Reading to children

I agreed to read to a classroom of children today, Dr. Seuss' birthday. When I arrived at the school, I saw that many volunteers had signed up to read to the littlest kids (K, 1st grade, etc), but none for the older kids (5th graders). So I signed up for 5th grade, being contrary that way, I suppose.

Our reading choices were of course the works of Dr. Seuss. I picked up The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.

As I walked down the hallway, I wondered how these sophisticated "big kids" would react to being read a Dr. Seuss book. I had deliberately picked one of greater length and more depth than most of the good doctor's works. I know little children love funny voices, hand gestures, etc, when being read to. But 5th grade? It has been a long time since I was that age, and I have not been blessed with children of my own. So what do I know about the mind of a fifth grader?

I read the book to them, changing my tone for the various characters but not getting overly silly about it. I had fun. I hope they enjoyed it, too.

Of Orcas and such

When I first heard the news about the trainer in Florida recently killed by an agitated orca (killer-whale) at some sea-life park down there, my thoughts were:

Why the hell don't they let the poor beast go?

What height of cruelty to take an animal meant by nature to wander the high seas, and force it to spend its life in a cramped tank!

Later, listening to more discussions, I have changed my views a little.

We are told that the orca would have no idea how to live life on its own, having spent its life in captivity. Orcas are social animals, with strong family structures. Without a "pod" of its own, it would be virtually helpless.

So this particular animal endures the lesser of two evils -- captivity but steady food and some degree of social contact with its kind.

Then I thought, well, at least ours will probably be the last generation that even sees these marine mammals in captivity, since it is now illegal to grab them out of the wild.

Then I thought, well, is that a good thing? You cannot love what you do not know. The child who visits a sea life park and sees, up close, in the flesh, one of these powerful and enigmatic animals and feels the salt spray upon his or Her face and hears the mighty creature utter its unique song -- in short, experiences the beast for his or Her self, will never forget it. And chances are, that child will grow up with at least some degree of awe and appreciation and sympathy for the creatures of the deep. Given the chance, they will support marine conservation measures. Perhaps they will think twice about dumping paint down a storm drain.

If a few animals must spend life in captivity for that greater good, perhaps such captivity is not an unmitigated evil.

My Beloved and I dined at Her favorite restaurant for Valentine's Day, Cracker Barrel. For those of you unfamiliar with the place, it attempts to replicate an old-fashioned country store setting, complete with enough weird old things on the walls to make an estate-sale addict die of envy. Snow-shoes, deer heads, faded sepia-tone photographs, vintage ads, etc.

On the wall over our table were several framed front covers from a magazine called Child Life, dating to the 1930s. We smiled at the chubby-cheeked cherubs depicted thereon, looking vaguely as if they were drawn by the same person who drew the Campbell's Soup kids, having the sort of outdoor adventures few children seem to have these days.

It was also a far cry from what is peddled to children for literary entertainment today, Teen Cosmo and the like.

I went Internet searching today and was surprised to find that Child Life Magazine kept publishing for quite a while -- lasting until just a year or two ago.

My childhood was spent exploring fields and forests, climbing trees and bounding over boulders, exploring holes in the ground and the wide open desert. I wore whatever I found in my dresser drawer -- the word "style" didn't enter my vocabulary until high school.

I would not want to be a child today.

Idiots don't write comedy

Sure, two guys kicking each other in the butt is funny for most people ... for about two or three seconds. Anybody could write a script for that.

But real comedy, the kind of stuff that people will still find to be funny decades, even centuries later -- think the best of Aristophanes or Shakespeare -- is the fruit of genius.

So don't be surprised that the author of this fascinating article below is the same fellow who brought you Monty Python:

"I was a history teacher for ten years and I enjoyed it very much indeed. But today's educational trends, which focus on specific metrics of accountability, represent a fundamental change in mind-set that demands some pretty astounding creativity on the teacher's part.

I've been interested in what makes people creative ever since I started writing forty years ago. My first discovery was that I would frequently go to bed with a problem unsolved, and then find in the morning not only that the solution had mysteriously arrived, but that I couldn't quite remember what the problem had been in the first place. Very strange.

Then I came across research done at the University of California at Berkeley in the 1970s by Donald W. MacKinnon. He had examined what made people creative, and he found that the professionals rated "most creative" by their colleagues displayed two characteristics: They had a greater facility for play, meaning they would contemplate and play with a problem out of real curiosity, not because they had to, and they were prepared to ponder the problem for much longer before resolving it. The more creative professionals had a "childish capacity" for play -- childish in the sense of the total, timeless absorption that children achieve when they're intrigued."

More at: http://www.edutopia.org/creativity-intelligence-john-cleese

Nature Walk

My little Niece-in-Law, A.R., showed up to Sunday dinner dressed beautifully, as always, in a dress and fancy shoes. I reminded Her that we had talked about a nature walk for the afternoon, so She got Her PaPa to drive Her home to change.

I am a firm believer that for a child to be pyschologically healthy, they need to have times where they learn the importance of being dressed up,clean and mannerly; and they also need times where they are out and about in the dirt and the mud, or learning how to use basic tools to take things apart; or just reveling in being alive. That goes one hundred percent for Girls as well as boys.

I had so looked forward to this nature walk, especially since acquiring Rachel Carson's book recently about helping children to maintain their sense of natural wonder.

I was very honored to be trusted, I a grown man, by myself with the safety and care of this little Girl. That is so rare of a parent these days, with very good reason. You may know, and I certainly know, that I would select the slowest and most painful death possible for myself rather than hurt a child in any possible way -- but a parent cannot read a caregiver's mind. Trust. It was all about trust.

So, finally, we meandered down into the woods. She was far too little to use my big walking stick, so we found Her one that was more Her size. I remembered what Carson wrote and just let A.R. explore and ask questions, rather than be subjected to a litany of botanical nomenclature.

I did point out and identify poison ivy and help her remember the tricks to identifying it: leaves of three; with smooth, not sawtoothed edges.

She found the skull of a raccoon or possum and insisted on bringing it home ... along with a handful of rocks, little freshwater clam shells and a sprig of wild ginger.

We reached the creek and She was a little reluctant to take Her shoes off and dip Her feet into the water -- but again remembering Carson, I knew that She needed that sensory experience. So I didn't press the issue. I dipped my toes in the water first and She eventually did the same.

I let Her clamber around on the creek boulders, ever poised to catch Her if She slipped, biting my tongue as She neared the edge where the water flows a little fast, doing my best to keep the difficult but necessary balance between over-protection and risk.

The hike wasn't all pleasant. She hit up at one point against a nasty branch of multiflora rose and it hurt -- but these experiences are needed, too, the development of woodland awareness -- one always watches where one's feet are going -- critical not just for avoiding thorns but also snakes and ankle-twisting loose rocks or holes.

She came home a little muddy, a little soppy, but full of excitement about Her day and the treasures that She had found. I hope we made some memories, the kind that I treasure from my own childhood.

Five things wrong ...

Five things wrong with the U.S.of A. today:

1. A society based on the rule of law is a Roman innovation, and a brilliant one, a bulwark against tyranny of the minority or the majority. Thus, in history, law codes gradually supplanted tribal justice and the use of community shaming in order to maintain a sense of morality. However, relying wholly on the rule of law can cause a problem: No one fears to offend, or feels shame in violating, mere ink and paper scribblings. If the law is not "written in our hearts," we have a problem. Rule of law also spawns legions of lawyers making their fortunes trying to outwit it, and keeps legislators in a constant battle to keep up with the latest outrages, from cell phones while driving to the plague of underage "s$xting." Basic shame is so very old-fashioned.

2. Education. I sound like some wheezy old grandfather, but there are countries in the world in which children walk for miles each day to sit in some hovel of a building with the barest rudiments of educational materials, so hungry are they to learn. By contrast, most American children consider "school" akin to prison and being devoted to learning horribly "uncool." Also, far from being the respected sage he/she once was, today's teacher must constantly walk on eggshells lest he/she be sued, and runs the risk of poisoning if he/she leaves a coffee cup unguarded in the classroom.

3. Economy. It's based on an ever expanding cycle of exploitation, a sort of pyramid scheme with Earth as collateral and all of us as eventual suckers. This is certainly not solely an American problem. And world socialism proved no better, even much worse, than capitalism, at resolving this dillema. There is a problem when prosperity depends on wringing more and more crops out of more and more exhausted soil, on building more and more gas stations and shopping malls where forests once grew, on constantly taking, taking, taking. That problem is that eventually, the soil is dead, the forests are gone and the minerals are all extracted and shipped away. You can only eat so many potato chips out of a bag before it becomes empty and useless.

4. Two-party system. These days, it's becoming more like one and a half. I am quite aware of the flaws of parliamentary rule in other lands, where coalitions constantly form and break up, and centrist parties can be at the mercy of wacky loons and fringe parties. But I am emphatically neither a Democrat nor a strong Republican so I am in essence left out of the political process, forced each election to choose one or the other of people I more and more like less and less.

5. Losing touch. We are losing touch with history. Go to Mt. Vernon and you will find out how long it has been since a sitting U.S. president bothered to visit our first president's estate, a stone's throw from Washington D.C. We are also losing touch with nature. And we are losing touch with the values taught in our mostly agrarian past: Love for the land, self-reliance, a sense of the seasons, hard work, love for hard work, patience in adversity and even delayed gratification -- corn doesn't grow in a week unless you are playing Farmtown on Facebook.

Keys to Success

As I chewed through three years worth of newsclips, columns and Internet printouts this week, I came across two columns that I had saved. Both were written by men with much experience in working with children.

The first, by David Brooks with the New York Times, can be found at http://select.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/opinion/07brooks.html?_r=1 .

The second, by Leonard Pitts with the Miami Herald, can be found here:
http://m.reporternews.com/news/2007/Aug/27/always-keep-your-eyes-on-the-prize/

Each writer discussed a certain, critical skill that every child must possess if he or She is to grow up to be a successful, happy member of society. One is the ability to delay gratification. The other is the ability to focus, to keep "one's eye on the prize."

Perhaps they are more or less the same thing.

Both columns discussed how children who were not taught or did not develop these skills, had a much higher rate of later failure in life, including incarceration.

Something to think about. Parenting is more than providing food, clothing and shelter.

Kids need recess!

Perhaps if enough parents, and those of us who are not parents but cherish children anyway, perhaps if enough of us raise our voices to a deafening roar, then the beans-for-brains people who are stripping away recess for children, will finally get the message:

KIDS NEED RECESS!

I shudder to think what would have happened to me if my entire childhood had been spent trapped inside a building. If I could not indulge my fidgets, if some overbearing adult had loomed over me 24/7, I would have lost my little mind.

I am far from alone in this sentiment.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/the-benefits-of-playtime/#comments

In the Days Before Seuss

Be ever so glad that you were not a child in 1700, when, among other miseries, the likes of James Janeway were the vanguard of children's literature. His "A Token for Children" contains this dismal bit of advisory doggerel for young sinners to contemplate:

"When by spectators I am told
What beauty doth adorn me
Or in a glass when I behold
How sweetly God did form me
Hath God such comeliness bestowed
And on me made to dwell,
What pity such a pretty maid
As I should go to Hell."

Little Scientists

The other day at work, I was clearing out an ancient portfolio to do with the District Science Fair. One page caught my eye and I rescued it from the To Be Recycled pile.

It was a page of tips on helping to awaken childrens' interest in science.

Two of them, in particular, interested me:

First, it is just as important to involve Girls in science as it is boys. That ought to be common knowledge by now. Girls can, and should be encouraged, to do anything (anything intelligent!) that boys can do. If you don't believe that Girls/Women are just as smart as boys/men and just as capable, I feel sorry for you, as this world -- in which Women are succeeding and achieving wherever the artificial barriers of bad laws and faulty tradition have been demolished -- must really be confusing for you.

Secondly, parents should let their children take apart old appliances. It whets their natural curiosity and leads to questions and interest in how things work.

It sounds like a great idea but it certainly requires some supervision, as a lot of appliances these days have dangerous parts inside, and those shouldn't be on the list.

But today at work, I was looking at an old, broken camera. It seems perfectly safe and I think I'll take it home and let my Niece have at it with a screwdriver.

Eye contact

Now and then, one gets a clear reminder of our more savage human past.

If you look a dog directly in the eye and maintain that contact, you are challenging its status. He who looks away first admits subservience.

Wednesdays are my lunch buddy day with the little guy at his school. I got there a little late today, and found that he had plunked himself down right in the middle of the group of hostile, unpleasant kids who pick on him.

The battle was not long in commencing. They began to try to tell me all the bad things he had supposedly done. Then I felt a shift, an attempt to probe and challenge my authority. Which is awkward, because as a lunch buddy, I'm not supposed to be an authority figure in the first place, just a friend. And these inner city youngsters already get enough harshness and push-back from the adults in their lives.

So it is as if I was thrust back again into the middle of the kid-pack of my own childhood, and yet, of course, it was different. I felt their hard stares, their barely disguised jibes at both him and me -- but what could I possibly do? For I remember being little myself and how mortified I was as a youngster when a well-meaning teacher stepped into a situation to protect me but only made things worse.

Do I ignore it? Do I tattle-tale? Do I try to turn it around, disarm them with wit and warmth rather than attempting pyschological dominance?

I opted to warn them that I would take the matter to their teacher if it kept up, and then to pointedly ignore them and focus on my lunch buddy, even though my words to him sounded awkward, and I felt very vulnerable, as if they knew I was trying to dodge them rather than confront and win. But in a few minutes, somehow we all got talking about airplanes, which was apparently more interesting to the group than meanness.

I was reminded of what I read somewhere: the only people who want to be kids again, are those who have forgotten how hellish childhood really was.

Grinching again

Let me be clear at the outset: Mannerly, creative, intelligent, thoughtful kids I love. I delight in their company, in listening to them read, observing their play and helping them to make fascinating discoveries about their world.

But the other type -- the nose-picking, sarcastic, clueless, perpetually whiney kind -- these should neither be seen nor heard. I know every good kid has his or Her occassional bad days or meltdowns but some seem to have cultivated the fine art of being horrible until they are masters of it.

I went to a Christmas performance today at one of our local schools. I went specifically to cheer on a mannerly, creative, intelligent, thoughtful kid who was in the play.

Beside me sat a squirmy little brat who repeatedly nudged me with his dirty sneakers, made obnoxious and quite audible comments about his dislike of the play and came quite close to jabbing me in the face with a spyglass that he made out of his program.

A hug from a loving child is a blessing from heaven. A poke from a pestilent child is simply annoying. And I became aware today, thinking back to all the time I spend at that school, in my job capacity and as a volunteer, just how many of these kids communicate with me by poking and jabbing -- and how they do it to each other, too.

Adults, except for the occassional freak, respect each other's space. If we must make bodily contact with a stranger, say, on a crowded bus or in passing by someone in the theater,we do it with an apologetic and determined stiffness that communicates our apologies for the indignity. Kids, at least the poorly trained ones, think nothing of banging, bumping and sometimes even stepping on the toes of others around them.

Perhaps it has always been this way and the epidemic of pathetic parenting whose fruits I seem to see everywhere, is but a figment of my imagination.

A smart bit of psychology

"So what do you do?" he said, bouncing the little ball up and down, playing the part of an obnoxious kid in the classroom.

I stood in a corner, looking over the room-full of new teachers, wondering what their answer might be, wondering what my answer would be if I were a teacher.

"Call security!" someone suggested.

What would you do, indeed, as a classroom teacher confronted with a ball-bouncing, directive-ignoring, will-testing little kid?

How do you overpower such a child pyschologically, how do you break his will and impose yours?

That was what we all seemed to wonder.

The facilitator wandered up to the front of the room, where a panel of experienced teachers was in place.

"What would you do?" he asked one of them.

"Hey, let me show you how to juggle," the teacher said, extending a hand casually for the ball and tossing it back and forth for a few minutes.

I imagined a class rapt with attention and surprise.

"Bring your ball in tomorrow before class and I'll show you some juggling tricks," the teacher continued.

Then he handed it back to the "child." And he bade him sit down so that the regular lesson might continue.

Heads nodded.

I came away profoundly moved. This veteran knew better, much better than I or these others had, how to reach the heart of a child. How to win by strategy, by friendliness, not by a battle of wills. How to proceed without fear or anger.

Memo to the world

A memo to the world:

Do not call my office until you have your children under control.

I realize that for some of you, that might involve waiting until they have grown up and joined the Peace Corps, or the police department has arrived to arrest them, but that is your problem, not mine.

Do not call me and then leave the phone hanging while you dash off to administer smacks or snacks to said children.

It is annoying. I do not like to be annoyed. I will probably hang up the phone and harbor some residual hatred for you.

If at all possible, turn off the television and lower the background noise down a decibel or two as well. I don’t like to have to repeat my responses to you because you apparently have Viking warriors pillaging your living room during our conversation. Please appease them or whatever and THEN call.

I am not one of those people who will give you a disgusted look or whisper under my breath if your brat -- er, child -- throws a tantrum in a store. I recognize that most children do throw tantrums in stores from time to time. I will, however, lose all respect for you if you try to end the tantrum by giving the little monster candy or some other bribe, because that just means that your child will be throwing tantrums in stores until he qualifies for a senior citizen’s discount. Sometimes you need to be a parent, not Chuck E. Cheese.

I will also think poorly of your intelligence if you try to blame other people for your child’s crappy behavior. Apparently, there are a lot of people like that in the world. Their children grow up to warm cots in prison, from which they write letters to local newspapers insisting that they are innocent and complaining about their prison meals being too cold and the number of cockroaches infesting the place.

Have a nice day.

Tattle tale trauma

First you teach your child that the world is bound together by rules.

"Don't punch your brother. Don't gouge the eyeballs out of the cat. Say "thank you" when Grandma gives you a sweater knitted with yarn of such a vile hue as to make you sick to your stomach. And don't wipe your nasal mucus on the walls. "

Then the well-meaning parent/authority figure throws a curve ball that no child-brain can hope to catch. When others break the rules, don't come running to tell me. Don't tattle. Except for certain ocassions that you'll just have to figure out on your own.

I don't envy children. I picture them seething with righteous indignation as Suzie cheats on a test, weighing whether they will get in more trouble by "ratting" on her to the teacher or by pretending not to notice the crime, which is of course also a punishable offence if their complicity is determined.

I was not a stupid child. A smart-aleck, sure, but even as a seven-year-old, I learned there were ways to get around the above dillema. So, for example, my cousins and I had been drafted to pick stones out of their parent's newly cleared lawn, which was next to some tempting blackberry bushes. My cousins soon tired of rock-picking and sneaked off to sample berries. My brilliant plan, and I think it worked, was to calmly walk up to the house and inform Aunt C. that I had picked up my quota of rocks and could I have a drink or something. Aunt C. would be able to see my errant cousins behind me in the act of not picking rocks, without my saying a word.

Cousins were seen swiftly sprinting back to their neglected duties as the door opened.

I think the keys that every child should know are these: Never gloat or whine in making your report. Make it matter-of-fact or even sad, as if you are reluctantly discharging your duty as a citizen of Earth. Be judicious in your reporting, basing your decision on whether expensive items are about to be broken or life is at stake. Make no reports of your brother sticking out his tongue at you, because nobody besides you cares about that.

Remember that most noteworthy offenses committed by small people such as yourself, will be discovered by your parents eventually, along with the perpetrator, without your having to say a word. And then you can gloat, all to yourself of course, as the boom of punishment is lowered upon the errant sibling, and sail on, scot-free, in the good graces of all.