions about what the Lege has done to public education (or test taking training, as so much of it is now) but that is our next mission, once we get past this one- going back to letting teachers teach!)
IF you're in Dripping, the elections are Tuesday, Nov. 8, Election Day (Tuesday, November 8) - DSISD voting precinct locations are as follows:
Precinct Voting Location
440 Henly Baptist Church, 200 Henly Loop
441/449 DSISD Administrative Bldg., 510 W. Mercer St.
442/448 Driftwood Community Center, 15100 W. FM 150
443/444 Sunset Canyon Baptist Church, 4400 E. Hwy 290
Polls are open from 7:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. on Election Day.
1. We can vote to raise our taxes or
2. We can vote to greatly diminish our schools.
Raising taxes is really hard right now, but I know that the School Board will lower them the minute the Lege steps up to the plate and does their Constitutional duty to fund public schools.
(from the Texas Constitution)
"It shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools."
Does anyone think the Lege made "suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public schools" this last time? I know we're in a hard place, I get that, but this Legislature made NO EFFORT to fix what got us into this funding mess- the "tax swap" of 2006. When they passed that bill, they knew that, barring some pixie dust making magical things happen, there was no way the "Margins Tax" would raise enough funds to fund schools at the level they'd been promised in past legislation. Yet, they passed it anyway, kicked the can down the road, and this year, they kicked it down the road again. They didn't fix the funding problem in legislation, and the first thing they will have to deal with then they return in 2013 is to pay 2 delayed bills that were put from this biennium's budget into the next one- 1 for a school payment & 1 for a big Medicaid payment, so we start with a huge deficit in 2013, too, not to mention that the margins tax STILL won't have brought in enough funding, so there will be even less money in the budget then.
So, now we're to this: many of us are hurting, and asking us to pay more taxes won't be easy, but when I realize that it is less than $10 a week for us, I can certainly justify $10 a week for our daughter's education. Then I realize that won't just cover her, but all the over 4,000 children in DSISD and it becomes something from which I can't walk away. So, we'll cut something from our budget, and it may mean that we literally eat beans and rice one a week or so, but the question becomes- what do we value? Our kids? Our future? Our stuff?
I'm working on a devotional for our church's Advent book, and just about all the scriptures I was given are about transitoriness and/or justice. Could these verses have come at a more opportune time? I look at them in the context of this tax election and see that this sacrifice that we're being asked to make is just a short term one, but the investment we will make may well make a difference in the lives of these kids. Indeed, we may be nurturing the next Steve Jobs, or the next great artist or musician or researcher who may discover a cure for cancer, or just a lot of productive citizens. If we have to cut all classes that promote imagination and originality, if we have to pack science and math classes with more children that a teacher can ever hope to help individually, what level of disservice are we doing not only to our kids, but to our future? Psalms 90 is titled "God's Eternity" and Man's Transitoriness"- I think that about says it all.
This is a link to an editorial from Channel 2 in Houston, about what our Lege did in terms of not funding our schools and what it means. While Dripping has an election on Tuesday that means a lot, the primaries in March and election in November mean a great deal to all our children and to our future. Whether you homeschool, outside private school or public school, public schools educate the majority of our children and having good schools are important to our future. We can get into discussions about what the Lege has done to public education (or test taking training, as so much of it is now) but that is our next mission, once we get past this one- going back to letting teachers teach!)
IF you're in Dripping, the elections are Tuesday, Nov. 8, Election Day (Tuesday, November 8) - DSISD voting precinct locations are as follows:
Precinct Voting Location
440 Henly Baptist Church, 200 Henly Loop
441/449 DSISD Administrative Bldg., 510 W. Mercer St.
442/448 Driftwood Community Center, 15100 W. FM 150
443/444 Sunset Canyon Baptist Church, 4400 E. Hwy 290
Polls are open from 7:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. on Election Day.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Travel as a Political Act
I’m reading Rick Steve’s book “Travel as a Political Act.” It talks about being intentional about your travel, and not just staying on the tourist track, but getting to know the country and the people, and understanding their story.
You may wonder “what does this have to do with raising children?” and I will answer “a great deal!”
When I was young, my family traveled a great deal. We spent a month or so in Mexico City with my Great-aunt Clovee and Great-uncle Pepe, we lived in Bolivia for what was supposed to be 2-3 years, and ended up being around 4 months when I was 6, and then we just traveled all over the US, too.
You may think that traveling with young children doesn’t leave impressions, but I can assure you, it does. I have very vivid memories of our months in Bolivia- memories that stayed with me all these years. They included me realizing at that very young age that not the entire world has all the things we take for granted- hot water didn’t come out of the faucet, you heated it on the stove. The rest of my family took “bird baths”, but I was small enough that I fit in the kitchen sink, so I got to take actual baths in hot water. THAT was a luxury, for sure.
I remember going to the market with my Mom- no HEB’s there- it was an open air market. I still remember the shop owners shooing away the flies that covered the meat, to show us how “pretty” their meat was. We stuck to slaughtering our own chickens and ducks while we were there, thank you very much. I saw homeless people for the first time, and asked my Mom why they had all their stuff with them. Homelessness, 50 years ago, was something very strange to this little girl. I remember Pogie, the native man who ran the little store around the corner from us- where we’d go get tapioca for Mom to make pudding for us. He used to take us riding in his jeep- quite a treat! The “servant class” all spoke Portuguese, the “upper class” Bolivians spoke Spanish, and our English speaking friends were British, so I came home speaking a mixture of Spanish, Portuguese & British English, which was very confusing to my very small Southeast Texas hometown, and put me in for a lot of teasing.
In Mexico, my relatives were from a wealthy and old well-connected Spanish family. They lived in a beautiful home, which, as I recall, was more of an “apartment style”- as in several stories- on one of the “best” streets in Mexico City- right in the heart of the city. It wasn’t polluted then, and we’d go walking to area parks and shopping. We went to bullfights then (honestly, I never thought about the bulls being killed, I saw the beauty of the ballet of the bullfighters,) we went to the pyramids- climbing past frightening gargoyles on the way up to the top, we went to their ranch in the mountains, we experienced what “upper class” families in Mexico experienced then- lots of servants to do all the work, no dangers to us, just wonderful experience after wonderful experience. I loved sitting in the kitchen at Aunt Clovee’s, listening to the cooks working to prepare our food. They’d often try to give me “American food”- spaghetti, hamburgers, etc., but I never wanted that. I wanted what they had. She had one woman who came in each morning just to make tortillas- I can still hear her pat-pat-patting them out.
In Guatemala, as an adult, I’ve stayed in top tier & middle of the line hotels, a “middle class” home, and “pensions”- with nothing but a corrugated fiberglass roof overhead. The "middle class" home was more what we’d consider poverty level here- the shower had a bare electric wire that connected it to hot water (lukewarm was actually more the order of the day, but no way was I touching that bare wire!) Tourists can’t drink the water out of the faucets, and can’t put toilet paper in the toilets, but there are servants to do everything. I remember one friend of mine there saying she almost divorced her husband because when he took her to their newly bought mountain home he expected her to cook, as there were no servants. She was insulted beyond believe that he thought she should cook and clean! Different cultures have different values, for sure, and it is helpful if we understand them.
These impressions have stayed with me all my life. I understand that most of the world does not have all that we think are “necessities” and that we do take more than a “fair share” of the world’s resources and it bothers me.
As an adult, I’ve traveled to Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Switzerland, France, Austria, England and Guatemala, Canada. Mexico has been out of bounds for years due to the drug traffic. As a young adult, we did go to the Mexico border areas and went over for dinner & shopping and had a great time. Now I wouldn’t even consider going close to the border, and, sadly, I believe we’ve “helped” that situation happen.
Our country’s hunger for drugs and our (what I believe is stupid) “war on drugs” have fed a multibillion dollar industry, and our gun laws have allowed thousands of guns to be smuggled into Mexico to aid in the violence.
“Travel as a Political Act” talks about going into a country and getting to know the people, so that you understand why the country does what it does. For example, on drugs, much of Europe treats it has as health problem, not a criminal one. They make it so that people can get safer drugs, clean needles, and help. They return many to productive lives by not criminalizing it. Don’t get me wrong, I hate drugs, but I also hate what our drug hunger has done too much of Central America. They’re just being good capitalists- there is a “need”, they’re fulfilling the “need” and making the sale-a basic retail standard. Much of Europe takes a different tack, and their drug use is considerably lower than ours. Prohibition just enriched the mobsters and got people murdered, and the “war on drugs” is doing the same, but at a much more violent pace.
Knowing how the US interfered in Central America (and much of the world) gives you a better understanding of why there are people worldwide who hate our government-not usually us as individuals, but they do often hate our government. This isn’t a “Republican” or “Democratic” issue- our government has interfered with other governments world-wide for years- it is all about our interests and the heck with being “our brothers’ keeper” or worrying about “the least of these.” Yes, we send foreign aid- less than 1% of our budget is foreign aid, however, and it is usually tied to make sure their government does what we want.
The US has not been a good neighbor to most of the world. We like to talk about “compassion” and our noble goals, and if we actually lived it, there would be no hungry people in this world. We could take a small percentage of our military budget and feed everyone in the world, but we don’t.
Right now, we fight because we want other people’s resources- their oil, their gas, their land (in the case of Central America.)Imagine what the wars over water will look like- we want oil, we want gas, but we can’t live without water, yet we continue to waste it, assuming we’ll get it from “somewhere.” We look at the world and see it through the eyes of “we want” rather than, realizing that we can all have enough if we will just believe it.
In Sunday School, we’re studying “Journey to the Common Good” which exams our lives today through the lens of some scriptures in the Old Testament. It says that we’re fed the propaganda of “scarcity”, when we need to understand that God provides enough for all. One of the stories was about the manna that the Israelites got while wandering through the dessert with Moses. Those who gathered more than they needed for that 1 day had their excess turn to mush. Those who gathered too little had actually enough when they looked. It was about trusting God, or, for those who don’t believe in God, about simply understanding that he who dies with the most toys doesn’t win. When will we all understand it?
An author I admire is James Michener. He said that once he became successful, his accountants wanted him to “tax shelter” his money. He told them “no” because he said that he owed all he made to having the luck to haven born in the USA. He was a “foundling”- found and adopted by the Michener family. He went to public schools, funded by taxes. He was in the military and then went to college, funded by the GI bill, which was funded by taxes. Malcolm Forbes says basically the same thing. His talent is making money from money, and in the US, you can make a very good living from that. Had he been born into a hunter-gatherer society, he would have starved to death, as he is not a good shot, nor is he fast, but he had the luck to be born here, so he believes that he owes taxes to the US as a “thank you” for being here. Wouldn’t it be nice if all rich people in the US understood that and were as thankful? Had they been born into another country, they may not have had the opportunities they have here, yet, instead of being grateful for all they have received from this country, they gripe about taxes and scheme to pay less and less. I hate those “tax free” shopping days in August every year, and won’t shop them. Those taxes that aren’t gathered mean that money isn’t there for our public services. You can get better sales at other times of the year- 20-50% off if you shop carefully, instead of 8.25% off!
OK, I’ve strayed a bit here, but I think that understanding about the rest of the world helps us to have more clarity about what our country is doing. While our “stock” had gone up world-wide with our current President, we’re still killing innocents in our wars. What if, instead of spending $12 billion a MONTH on war, for one year, we spent that on getting food to people who are starving, providing easy clean water access, teaching people to grow food (farming & ranching,) schools, medical care. I believe it would be a lot harder to get folks who want to murder us when they see their villages being built up instead of bombed down. When they see their mothers, wives and sisters not dying in childbirth, when their children don’t die because they can’t afford 85 cents for medicine, do you really think they’ll want to kill us?
Please, read “Three Cups of Tea”, read “Travel as a Political Act”, read “Journey to the Common Good.” Work to understand that we need for our children to understand that we live or die together on this world, that we can’t continue to take from the weaker and not weaken ourselves.
Margaret Mead said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” I believe that we CAN make change- parents, especially mothers, should be leading the parade on this. It is our children’s futures we’re making right now. Do we want a world of constant war, or do we prefer one where we understand there is enough for all? I don’t know that there is much in between. Constant war and war profiteering is not the best option for children and other living things.
You may wonder “what does this have to do with raising children?” and I will answer “a great deal!”
When I was young, my family traveled a great deal. We spent a month or so in Mexico City with my Great-aunt Clovee and Great-uncle Pepe, we lived in Bolivia for what was supposed to be 2-3 years, and ended up being around 4 months when I was 6, and then we just traveled all over the US, too.
You may think that traveling with young children doesn’t leave impressions, but I can assure you, it does. I have very vivid memories of our months in Bolivia- memories that stayed with me all these years. They included me realizing at that very young age that not the entire world has all the things we take for granted- hot water didn’t come out of the faucet, you heated it on the stove. The rest of my family took “bird baths”, but I was small enough that I fit in the kitchen sink, so I got to take actual baths in hot water. THAT was a luxury, for sure.
I remember going to the market with my Mom- no HEB’s there- it was an open air market. I still remember the shop owners shooing away the flies that covered the meat, to show us how “pretty” their meat was. We stuck to slaughtering our own chickens and ducks while we were there, thank you very much. I saw homeless people for the first time, and asked my Mom why they had all their stuff with them. Homelessness, 50 years ago, was something very strange to this little girl. I remember Pogie, the native man who ran the little store around the corner from us- where we’d go get tapioca for Mom to make pudding for us. He used to take us riding in his jeep- quite a treat! The “servant class” all spoke Portuguese, the “upper class” Bolivians spoke Spanish, and our English speaking friends were British, so I came home speaking a mixture of Spanish, Portuguese & British English, which was very confusing to my very small Southeast Texas hometown, and put me in for a lot of teasing.
In Mexico, my relatives were from a wealthy and old well-connected Spanish family. They lived in a beautiful home, which, as I recall, was more of an “apartment style”- as in several stories- on one of the “best” streets in Mexico City- right in the heart of the city. It wasn’t polluted then, and we’d go walking to area parks and shopping. We went to bullfights then (honestly, I never thought about the bulls being killed, I saw the beauty of the ballet of the bullfighters,) we went to the pyramids- climbing past frightening gargoyles on the way up to the top, we went to their ranch in the mountains, we experienced what “upper class” families in Mexico experienced then- lots of servants to do all the work, no dangers to us, just wonderful experience after wonderful experience. I loved sitting in the kitchen at Aunt Clovee’s, listening to the cooks working to prepare our food. They’d often try to give me “American food”- spaghetti, hamburgers, etc., but I never wanted that. I wanted what they had. She had one woman who came in each morning just to make tortillas- I can still hear her pat-pat-patting them out.
In Guatemala, as an adult, I’ve stayed in top tier & middle of the line hotels, a “middle class” home, and “pensions”- with nothing but a corrugated fiberglass roof overhead. The "middle class" home was more what we’d consider poverty level here- the shower had a bare electric wire that connected it to hot water (lukewarm was actually more the order of the day, but no way was I touching that bare wire!) Tourists can’t drink the water out of the faucets, and can’t put toilet paper in the toilets, but there are servants to do everything. I remember one friend of mine there saying she almost divorced her husband because when he took her to their newly bought mountain home he expected her to cook, as there were no servants. She was insulted beyond believe that he thought she should cook and clean! Different cultures have different values, for sure, and it is helpful if we understand them.
These impressions have stayed with me all my life. I understand that most of the world does not have all that we think are “necessities” and that we do take more than a “fair share” of the world’s resources and it bothers me.
As an adult, I’ve traveled to Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Switzerland, France, Austria, England and Guatemala, Canada. Mexico has been out of bounds for years due to the drug traffic. As a young adult, we did go to the Mexico border areas and went over for dinner & shopping and had a great time. Now I wouldn’t even consider going close to the border, and, sadly, I believe we’ve “helped” that situation happen.
Our country’s hunger for drugs and our (what I believe is stupid) “war on drugs” have fed a multibillion dollar industry, and our gun laws have allowed thousands of guns to be smuggled into Mexico to aid in the violence.
“Travel as a Political Act” talks about going into a country and getting to know the people, so that you understand why the country does what it does. For example, on drugs, much of Europe treats it has as health problem, not a criminal one. They make it so that people can get safer drugs, clean needles, and help. They return many to productive lives by not criminalizing it. Don’t get me wrong, I hate drugs, but I also hate what our drug hunger has done too much of Central America. They’re just being good capitalists- there is a “need”, they’re fulfilling the “need” and making the sale-a basic retail standard. Much of Europe takes a different tack, and their drug use is considerably lower than ours. Prohibition just enriched the mobsters and got people murdered, and the “war on drugs” is doing the same, but at a much more violent pace.
Knowing how the US interfered in Central America (and much of the world) gives you a better understanding of why there are people worldwide who hate our government-not usually us as individuals, but they do often hate our government. This isn’t a “Republican” or “Democratic” issue- our government has interfered with other governments world-wide for years- it is all about our interests and the heck with being “our brothers’ keeper” or worrying about “the least of these.” Yes, we send foreign aid- less than 1% of our budget is foreign aid, however, and it is usually tied to make sure their government does what we want.
The US has not been a good neighbor to most of the world. We like to talk about “compassion” and our noble goals, and if we actually lived it, there would be no hungry people in this world. We could take a small percentage of our military budget and feed everyone in the world, but we don’t.
Right now, we fight because we want other people’s resources- their oil, their gas, their land (in the case of Central America.)Imagine what the wars over water will look like- we want oil, we want gas, but we can’t live without water, yet we continue to waste it, assuming we’ll get it from “somewhere.” We look at the world and see it through the eyes of “we want” rather than, realizing that we can all have enough if we will just believe it.
In Sunday School, we’re studying “Journey to the Common Good” which exams our lives today through the lens of some scriptures in the Old Testament. It says that we’re fed the propaganda of “scarcity”, when we need to understand that God provides enough for all. One of the stories was about the manna that the Israelites got while wandering through the dessert with Moses. Those who gathered more than they needed for that 1 day had their excess turn to mush. Those who gathered too little had actually enough when they looked. It was about trusting God, or, for those who don’t believe in God, about simply understanding that he who dies with the most toys doesn’t win. When will we all understand it?
An author I admire is James Michener. He said that once he became successful, his accountants wanted him to “tax shelter” his money. He told them “no” because he said that he owed all he made to having the luck to haven born in the USA. He was a “foundling”- found and adopted by the Michener family. He went to public schools, funded by taxes. He was in the military and then went to college, funded by the GI bill, which was funded by taxes. Malcolm Forbes says basically the same thing. His talent is making money from money, and in the US, you can make a very good living from that. Had he been born into a hunter-gatherer society, he would have starved to death, as he is not a good shot, nor is he fast, but he had the luck to be born here, so he believes that he owes taxes to the US as a “thank you” for being here. Wouldn’t it be nice if all rich people in the US understood that and were as thankful? Had they been born into another country, they may not have had the opportunities they have here, yet, instead of being grateful for all they have received from this country, they gripe about taxes and scheme to pay less and less. I hate those “tax free” shopping days in August every year, and won’t shop them. Those taxes that aren’t gathered mean that money isn’t there for our public services. You can get better sales at other times of the year- 20-50% off if you shop carefully, instead of 8.25% off!
OK, I’ve strayed a bit here, but I think that understanding about the rest of the world helps us to have more clarity about what our country is doing. While our “stock” had gone up world-wide with our current President, we’re still killing innocents in our wars. What if, instead of spending $12 billion a MONTH on war, for one year, we spent that on getting food to people who are starving, providing easy clean water access, teaching people to grow food (farming & ranching,) schools, medical care. I believe it would be a lot harder to get folks who want to murder us when they see their villages being built up instead of bombed down. When they see their mothers, wives and sisters not dying in childbirth, when their children don’t die because they can’t afford 85 cents for medicine, do you really think they’ll want to kill us?
Please, read “Three Cups of Tea”, read “Travel as a Political Act”, read “Journey to the Common Good.” Work to understand that we need for our children to understand that we live or die together on this world, that we can’t continue to take from the weaker and not weaken ourselves.
Margaret Mead said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” I believe that we CAN make change- parents, especially mothers, should be leading the parade on this. It is our children’s futures we’re making right now. Do we want a world of constant war, or do we prefer one where we understand there is enough for all? I don’t know that there is much in between. Constant war and war profiteering is not the best option for children and other living things.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
2011- changes or more of the same?
Now we're in 2011- will it be the same as last, or will we work to make the changes that are in our control to make? Controlling spending, temper and weight are all goals of mine.
We had a very modest Christmas. We’d explained to our daughter that money was tight and there wouldn’t be any “big” (expensive) gifts this year. We bought books primarily, because she loves to read. Between the books we gave her and what Santa gave her, she was very happy. Santa also brought “Apples to Apples”, the Jr. version, and we have had a great deal of fun with that. (I highly recommend board games with children, especially those that teach in a fun way.) Some board games are mind-numbing for adults- don’t get those- get the ones that are fun for everyone and you’re more likely to play them. Apples to Apples expands vocabulary, by teaching words that are similar to a particular word, but in a very fun way. If your child already has a pretty good vocabulary, Boggle is another very fun game. Lettie reads so much & has a good vocabulary, so we’ve been playing this for the past 3 years or so with her. We’ve modeled how to learn by writing down the words we don’t’ “get” next to the words we saw in a particular Boggle board. I’ve told her that way I will be more likely to see them on future Boggle boards. One thing I really like about Boggle is that it teaches us to look at things in different ways. If you don’t know the game, it is a small box with small cubes that have a different letter on each side. You close up the box, shake it and then let the cubes fall into “slots” so that only 1 letter is showing on each one. The object is to make as many words as you can from what is showing. They have to be adjacent letters, but can be straight, diagonal, or even zigzagged. This is a game that can be played by 1 to as many people as can see the little Boggle box and is lots of fun. These are great games to play at night after supper when it is too dark to be outside. It is great family time, and if you have “game night”, I’ll be willing to bet your kids won’t be begging for TV instead (especially if they’re younger.) Older children get more competitive and like to try to beat their parents. That’s OK, just remind them it is about having fun.
Other ways of bonding is reading together. That can take the form of reading one book out loud, maybe taking turns reading chapters or pages, or even everyone sitting down and reading their own book silently. This is another good after dinner activity that takes the place of TV. Our daughter loves it when we all 3 sit down and read a book together.
As you know, I’m a big advocate of being outside, but right now, for our family, outside is not friendly to us. We all suffer from a “cedar” fever, so we try to stay inside other than in early morning or after a rain when the pollen has been knocked down. This is not my favorite time of year. This can blow up all sorts of New Year’s resolutions, but there are ways to exercise as a family while avoiding the “cedar” pollen. Dancing is fun- put on some old rock & roll records and dance to your heart’s delight. Our daughter loves to do “freestyle” dancing to “The Nutcracker.” If you belong to a gym, you can go work out there, but beware of the kids’ area. Our gym (LifeTime) for some inexplicable reason has a whole bank of computers, and every time I go I see children sitting there, mesmerized, playing on computers instead of playing with each other. I tell the childcare workers there that our daughter is not allowed screen time and is not to go into the computer area at all. They put a red dot on her nametag so that they can remember.:)
Afterwards, if the indoor pool is open, we can both go swimming in there, great exercise, and it keeps her swimming skills up for the summer.
I can hardly wait for March, when spring arrives and the “cedar” pollen goes away. Of course, we have other pollens then, but we’re not as allergic to them, and while we may sneeze, at least we don’t have such itchy eyes and running noses that make you want to amputate them!
My weight has gotten out of hand, so I’m back to Weight Watchers this month. I downloaded some very good sounding WW breakfast recipes, and we’ll be using them, as well as WW recipes at night. Our daughter has no idea they’re “weight loss” recipes, but some of her favorites are indeed WW. They’re healthy, have lots of vegetables in them, and are very, very tasty. Particular favorites of ours (and our daughter’s) are the hot Reuben sandwich and Shepherd’s Pie. We had Shepherd’s Pie last week and Reuben’s are on screen for tonight (if hubby will stop by store on way home for cabbage- I forgot to pick that up and don’t want to waste the gas on a single item trip.:)
Here’s to a healthier and tighter-knit family 2011 for us all!
We had a very modest Christmas. We’d explained to our daughter that money was tight and there wouldn’t be any “big” (expensive) gifts this year. We bought books primarily, because she loves to read. Between the books we gave her and what Santa gave her, she was very happy. Santa also brought “Apples to Apples”, the Jr. version, and we have had a great deal of fun with that. (I highly recommend board games with children, especially those that teach in a fun way.) Some board games are mind-numbing for adults- don’t get those- get the ones that are fun for everyone and you’re more likely to play them. Apples to Apples expands vocabulary, by teaching words that are similar to a particular word, but in a very fun way. If your child already has a pretty good vocabulary, Boggle is another very fun game. Lettie reads so much & has a good vocabulary, so we’ve been playing this for the past 3 years or so with her. We’ve modeled how to learn by writing down the words we don’t’ “get” next to the words we saw in a particular Boggle board. I’ve told her that way I will be more likely to see them on future Boggle boards. One thing I really like about Boggle is that it teaches us to look at things in different ways. If you don’t know the game, it is a small box with small cubes that have a different letter on each side. You close up the box, shake it and then let the cubes fall into “slots” so that only 1 letter is showing on each one. The object is to make as many words as you can from what is showing. They have to be adjacent letters, but can be straight, diagonal, or even zigzagged. This is a game that can be played by 1 to as many people as can see the little Boggle box and is lots of fun. These are great games to play at night after supper when it is too dark to be outside. It is great family time, and if you have “game night”, I’ll be willing to bet your kids won’t be begging for TV instead (especially if they’re younger.) Older children get more competitive and like to try to beat their parents. That’s OK, just remind them it is about having fun.
Other ways of bonding is reading together. That can take the form of reading one book out loud, maybe taking turns reading chapters or pages, or even everyone sitting down and reading their own book silently. This is another good after dinner activity that takes the place of TV. Our daughter loves it when we all 3 sit down and read a book together.
As you know, I’m a big advocate of being outside, but right now, for our family, outside is not friendly to us. We all suffer from a “cedar” fever, so we try to stay inside other than in early morning or after a rain when the pollen has been knocked down. This is not my favorite time of year. This can blow up all sorts of New Year’s resolutions, but there are ways to exercise as a family while avoiding the “cedar” pollen. Dancing is fun- put on some old rock & roll records and dance to your heart’s delight. Our daughter loves to do “freestyle” dancing to “The Nutcracker.” If you belong to a gym, you can go work out there, but beware of the kids’ area. Our gym (LifeTime) for some inexplicable reason has a whole bank of computers, and every time I go I see children sitting there, mesmerized, playing on computers instead of playing with each other. I tell the childcare workers there that our daughter is not allowed screen time and is not to go into the computer area at all. They put a red dot on her nametag so that they can remember.:)
Afterwards, if the indoor pool is open, we can both go swimming in there, great exercise, and it keeps her swimming skills up for the summer.
I can hardly wait for March, when spring arrives and the “cedar” pollen goes away. Of course, we have other pollens then, but we’re not as allergic to them, and while we may sneeze, at least we don’t have such itchy eyes and running noses that make you want to amputate them!
My weight has gotten out of hand, so I’m back to Weight Watchers this month. I downloaded some very good sounding WW breakfast recipes, and we’ll be using them, as well as WW recipes at night. Our daughter has no idea they’re “weight loss” recipes, but some of her favorites are indeed WW. They’re healthy, have lots of vegetables in them, and are very, very tasty. Particular favorites of ours (and our daughter’s) are the hot Reuben sandwich and Shepherd’s Pie. We had Shepherd’s Pie last week and Reuben’s are on screen for tonight (if hubby will stop by store on way home for cabbage- I forgot to pick that up and don’t want to waste the gas on a single item trip.:)
Here’s to a healthier and tighter-knit family 2011 for us all!
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Kids & outdoors
Yesterday in the paper and today on NPR, they were talking about how children aren't spending enough time outside. There are many downsides to this- for instance, rickets is actually making a comeback, children don't value the environment when they it isn't a part of their every day lives, children spend more and more time in front of TVs, computers and gaming systems, getting more and more obese. Texas has a very bad problem with obesity, and my county is projected to have an over 700% increase in diabetes by 2040!
So, how do we get our kids outside more? When I was growing up, in the summer, we left the house in the morning, played in the neighborhood all day and came back for meals. In most neighborhoods, that isn't doable anymore. However, we can still turn off the TV and shut down all "screen time" and send the kids outside. If you've got a yard of any size, they can play in it. Put out some pieces of wood, have a little sandbox, give them pieces of chiffon bought on sale and let them play! Our children are also losing out on imagination, and that comes largely from playing "pretend" and reading wonderful books. If you do nothing more that put out a comfy chair under a tree outside for them to sit & read, at least they're outside.
I sometimes hear parents lamenting that they "can't" get their kids away from the TV, computer, games, whatever. Sure you can- you just tell them to turn it off! Then send them outside to play. Our daughter would be delighted to be a couch potato, but she knows that there is no screen time during the week, and on weekends, it is very limited, and only if she's done her chores to "earn" her screen time. Given the option of sitting in front of a TV or taking a "nature hike" with her Daddy, I think she'd take the nature hike any day of the week. (It helped in our home from our daughter's standpoint that our First Lady says that their children do not get screen time during the week-Lettie "gets it" that we're not being "mean", but that it is something we do because we care. It doesn't mean she always likes it, but she knows it is how our family operates.)
We're fortunate to live in rural setting, with neighbors who don't mind us crossing fence lines to go down to the creek, and it is fun to walk and see what you can see. We've got deer, and sometimes foxes and turkeys around. We've got chickens to put up at night and let out in the morning, a pony to feed & groom (and tell to whom to tell secrets) and dogs & a cat to play with. While I don't think she spends quite as much time outside as I did as a child, she does spend quite a bit.
Her school is another place where outdoor time is valued. Instead of having to go sit on the floor in the cafeteria before school as she did when she went to public Kindergarten & stand quietly in a line after school, she and her friends play outside (in just about all weather) before and after school. Usually there is a kickball game going on when I go to pick her up in the afternoons. They have 2 recesses, and they do things like jump rope when memorizing their "times" tables. They have imaginative play at school as well. They're encouraged to be outside. When it is raining, they've got raincoats and boots, and when it is cold, they've got coats, gloves and hats. It is certainly easier with 4 students as opposed to 800 for sure, but none the less, the Steiner influence on our daughter's school is a good one- it puts being part of nature as an important part of education.
On the report on NPR today, a group who is concerned about this lack of connection to the earth is encouraging new schools to be built with "outdoor spaces" that can be used as classrooms and gardens. I think it is a great idea, and hope it goes over in Texas. I'm not overly optimistic, however, because our local principal told me that every time a new (and often good) idea comes their way, the first question asked is "how does it help us with the TAKS test?" Is that REALLY how we want our children's education measured, not by whether we're educating well-rounded caring citizens, but by how everything they learn helps them do well on a test? I don't blame the principal, but I do blame the Legislature & Congress, and yes, parents. If parents demanded going back to actually educating instead of basically training to take tests, the Legislature & Congress would have to listen. I have teacher friends who say they love it once the TAKS are over and they can finally actually TEACH for the few remaining weeks of school. That is a crying shame. It is a reason that some of us homeschool or use other private school models. I wish for all children to have the connection to the environment that my child is getting. It is good for her, and it is good for our community.
So, how do we get our kids outside more? When I was growing up, in the summer, we left the house in the morning, played in the neighborhood all day and came back for meals. In most neighborhoods, that isn't doable anymore. However, we can still turn off the TV and shut down all "screen time" and send the kids outside. If you've got a yard of any size, they can play in it. Put out some pieces of wood, have a little sandbox, give them pieces of chiffon bought on sale and let them play! Our children are also losing out on imagination, and that comes largely from playing "pretend" and reading wonderful books. If you do nothing more that put out a comfy chair under a tree outside for them to sit & read, at least they're outside.
I sometimes hear parents lamenting that they "can't" get their kids away from the TV, computer, games, whatever. Sure you can- you just tell them to turn it off! Then send them outside to play. Our daughter would be delighted to be a couch potato, but she knows that there is no screen time during the week, and on weekends, it is very limited, and only if she's done her chores to "earn" her screen time. Given the option of sitting in front of a TV or taking a "nature hike" with her Daddy, I think she'd take the nature hike any day of the week. (It helped in our home from our daughter's standpoint that our First Lady says that their children do not get screen time during the week-Lettie "gets it" that we're not being "mean", but that it is something we do because we care. It doesn't mean she always likes it, but she knows it is how our family operates.)
We're fortunate to live in rural setting, with neighbors who don't mind us crossing fence lines to go down to the creek, and it is fun to walk and see what you can see. We've got deer, and sometimes foxes and turkeys around. We've got chickens to put up at night and let out in the morning, a pony to feed & groom (and tell to whom to tell secrets) and dogs & a cat to play with. While I don't think she spends quite as much time outside as I did as a child, she does spend quite a bit.
Her school is another place where outdoor time is valued. Instead of having to go sit on the floor in the cafeteria before school as she did when she went to public Kindergarten & stand quietly in a line after school, she and her friends play outside (in just about all weather) before and after school. Usually there is a kickball game going on when I go to pick her up in the afternoons. They have 2 recesses, and they do things like jump rope when memorizing their "times" tables. They have imaginative play at school as well. They're encouraged to be outside. When it is raining, they've got raincoats and boots, and when it is cold, they've got coats, gloves and hats. It is certainly easier with 4 students as opposed to 800 for sure, but none the less, the Steiner influence on our daughter's school is a good one- it puts being part of nature as an important part of education.
On the report on NPR today, a group who is concerned about this lack of connection to the earth is encouraging new schools to be built with "outdoor spaces" that can be used as classrooms and gardens. I think it is a great idea, and hope it goes over in Texas. I'm not overly optimistic, however, because our local principal told me that every time a new (and often good) idea comes their way, the first question asked is "how does it help us with the TAKS test?" Is that REALLY how we want our children's education measured, not by whether we're educating well-rounded caring citizens, but by how everything they learn helps them do well on a test? I don't blame the principal, but I do blame the Legislature & Congress, and yes, parents. If parents demanded going back to actually educating instead of basically training to take tests, the Legislature & Congress would have to listen. I have teacher friends who say they love it once the TAKS are over and they can finally actually TEACH for the few remaining weeks of school. That is a crying shame. It is a reason that some of us homeschool or use other private school models. I wish for all children to have the connection to the environment that my child is getting. It is good for her, and it is good for our community.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Giving to others
Lettie wrote her letter to Santa last week. Her letters aren't at all like what I wrote at her age ("I want, I want, I want.") Two years ago, she asked for a pkg. of dental floss (and I don't mean a bikini!)- honestly, that is all that she asked for!
This year, she asked for the movie "UP" and some "fake jewelry" and then asked Santa to take any toys he was thinking about giving to her and giving them to children in Guatemala. She went on to tell him that she hopes to be a teacher in Guatemala when she is grown, teaching English to children there. Can she really be this emotionally mature at 8? Is this the same little girl who is (right now) wearing a sparkly ballerina skirt, pink striped shirt, and pink satin high heels (bought at a garage sale with great glee) and a crown and who was wildly dancing to the "Scottish Christmas" CD earlier this evening?
It is times like this that I think we must be doing something right, (but then she'll have a melt-down and I wonder what we're doing wrong.:)
Christmas is such a hard time for so many, especially this year, with money in such short supply. It is an opportunity to make gifts that have real meaning, though. Lettie likes nothing so much as having both parents at home, playing board games or gathered around the piano singing Christmas carols as she plays them. The gift of our time is something very precious to her, and I'm thinking some coupons for having us both at home together to spend an evening playing with her will be a nice gift. We wouldn't be buying the latest toy even if we could afford it, and what she really wants can't be bought with even the finest gold.
This year, talk to your kids about foregoing at least 1 toy, and giving that money to those less fortunate than you. In the U.S., even our poor have so much more than so many around the world.
There are many great charities- some we particularly like are kiva.org (microloans all over the world), mayanfamilies.org, hands-of-hope.com and the feeding centers in Chiquimula, Guatemala, for which we raised almost $2,000 this past month, http://www.guatemalamission.org/feedingcenters.htm
Instead of being upset that we can't get the latest "X", let's be thankful that we have so many blessings and have, in relation to so much of the world, have so much.
Instead of getting that sweater that your sister-in-law may hate, make a donation in her honor to a charity. None of us need more stuff, yet these groups I listed do work with people who are truly trying to find some bootstraps so that they can pull themselves up.
At the Austin table of the Pan American Round Table today, I led the "collect", which says in part "teach us that through knowledge, we gain understanding, and that understanding leads to friendship and through friendship comes peace." Maybe the knowledge that other parts of the world don't have nearly what all we have will help us to understand in some small way the needs in those countries, and we can help them in our own ways. I always love the quote from Mother Theresa that "we can't all do great things, but we CAN all do small things with great love."
This year, she asked for the movie "UP" and some "fake jewelry" and then asked Santa to take any toys he was thinking about giving to her and giving them to children in Guatemala. She went on to tell him that she hopes to be a teacher in Guatemala when she is grown, teaching English to children there. Can she really be this emotionally mature at 8? Is this the same little girl who is (right now) wearing a sparkly ballerina skirt, pink striped shirt, and pink satin high heels (bought at a garage sale with great glee) and a crown and who was wildly dancing to the "Scottish Christmas" CD earlier this evening?
It is times like this that I think we must be doing something right, (but then she'll have a melt-down and I wonder what we're doing wrong.:)
Christmas is such a hard time for so many, especially this year, with money in such short supply. It is an opportunity to make gifts that have real meaning, though. Lettie likes nothing so much as having both parents at home, playing board games or gathered around the piano singing Christmas carols as she plays them. The gift of our time is something very precious to her, and I'm thinking some coupons for having us both at home together to spend an evening playing with her will be a nice gift. We wouldn't be buying the latest toy even if we could afford it, and what she really wants can't be bought with even the finest gold.
This year, talk to your kids about foregoing at least 1 toy, and giving that money to those less fortunate than you. In the U.S., even our poor have so much more than so many around the world.
There are many great charities- some we particularly like are kiva.org (microloans all over the world), mayanfamilies.org, hands-of-hope.com and the feeding centers in Chiquimula, Guatemala, for which we raised almost $2,000 this past month, http://www.guatemalamission.org/feedingcenters.htm
Instead of being upset that we can't get the latest "X", let's be thankful that we have so many blessings and have, in relation to so much of the world, have so much.
Instead of getting that sweater that your sister-in-law may hate, make a donation in her honor to a charity. None of us need more stuff, yet these groups I listed do work with people who are truly trying to find some bootstraps so that they can pull themselves up.
At the Austin table of the Pan American Round Table today, I led the "collect", which says in part "teach us that through knowledge, we gain understanding, and that understanding leads to friendship and through friendship comes peace." Maybe the knowledge that other parts of the world don't have nearly what all we have will help us to understand in some small way the needs in those countries, and we can help them in our own ways. I always love the quote from Mother Theresa that "we can't all do great things, but we CAN all do small things with great love."
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