"Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen."
"Good morning, Ms. A."
And so each school day begins.
Rituals and regimens. I write this as I stare at my morning crossword puzzle. Mornings are always blissfully the same. I wake up, perform my morning ablutions, and then pad over to the kitchen where I flick on the light, scowl at the brightness of it all and mutter mild profanities at the morning for arriving too soon. If the dishwasher is filled with clean dishes, I empty it and shush at the noise of all the clattering, for it might wake up the sun. Clean coffee pot allows me to then put up the coffee, turn on the computer to check e-mails, put up the toast and then finally claim my prize for achieving all of the above; I get to go and fetch the newspaper.
The newspaper is a wonderful thing. The front page is meant to shock and appal...and sell newspapers. I admit to taking a gander at the front page, but my morning, pre-coffee stupor cannot handle rape and pillaging, so I hit the low brow, easy to handle sections before hitting the highlight of my pre-time-to-go-to-work-and-face-real-life morning....the puzzle page!
For me, morning isn't morning until those puzzles have been completed. I assume for many, it's like doing a morning run, or some pretzel yoga, or the morning load of laundry. I feel a sense of accomplishment when it's finished, especially if it can all be timed so that the the last puzzle clue is being written as the final bite of toast is being chewed, with an encore of the last swig of java barreling down my throat about to course through my veins.
This little ritual has been going on for years. When the children were little, this was called, 'my time'-precious moments before the house began to get noisy. I considered it a religious experience. I relished the quiet and the freedom to do as I pleased in the time I had.
With all the love for my own rituals, including certain ones I have created for my family, I often balk at religious rituals. Frankly, the necessity of lighting Shabbat candles at a precise moment (within an eighteen minute grace time) ticks me off. I can't understand why being late a few minutes is vitally important. And yes, I know the reasons why I must light at a particular time. It just bugs me that the ritual, the law, is being imposed upon me. I don't see why I can't light candles when it's convenient for me.
I admit to a life-long struggle between the imposed and self-imposed ritual. The challenge I face, and I think the challenge many of us face in life, is how to come to terms with and find the beauty and rhythm of imposed rituals in our lives. Self imposed rituals are wonderful. Work imposes a structure and regimen of its own, as does family life. And then there is religious ritual. Sometimes, it all feels overwhelming. And when it does, and when I feel I'm being strangled by imposed rituals and regimens, I turn to the lesson of Chanukah.
Chanukah is the shining example of what happens when imposed rituals are denied. The story that ends with a miracle begins with horror, as the Jewish people under Antiochus face the threat of the death penalty if caught disobeying his edict, which prohibited following Torah laws and rituals. Jews were not allowed to study Torah, or to circumcise their baby boys. They were even forbidden to light those very same Shabbat candles which manage to infuriate me on a weekly basis.
Each year as I taught the Chanukah story to my kindergarten class, I would stop at this point and ask the children how they would feel if keeping Kosher and celebrating Shabbat would be forbidden to them. To be honest, I wasn't really asking them the question; I was asking myself. And believe it or not, as I would listen to each child respond, I would be reminded once again that as much as I tend to balk at imposed rituals, I would be lost without them. Recounting the story of Chanukah is a reminder to me that I must savour my rituals, both imposed and self-imposed, because they define me.
Children crave structure and ritual in every day life. They get confused when routine is changed. They feel comfort in knowing what to expect. They thrive on it. And so do I.
So as the latkes fry and the dreidles spin, I celebrate not only the miracle of the oil, but the necessity of ritual in my life. And now, if you don't mind, I'm going to finish my crossword puzzle.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Here's to my regular parking spot!
I promise you, this is a true story. I was on yard duty one morning when a little boy in Grade 2 came up and tugged on my pant leg. His face was angelic, and so was his mission, for he was looking for the rightful owner of the objects he had just plucked off the playground. Filled with an air of moral consciousness and good old menschlachkeit, he opened his hand. I gazed down at the two small treasures. "Look", he exclaimed, brimming with both innocence and the awareness of the gravity and significance of what he was doing, "Someone lost his marbles!"
I am constantly losing my marbles. The memory that I never had is going. It left when I was pregnant with my first child and hasn't returned. I make lists and conveniently forget them. In order to remember where I have parked my car at any given shopping centre, I walk backwards for a bit so I know what the area of the lot looks like so I'll find it on my way back from shopping. Of course, I have my 'regular' parking spot at any given plaza or mall. No matter how out of the way my store of choice is, I park in the same area so I'll remember where the car is. It's pathetic. And at times, pathetically funny. There's even an in-joke between me and my children, who claim that I watched a movie with them, but I can't remember seeing it. The name of the movie, ironically enough is, A Walk to Remember.
The interesting things, however, are what I can remember. I remember events. To be sure, some events are better left forgotten. Everyone has some of them. At the moment, I have a vivid recollection of two of my children having the flu at the same time when they were little and me doing round robin loads of laundry all night. Twenty years later, I can chuckle about it. I think even at the time, in my exhausted stupor, I managed to crack a smile thinking that at least the kids took turns vomitting. They've always been a considerate bunch.
I've always marvelled at the relationship between memory and the sense of smell (I apologize that this paragraph comes right after the last one...the last paragraph shouldn't linger). Smell has, as we know, the shortest attention span of the senses. You can walk into a kitchen wafting of fresh coffee, but a few minutes later you won't smell it, because the sense of smell becomes lazy. However, a scent that was inhaled as a young child, like your grandmother's chicken soup cooking, or the perfume of your father's after shave on his cheek, remains with you forever. It is the sense with the longest memory and the last to die. A familiar aroma will immediately transport you back in time.
Lately, I've been considering the connection between emotion and memory. I might not recall all the details about a particular event, but I can remember how I felt. Think of all those 'firsts' in your life. Maybe you can see everything clearly in your mind's eye, but for me, some are fuzzy. But not the feelings. They're completely intact. I know how I felt when my friend from elementary school passed away from cancer at 16. I remember how my first kiss felt. I know how I felt when the doctor told me that I most likely would never have children. I know how I felt when my babies were born. I know how I felt when I got married. I know how I felt when I got divorced. And I know how I felt when my firstborn walked down the aisle.
Emotion and memory can be very dangerous. I've always said that when it comes to teaching (and parenting and friendship), I'm never worried about what I call the 'scripted' things I say in class. Lessons are controlled. I know what I have to say to get the message across. What I fear are the unscripted things, both in and out of the classroom. Messages, either spoken with words or via body language can be misinterpreted. Tone of voice resonates.People hear things with their own personal history playing in their minds, and we're not privy to any of it. It is, therefore, so easy to do something that could unwittingly cause someone to feel hurt, and that memory can remain with them forever.
Of course, thank goodness, there are times when the unscripted word gleans something unexpectedly good. I remember, many many years ago while I was taking a walk, I met a parent of a child I had taught a few years previous. The parent stopped me to say how the child was doing. She thanked me profusely, gushing that had it not been for what I had said to her about her child, the child wouldn't have gotten the help he needed. She went on to tell me that she was routinely relating the story in lectures she was giving. I was stunned. All I could say was, thank you. I was too embarrassed to admit that I had absolutely no recollection of what I had said to her. To this day, I have no idea what I said, but I haven't forgotten how powerful and potentially dangerous the unscripted word can be.
'Think before you speak' is a great adage. Doesn't always work for me. Every once in a while though, I am reminded that each of us has the power to give someone else lasting memories. The unscripted word can be risky. It can also be inspiring. The mystery is, we rarely know how our words and actions will affect others.
I think the only way to combat the unscripted is to work on creating more of the scripted. The aim is to foster positive, enduring memories with our students, friends and loved ones as often as possible. We're apt to lose a few marbles along the way, but if we feel confident about the scripted as well as the unscripted in our lives, those who find those marbles will have something of beauty in their hands,
I am constantly losing my marbles. The memory that I never had is going. It left when I was pregnant with my first child and hasn't returned. I make lists and conveniently forget them. In order to remember where I have parked my car at any given shopping centre, I walk backwards for a bit so I know what the area of the lot looks like so I'll find it on my way back from shopping. Of course, I have my 'regular' parking spot at any given plaza or mall. No matter how out of the way my store of choice is, I park in the same area so I'll remember where the car is. It's pathetic. And at times, pathetically funny. There's even an in-joke between me and my children, who claim that I watched a movie with them, but I can't remember seeing it. The name of the movie, ironically enough is, A Walk to Remember.
The interesting things, however, are what I can remember. I remember events. To be sure, some events are better left forgotten. Everyone has some of them. At the moment, I have a vivid recollection of two of my children having the flu at the same time when they were little and me doing round robin loads of laundry all night. Twenty years later, I can chuckle about it. I think even at the time, in my exhausted stupor, I managed to crack a smile thinking that at least the kids took turns vomitting. They've always been a considerate bunch.
I've always marvelled at the relationship between memory and the sense of smell (I apologize that this paragraph comes right after the last one...the last paragraph shouldn't linger). Smell has, as we know, the shortest attention span of the senses. You can walk into a kitchen wafting of fresh coffee, but a few minutes later you won't smell it, because the sense of smell becomes lazy. However, a scent that was inhaled as a young child, like your grandmother's chicken soup cooking, or the perfume of your father's after shave on his cheek, remains with you forever. It is the sense with the longest memory and the last to die. A familiar aroma will immediately transport you back in time.
Lately, I've been considering the connection between emotion and memory. I might not recall all the details about a particular event, but I can remember how I felt. Think of all those 'firsts' in your life. Maybe you can see everything clearly in your mind's eye, but for me, some are fuzzy. But not the feelings. They're completely intact. I know how I felt when my friend from elementary school passed away from cancer at 16. I remember how my first kiss felt. I know how I felt when the doctor told me that I most likely would never have children. I know how I felt when my babies were born. I know how I felt when I got married. I know how I felt when I got divorced. And I know how I felt when my firstborn walked down the aisle.
Emotion and memory can be very dangerous. I've always said that when it comes to teaching (and parenting and friendship), I'm never worried about what I call the 'scripted' things I say in class. Lessons are controlled. I know what I have to say to get the message across. What I fear are the unscripted things, both in and out of the classroom. Messages, either spoken with words or via body language can be misinterpreted. Tone of voice resonates.People hear things with their own personal history playing in their minds, and we're not privy to any of it. It is, therefore, so easy to do something that could unwittingly cause someone to feel hurt, and that memory can remain with them forever.
Of course, thank goodness, there are times when the unscripted word gleans something unexpectedly good. I remember, many many years ago while I was taking a walk, I met a parent of a child I had taught a few years previous. The parent stopped me to say how the child was doing. She thanked me profusely, gushing that had it not been for what I had said to her about her child, the child wouldn't have gotten the help he needed. She went on to tell me that she was routinely relating the story in lectures she was giving. I was stunned. All I could say was, thank you. I was too embarrassed to admit that I had absolutely no recollection of what I had said to her. To this day, I have no idea what I said, but I haven't forgotten how powerful and potentially dangerous the unscripted word can be.
'Think before you speak' is a great adage. Doesn't always work for me. Every once in a while though, I am reminded that each of us has the power to give someone else lasting memories. The unscripted word can be risky. It can also be inspiring. The mystery is, we rarely know how our words and actions will affect others.
I think the only way to combat the unscripted is to work on creating more of the scripted. The aim is to foster positive, enduring memories with our students, friends and loved ones as often as possible. We're apt to lose a few marbles along the way, but if we feel confident about the scripted as well as the unscripted in our lives, those who find those marbles will have something of beauty in their hands,
Sunday, November 14, 2010
So, what's on your mind?
It was the end of an ordinary kindergarten day. The children were in line, waiting for the bell to ring. There was the usual chattering going on about playdates and such, nothing out of the ordinary. All of a sudden, from nowhere, little dark, curly haired girl opened up her mouth. I have no idea what compelled her to declare at the top of her lungs, "When MMMy mommy and MMMy daddy are in the shower together...". It was like watching a pile of dishes toppling off a counter, I couldn't stop the flow of her words. "....MMMy daddy tickles MMMy mommy....and she laughs and laughs!"
One of the reasons I loved teaching kindergarten was because this is the age before children gain a social mask. They would say whatever they wanted. They liked my haircut, they hated my shoes. They had a good weekend, they had a bad weekend. Daddy tickles mommy, she laughs. Nothing was taboo. The list went on and on, year in and year out. Hapy stories, sad stories. Children voiced their opinions on everything.
Well, as we know, children grow up. As they progress in school, stories are translated into something called Journals. My Summer Vacation. My Winter Vacation. Our Class Trip to Where Ever. My Weekend. All of these are called Journal prompts. I'm sure you remember writing these responses when you were in school. I sure do. They are classics, tried and true vehicles for writing. After all, who doesn't like writing about themselves! And for children who have difficulty writing about the State of the Union or who for some reason cannot regularly come up with prose that can be considered Nobel Prize worthy, 'What I did on my weekend' simply works.
Or does it? What if a child didn't go to overnight camp in the summer? Would he feel that he didn't measure up to his classmates? What if the closest a child got to Disney World one winter was to watch the Disney Christmas Day parade on TV? Would he be shunned forever by his classmates? What if, on the way to a class trip, a child threw up and he wrote that in the story that goes up on the bulletin board? And what if all a child remembers about a weekend is the fight that mommy and daddy had. The question being asked is whether it is fair to 'force' a child to recount these events via a journal entry. To take this one step further, could asking a child to relate difficult or emotional experiences be in fact detrimental, or even harmful?
A reader approached me with this issue, telling me that she had been to a lecture at her teacher's college, where this topic had been addressed. The entire student body was advised that asking children to recount their weekend or vacation could potentially be unhealthy for the child, and they should therefore make it a practice to never assign any of the above as Journal topics.
Are you shocked? I certainly stopped dead in my tracks, although I can somehow understand the logic, as twisted as I believe it is.
Let's be honest; there is a lot of bad stuff going on in the world. Too many children live in circumstances that many of us would not be able to comprehend. I respect the thought that reliving a bad weekend can possibly be painful for a child. But what if writing is a child's sanctuary, a window to safety?
Over the years, I have been able to have many one-on-one discussions with children about many difficult topics as a result of their Journal entries. Many times, children would relate stories about loved ones who had passed away. Their messages were hints to me that they wanted to talk further about what they had written, and I would give them the opportunity. Children know that what they say in their Journals is a safe way to express themselves. By writing their thoughts regularly, children learn that it's important to express themselves, that all feelings are valid and that by sharing, a teacher can help or find the appropriate help if need be.
I believe that asking a teacher to purposely not assign something for fear that a child might think of something sad or difficult is a form of censorship, and a dangerous one at that. Maybe what a child needs is to not suppress or ignore emotions, but to express them in a healthy way, so that he can learn to understand them and himself better.
You and I know that the moment we share an unpleasant or even an embarrassing experience with someone, we immediately (a) feel better and (b) realize that we're not alone. Schadenfreude aside, it's reassuring to find out how many people share the same or similar experiences that we do. Shouldn't children be able to learn that they're not alone?
As teachers and parents, we try to protect our children. We try to shield them from harm. We make an effort to have the ills of the world stay as far away from them as we possibly can. Protecting children is paramount, but isn't giving them the tools they need to survive a method of protection?
School is a safehaven for children, and their journal is a catch basin for their innermost thoughts. 'What I did on my weekend' might not be the most original of Journal topics, but the thought that the abolishment of topics where negative experiences might possibly be divulged concerns me.
Children impress me with their frank and honest storytelling. No matter what happens on a weekend, children, just as we adults do, have the option of keeping stories to themselves or relating them to others. They are not being told which stories to write. It is their choice to share what they want. Let's teach our children that school is a safe place, that their teacher is there to advocate for them, and that their journal is a vehicle to make it all possible.
One of the reasons I loved teaching kindergarten was because this is the age before children gain a social mask. They would say whatever they wanted. They liked my haircut, they hated my shoes. They had a good weekend, they had a bad weekend. Daddy tickles mommy, she laughs. Nothing was taboo. The list went on and on, year in and year out. Hapy stories, sad stories. Children voiced their opinions on everything.
Well, as we know, children grow up. As they progress in school, stories are translated into something called Journals. My Summer Vacation. My Winter Vacation. Our Class Trip to Where Ever. My Weekend. All of these are called Journal prompts. I'm sure you remember writing these responses when you were in school. I sure do. They are classics, tried and true vehicles for writing. After all, who doesn't like writing about themselves! And for children who have difficulty writing about the State of the Union or who for some reason cannot regularly come up with prose that can be considered Nobel Prize worthy, 'What I did on my weekend' simply works.
Or does it? What if a child didn't go to overnight camp in the summer? Would he feel that he didn't measure up to his classmates? What if the closest a child got to Disney World one winter was to watch the Disney Christmas Day parade on TV? Would he be shunned forever by his classmates? What if, on the way to a class trip, a child threw up and he wrote that in the story that goes up on the bulletin board? And what if all a child remembers about a weekend is the fight that mommy and daddy had. The question being asked is whether it is fair to 'force' a child to recount these events via a journal entry. To take this one step further, could asking a child to relate difficult or emotional experiences be in fact detrimental, or even harmful?
A reader approached me with this issue, telling me that she had been to a lecture at her teacher's college, where this topic had been addressed. The entire student body was advised that asking children to recount their weekend or vacation could potentially be unhealthy for the child, and they should therefore make it a practice to never assign any of the above as Journal topics.
Are you shocked? I certainly stopped dead in my tracks, although I can somehow understand the logic, as twisted as I believe it is.
Let's be honest; there is a lot of bad stuff going on in the world. Too many children live in circumstances that many of us would not be able to comprehend. I respect the thought that reliving a bad weekend can possibly be painful for a child. But what if writing is a child's sanctuary, a window to safety?
Over the years, I have been able to have many one-on-one discussions with children about many difficult topics as a result of their Journal entries. Many times, children would relate stories about loved ones who had passed away. Their messages were hints to me that they wanted to talk further about what they had written, and I would give them the opportunity. Children know that what they say in their Journals is a safe way to express themselves. By writing their thoughts regularly, children learn that it's important to express themselves, that all feelings are valid and that by sharing, a teacher can help or find the appropriate help if need be.
I believe that asking a teacher to purposely not assign something for fear that a child might think of something sad or difficult is a form of censorship, and a dangerous one at that. Maybe what a child needs is to not suppress or ignore emotions, but to express them in a healthy way, so that he can learn to understand them and himself better.
You and I know that the moment we share an unpleasant or even an embarrassing experience with someone, we immediately (a) feel better and (b) realize that we're not alone. Schadenfreude aside, it's reassuring to find out how many people share the same or similar experiences that we do. Shouldn't children be able to learn that they're not alone?
As teachers and parents, we try to protect our children. We try to shield them from harm. We make an effort to have the ills of the world stay as far away from them as we possibly can. Protecting children is paramount, but isn't giving them the tools they need to survive a method of protection?
School is a safehaven for children, and their journal is a catch basin for their innermost thoughts. 'What I did on my weekend' might not be the most original of Journal topics, but the thought that the abolishment of topics where negative experiences might possibly be divulged concerns me.
Children impress me with their frank and honest storytelling. No matter what happens on a weekend, children, just as we adults do, have the option of keeping stories to themselves or relating them to others. They are not being told which stories to write. It is their choice to share what they want. Let's teach our children that school is a safe place, that their teacher is there to advocate for them, and that their journal is a vehicle to make it all possible.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
I love you
Oh, those three, beautiful little words. I must admit, I crave hearing them from my students. Sadly, as I have been slowly climbing the grades in my teaching these past number of years, I've been hearing them less and less frequently. To tell you the truth, I miss it. Oh sure, I see it in their eyes when they look at me. It's obvious. But I want to hear them say it. I want to hear the words coming out of their mouths, but I know they're resisting. Wait. Wait just a second. You don't think I'm talking about...? NO! Not THOSE three words! I'm talking about the three other precious words, I. Don't. Know.
Frustration finally got the better of me a few years ago, so I decided to attack the situation head on and began talking to the children about the beauty of 'I don't know'. Since then, I've made it a point of raising the subject every year. It's always a fascinating discussion for me, because I get to watch my students' expressions change over the course of the five to ten minute talk.
It always starts out the same way. During a regularly planned lesson, I pose a question and choose a person who has her hand raised (note:instead of the politically correct him or her thing, I am going to simply switch back and forth). The person thinks he knows the right answer, but finds out he's erred. I then ask a follow up question to find out what her thinking process was. The result is one of two things: (a) the child then makes up something or (b) I get 'deer-in-the-headlights' eyes staring back at me. Eventually, I ask her if she simply doesn't know the answer. When I get that nod, coupled with the expression of failure, I retort with a declaration that the child had just said something brilliant. I tell the class that no one is expected to know all of the answers asked. I go on to explain that if they knew the answers to everything I asked, they wouldn't be in this grade. 'I don't know', therefore, transforms from being a defeatest proclamation to becoming an appropriate response to a question.
Watching children slowly come around to the notion that they're not disappointing anyone by not understanding something is a beautiful sight. The muscles in their face relax. Sometimes there's an audible sigh. There is always the coy smile. All becomes right with the world. Until, of course, the next time it happens they feel that it's okay not to know something.
Although I do utter my share of I don't know's, I too am guilty of trying to cover up the fact that I'm lost (literally, sometimes!). I think that we resist uttering the words-that-shall-not-be-named because we fear that by admitting not knowing something, we're in fact letting the other person down. We risk losing our perceived Superman status and become boring, ordinary Clark Kent.
So now, let's pretend someone has asked you a question you don't know, or you yourself are in a postition where you don't know the answer. You can do as my students do (and I do...sometimes). You can (a) make up an answer or (b) you can make the ol' deer-in-the-headlights face. There's even a (c). You can pass the buck. Or, there's option (d). You can say, I don't know.
I don't know is a fantastic tool for learning and communicating with others. I don't know opens up discussion. At school when an 'I don't know' comes up, the child(ren) and I will then search for the answer together, be it on the internet, or in a book, or by asking someone else who knows. Together, we arrive at the answer, and ususally discover more questions. Now, I am quite aware that 'I don't know' can be used as an avoidance tactic, but when the option to solve something together arises, avoidance usually goes out the window.
Ann Landers, the great advice columnist, used to recommend that if parents wanted their children (especially teens) to talk to them about what was going on in their lives, the best thing they could do was to do dishes together. Miss Landers was right. Dishwashing is a fantastic leveling tool, because the work is shared equally and the dishes get done. Well, since diswashers tend to do the work for a lot of us, I'm going to offer another suggestion for creating an environment where two people can work together equally. Try saying, I don't know to the other person, and then work together to find a solution.
'I don't know' helps to find strategies to solve homework problems. It becomes a topic of discussion with a friend to find a movie to see on a Saturday night. 'I don't know' causes me to search for new recipes. 'I don't know' frustrates me sometimes, but then it challenges me.
So what am I going to write about next week, you ask? Honestly, I don't know.
Yet.
Frustration finally got the better of me a few years ago, so I decided to attack the situation head on and began talking to the children about the beauty of 'I don't know'. Since then, I've made it a point of raising the subject every year. It's always a fascinating discussion for me, because I get to watch my students' expressions change over the course of the five to ten minute talk.
It always starts out the same way. During a regularly planned lesson, I pose a question and choose a person who has her hand raised (note:instead of the politically correct him or her thing, I am going to simply switch back and forth). The person thinks he knows the right answer, but finds out he's erred. I then ask a follow up question to find out what her thinking process was. The result is one of two things: (a) the child then makes up something or (b) I get 'deer-in-the-headlights' eyes staring back at me. Eventually, I ask her if she simply doesn't know the answer. When I get that nod, coupled with the expression of failure, I retort with a declaration that the child had just said something brilliant. I tell the class that no one is expected to know all of the answers asked. I go on to explain that if they knew the answers to everything I asked, they wouldn't be in this grade. 'I don't know', therefore, transforms from being a defeatest proclamation to becoming an appropriate response to a question.
Watching children slowly come around to the notion that they're not disappointing anyone by not understanding something is a beautiful sight. The muscles in their face relax. Sometimes there's an audible sigh. There is always the coy smile. All becomes right with the world. Until, of course, the next time it happens they feel that it's okay not to know something.
Although I do utter my share of I don't know's, I too am guilty of trying to cover up the fact that I'm lost (literally, sometimes!). I think that we resist uttering the words-that-shall-not-be-named because we fear that by admitting not knowing something, we're in fact letting the other person down. We risk losing our perceived Superman status and become boring, ordinary Clark Kent.
So now, let's pretend someone has asked you a question you don't know, or you yourself are in a postition where you don't know the answer. You can do as my students do (and I do...sometimes). You can (a) make up an answer or (b) you can make the ol' deer-in-the-headlights face. There's even a (c). You can pass the buck. Or, there's option (d). You can say, I don't know.
I don't know is a fantastic tool for learning and communicating with others. I don't know opens up discussion. At school when an 'I don't know' comes up, the child(ren) and I will then search for the answer together, be it on the internet, or in a book, or by asking someone else who knows. Together, we arrive at the answer, and ususally discover more questions. Now, I am quite aware that 'I don't know' can be used as an avoidance tactic, but when the option to solve something together arises, avoidance usually goes out the window.
Ann Landers, the great advice columnist, used to recommend that if parents wanted their children (especially teens) to talk to them about what was going on in their lives, the best thing they could do was to do dishes together. Miss Landers was right. Dishwashing is a fantastic leveling tool, because the work is shared equally and the dishes get done. Well, since diswashers tend to do the work for a lot of us, I'm going to offer another suggestion for creating an environment where two people can work together equally. Try saying, I don't know to the other person, and then work together to find a solution.
'I don't know' helps to find strategies to solve homework problems. It becomes a topic of discussion with a friend to find a movie to see on a Saturday night. 'I don't know' causes me to search for new recipes. 'I don't know' frustrates me sometimes, but then it challenges me.
So what am I going to write about next week, you ask? Honestly, I don't know.
Yet.
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