Mumbo jumbo

Anyone who knows me knows that I love word games. I enjoy crossword puzzles, jumbles, and any game where the manipulation of words is a factor. This is the story of how I was almost bested by a little girl.

My first teaching placement in my first year of studying in the Faculty of Education was a Grade Two class in a public school in the east end of the city. I enjoyed going there each week and trying out new lessons, aiming to impress my incredibly fabulous host teacher, Juanita, who nurtured my ego like a tender plant. I taught every subject with gusto, but was ‘assigned’ to be in charge of their Journals. The children would write while I was in class. I would then take home the work and return it the next week after I had marked them and made my comments.

One evening after a day’s teaching, I sat down in my dorm room to read the entries. As I read one little girl’s account, I came across the sentence, ‘I like owang goos’.

Owang goos, I uttered out loud, owang goos. What could that mean?

Suffice it to say that this puzzle drove me crazy for days, until I decided to think about the girl who wrote them. I visualized that sweet child with a mop of short, curly blonde hair. She had a great smile and a softness to her personality. Oh, and yes, I mused as I sleuthed, she can’t pronounce her r’s! That’s it, I shouted to myself. It was not owang goos, it was orang goos! And maybe the 'g' sound is soft, not hard! And if one ‘g’ is soft, so is the other. Finally the puzzle was solved. My student likes orange juice!

Communication is a fascinating art. Miscommunication, however, can be very dangerous, especially in this techno-world.

I got off with a misdemeanor a few weeks ago. I’m teaching a new grade this year, so I e-mailed a colleague who was a veteran teacher in the grade asking for some help. She e-mailed me back that she was sorry, but she could not be of any help. She then proceeded to ask me how my summer had been. After reading her response, I was hurt. I had helped her in the past, and couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t assist me, even a little bit. Nevertheless, I wrote back, writing a terse reply as to how I spent my summer vacation.

A day or so later, I received a reply to my reply. As I read through the message, which was by and large a recount of her summer vacation, I became confused with a few details. I began to think I didn’t know her as well as I thought I did. At one point in the message, she referred to someone as though I should know who he was, and I clearly didn’t. I finally e-mailed her back with a simple question…who is this person?

As soon as I clicked send, and the recipient’s name came up, I shrieked. Turns out, I had been e-mailing the wrong person the entire time! Both people had the same first name, and the same first, middle and last letter of their last name. I hadn’t paid enough attention to the name, because I had assumed I was communicating with the right person. I quickly called the person with whom I was mis-communicating and stuck my virtual tail between my legs.

The person for whom the e-mails were intended found the whole story quite amusing, but what she didn’t realize until I told her was how quickly I had been let down by her when I thought she had refused me, when she was guilty of absolutely nothing and is in reality a very generous person. Had I not realized the error, I might have had a very different relationship with my colleague.

Miscommunication is responsible for so much unnecessary misery. That poor little Grade Two girl tried to relay a message that could have easily been ignored or overlooked. I might not have thought that it was so important to know that she likes orange juice, but she thought it was important enough to write it down. To be completely honest, had I not had a love for word games even back then, I might have glossed over those challenge words and paid little or no attention to them. After all, it took a lot of time and energy to figure them out. I must admit, I felt a sense of satisfaction when I finally figured out the puzzle.

We all know the importance of good communication, but it is one thing to know it and another to be able to communicate effectively.

So many factors enter into a simple conversation. First, one needs to simply hear the words the other person is saying correctly. A famous family anecdote surrounds a yom tov gathering where a friend of my brother asked my grandmother, So, how are you? My grandmother then turned to him and with a quizzical look on her face replied, Why? Is it raining?

Next, comes the hard part- the listening-very different from the hearing, and much more complex. Listening involves taking in someone else's information and interpreting it using one's own frame of reference. That is dangerous, because every person comes into any conversation with his or her own unique history. A recount of a thrill ride at an amusement park can be interpreted as huge fun by one and scary as hell for someone else. Imagine that the person telling the story is thinking that the other is being amused, when in fact, the other person is imagining the horror of it all. The simple can become complicated so easily.

The story of owang goos reminded me that learning to communicate effectively is an ongoing challenge. In order to understand that little girl, I had to try and put myself in her shoes. It wasn't easy. It took time and patience. I had to hear her voice and understand her unique perspective. And that is the lesson. Through her, I have learned to keep trying to communicate effectively. I'm trying to improve my listening skills and take the other person's perspective into consideration. It doesn't always work, but it's always worth a try. And it sure is satisfying when the puzzle is solved!

Nobody's perfekt

So I've beaten my breast into plowshares over Yom Kippur, repenting for my wrongdoings, and am beginning to wonder about the idea of aiming for perfection.

One would think that I would be smart after all my decades of teaching, but no, I'm getting dimmer by the day.

First homework night of the Grade 5 year, I assigned some math to my students; addition and subtraction of some pretty big numbers. Next day, children came in, we took up the work. All was well in Shangri-la, or so I thought.

That same evening was Curriculum Night...meet the teacher (or for me, meet the parents) night. While discussing the use of calculators to solve math problems during question and answer time, a few parents informed me that their children had used calculators to do their homework the night before. I couldn't believe what I had heard...I had been had by a bunch of ten year olds!

Of course, the next day the class and I discussed the fact that while the calculator was going to provide them with the correct answer, the importance of the excercise was to figure out the questions on their own, to do the hard work. We talked about the fact that it was all about the process. I told them that we were going to work on strategies to help them solve their problems effectively. I reminded them that if they had problems with the work, all they had to do was ask, and I would help them to understand where they went wrong. The children seemed to understand but the incident really bothered me. I was left wondering why children are so afraid of making mistakes. Where is the pressure to get things right coming from, with-out or within? Indeed, how right is it to strive for perfection?

Don't think, by the way that this is a phenomenon for the Junior grades. Little children in kindergarten will cover up their work when they fear they've made a mistake. They'll colour over something or make up a story to cover for their errors. They just don't want to be wrong.

Look at we lowly humans. There's no way to be perfect. It's impossible. Each one of us has failings. Each one of us has faults.  We know that no one is perfect. And yet, we're fearful to admit to anyone, including ourselves sometimes, that we're less than ideal. It's actually quite humourous. I understand how adults can come to these childish conclusions. But aren't children smarter than that?

We all know that there is much to learn from the value of mistakes. Great inventions like Velcro, Coca Cola, potato chips and the Frisbee were created as a result of mistakes. Mistakes propel us to push forward. They cause us to ask more questions. Mistakes, if caught, realized and redirected, help to make us better people.

I think mistakes should be celebrated for what they are, proof that we're human. And yes, I know that the idea of the High Holy Days is not to try to aim for perfection. We're only being asked to try to do better. My class simply reminded me that sometimes we put unrealistic pressure on ourselves to achieve the perfection that we know is impossible and try to take the easy way out.

I have learned that the 'calculator' of life is not the way to improve. We have to practice and make mistakes over and over again, so that we can slowly learn to figure out things on our own. It's about the process. We need to learn strategies to help us get through life's problems. And if we need help, there's always someone who knows a bit more than we do on the subject to help us succeed.

All we have to do is put up our hand and ask.

Even Robin Hood had to start somewhere

My kindergarten class was buzzing; children were drawing and cutting and pasting. As per usual, the girls were playing in the doll centre (that’s what we called it in the times before political correctness caused it to become a ‘play centre’, even though no one cared and boys never did end up playing there), and the boys were using Lego and other toys to build weapons of mass destruction and other phallic symbols (don’t criticize my point until you’ve watched little boys play). Anyway, all was running smoothly until one little guy came out of the bathroom to tell me that another boy had had an accident. Great.


In I walked to find said student, still standing half naked over the toilet with his pants around his ankles. All around him on the floor was a little yellow puddle. It was a Norman Rockwell moment-truly sweet and humourous, but I forced myself to stifle the smile and be teacher-like.

How did that happen?, I asked in my oh-so-professional, teacher voice.

The little boy turned his head, glared at me in disgust with his huge, dark brown eyes and belted out,

Ms. A., have you ever tried to aim one of those things?

As we are knee deep into the High Holy Days, I’m reminded of the Hebrew word ‘chet’. People often translate the word as ‘sin’, but is in fact an archery term, indicating that one has missed his mark. Missing the mark is scary. Fear of missing the mark is even scarier.

I’m thinking about that little boy and how he handled himself (pardon the pun) when confronted with missing his mark. Here he was, caught (literally) with his pants down, and nevertheless had the self-confidence and dignity to defend himself. He knew that he was still learning how to be independent and knew that eventually he would master the skill. He knew that despite this mishap, he was going to go on, live his life and for the most part, refrain from missing the toilet. He was okay with that.

I admit to being afraid of ‘missing the mark’. In considering blog writing, I had to conquer many fears. Will I be able to keep the blog going on a regular basis? Will I run out of ideas? And then there’s the worst one…will I be laughed at?

I came close to not starting this at all until I remembered the story of the little boy. He wasn’t afraid to be caught with his pants down. Maybe I shouldn’t be afraid, either.

I have learned that missing the mark isn’t the worst thing in the world. This blog might turn out to be a dud, or it could be that I’ll write for years. I am going to try to write every week, but I may decide it isn’t working for me. I might miss the mark, but I’ll celebrate that I accomplished what I accomplished. And then I’ll take the lessons I’ve learned and move forward.

Each day, we have a number of goals we aim to accomplish. Sometimes we achieve them. Other times we miss the mark. In this New Year, I hope to learn to be more like my little student; I will try to achieve my goals, but if I miss the mark, I’ll just pull my pants up, clean up the mess and start again tomorrow!

Here we go again!

There is a feeling of electricity in the air being on yard duty before the first bell on the first day of school. Everything is perfect; the school is clean, the hopscotch lines have been repainted, the sandbox has fresh sand and the blades of grass have been straightened. It is the day after Labour Day. We are pumped!


Slowly, then in clusters, the children descend on the playground in their yet-to-be wrinkled clothing, new runners, neatly brushed hair and pristine, perfectly packed backpacks. We teachers mill around and assess the situation with a smile plastered on our face. All seems copacetic until…we spy him; the lingering parent. First one, and then another. They soon seem to be everywhere, propped up against their children, defending them against…pencils, I assume.

For a moment, time stands still. We all know it’s going to happen, and then it does. The bell rings.

In what is now considered ‘flash mob’ fashion, children scramble into their lines, excited to get to class. Within moments, the building swallows them all up. There’s a momentary hush as the playground empties. The doors close leaving the children inside with the teachers and the parents free to go about their day.

Now, here’s the question…who at this moment is the most nervous, the student, the teacher or the parent?

I must confess…teachers get butterflies, we really do. We want to succeed. We want the children to like us. And we want a year where the only calls from the parents are to tell us what a stellar job we are doing. Yes, we get nervous, but it’s not us.

Students are nervous, for sure. They are facing a new grade, new challenges, and unfamiliar faces but is it them? No. Students generally sense that their nervousness doesn’t compare to the excitement of the adventure that lies ahead for them. They are daring, willing to give the unknown a shot with a positive outlook. It is not them.

It is, in my humble opinion, the parents who are the most apprehensive. That bell signals their permission to start wondering, will the teacher take care of my child’s every needs? Well, how could she, they surmise, when she doesn’t know every detail about my child and has to look after all these other children! What if my child is sad, will she know and be sensitive to his feelings? And…wait… (and here is the real zinger) how is it that my child just marched in to school with a mere, Bye Mom, without crying! Doesn’t he need me anymore? Does my standing alone on the playground indicate that my six or eight or ten year old is forsaking me? Am I not important to her anymore? After all I’ve done for her? Where did I go wrong!!!!

I’ve watched the scene repeat year in and year out. I’ve rolled my eyes at those pathetic parents, for I know the truth. The children are going to be fine. It’s just time for the parents to grow up.

So, why do I tell you all this? Because the tables have turned. I am now the blubbering parent standing in the empty playground. My last born is off to university. The sand timer is running with mere hours to go, so I am eking out every moment with him I can muster. I know that immediately upon arrival at his new digs, he’s going to give me a kiss and hug, turn his back and walk into his dorm. It is then that I will hear the umbilical cord snap.

Will I shed tears? Undoubtedly. But I’ve learned some things from watching all those students walking in to class that first day of school each year. My son may be more than a thousand kilometres from home, but he is not forsaking me. I am important to him. And yes, he still needs me….a bit.

My baby is embarking on a new, exciting adventure. He is ready to turn a new page in his life, and I am thrilled to be turning a new one in mine.