For the past number of months, I've converted from listening to the Easy Listening radio station to the Jazz one. Must say, it's been a pleasant change. I'm a sucker for those old love songs, and I love the way different artists play with the notes. I'm good with the music where I can follow the melody, but I must admit to and apologize for not understanding atonal music at all. To me, it all sounds like a traffic jam. When instrumentals go far off the basic melody line, I get lost and a bit frustrated. Luckily, the bulk of the music played on the station is more or less at my level for music appreciation, and many of the artists played are local, which is really neat.
Both Jazz and the Blues hit me in a few spots. For one, the old 'standards' are beautifully written, and frankly, in contrast to Rock, I can follow the lyrics. For another, the music takes me back to my childhood piano that sat in our living room, where my dad used to play and sing the evening away to the very songs I'm listening to today. It's familiar and sentimental, let alone stunning to listen to.
One of the days when #3 was home for Reading Week, we were in the car together, driving to visit my mother who lives about an hour away. We were listening to the jazz station (he loves the music as well) when an atonal piece was being played. Neither of us had the patience to listen, so he decided to flip to the Classic Rock station. The music was fabulous, perfect for a long drive; Queen, the Stones, even Little Stevie Wonder. But along with the 'classic' stuff, there was also new music played. But here's the strange thing about the new music--a lot of it was simply music from the '70's and '80's revisited. So, between listening to the remaking of Jazz standards on one station as well as listening to the reworking of classics in Rock, I started to wonder if there was anything new under the sun.
In Education, teachers who have been around as long as I have know that ideas are cyclical. We go to Professional Development days and hear about new methods of teaching children effectively. These experts have programmes with slick names and glossy brochures. The old timers like me listen to the presentations and then turn to each other and ask, Isn't this the exact same thing as...? And it is.
When I was a little girl in elementary school, we had Reading Groups. They had cute little names like the Duckies, the Kitties and the Puppies. The teacher would call up each group separately in a round robin fashion. The Duckies would read while the Kitties and Puppies did their work. When the Duckies finished, they would do work and the next group would come up and so forth. Each group had a different reader, or minimally, were working on different stories. Of course, even though every group had seemingly innocuous names, we kids all instinctively knew that the groups were levelled. We could tell by who was in each group. We knew the academic pecking order, even in Grade One. We simply played into the teacher's little fantasy of thinking she was pulling one over on all of us. We didn't want to make her feel bad.
Today, that little trick has a fancy name. It's called differentiation. It works exactly the same as it did 45 or 50 years ago. Okay, maybe all those years ago, it was only done in Reading, and today we do it in every subject, but the concept is the same. The assignment is geared to the child's level of capability. Old concept, different name. Nothing new under the sun.
Okay, yes, you're right. There are plenty of new things in this world. The computer on which I'm writing this drivel, for one. But when all is said and done, most new things are there to enable one to do the old things in a slightly different way. The old is still there, and it's not too bad.
Our world is moving very quickly. Life is stressful. We need some familiarity to remind us that although the world is changing, it's not changing as much and as quickly as we think. So what do we do? We dust off old standards and sing or play them differently, but not so different so as not to recognize them. We take the Rock music we were raised with and hip hop it a bit. We retool ideas that we once shelved, clean them up and call them new. For the young'n's, the music, the standards, the ideas...they ARE new. For the oldtimers, they are reminders that we have never been off the mark.
Old, reliable. New and improved. They are one and the same.
And I find that reassuring!
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Hats off to you!
I've never been a 'material girl'. I don't have a particular attachment to too many 'things'. I could list on one hand some mementos of certain events or times in my life that would be on the list of those things-I-would-grab-if-I-had-to-leave-my-house-in-a-hurry. None of them are worth a lot of money, they simply are objects attached to very fond memories. There is, however, one item that doesn't fit on that list. It's one of those 'things' that I deem vital for my survival. It's not my potato peeler, which I must admit I love dearly. It's not even my crank by hand musher that produces great egg and tuna salad, as well as making avocado the perfect consistency for making guacamole. No, this the object that rises above them all. It is, of course, my yard duty hat.
When I bought my Elmer Fudd hat a number of years ago, everyone laughed at me. I was an oddity on the playground. Here I was with what is essentially a deer hunting hat (ironically, made of deer skin) while everyone else had their toques. My colleagues teased....until I invited them to try it on. Let's just say that the laughing stopped. My hat is warm and cozy and keeps the wind from attacking me.
But my hat does even more than that. My hat buffers the noise of all the little children playing on the yard. When I'm wearing my beloved hat, all of the yells and whoops and chants of the kids sound like one big mush, kind of like my avocado after it has been mushed by my other beloved inanimate object. It's fabulous! Or is it?
Today, the Jewish world celebrates the festival of Purim. One of our duties is to read the Megillah, the Scroll of Esther. Every time the villain Haman's name is mentioned, we are to make a lot of noise, so as to drown his name out. Over and over again through the reading, there is this blast of noise. Strangely, after a few times, the sound becomes tolerable. I start to get used to it. The kids who have waited an entire year for the chance to make a lot of noise become less and less excited, to the point of boredom. It all begins to sound like white noise.
I became accustomed to the white noise of chatting children when I taught kindergarten. There is a constant buzz in a kindergarten class, more so than in the grades. Over time I learned to tune out a lot of things. In many ways, tuning out was a blessing. Sometimes back then, knowing that I could tune out bothered me. It bothers me now, too.
We all 'tune out' many times during the day. We daydream. We focus on a TV show, or the newspaper, or the crossword or whatever we're tinkering with while someone else is talking and don't hear them. Sometimes for our own sanity we have to tune out, but we can only imagine what we're missing when we're not tuning in.
We all know the phrase, Don't go into the light! I think we have to start reminding ourselves not to go into the white noise. The trick is to pay attention, and swim through the white noise in order to listen to the voices that need to be heard. It isn't easy, but something tells me that it's worth the exercise.
Today I will drown out the sound of Haman. Tomorrow, I will try to break the white noise sound barrier!
When I bought my Elmer Fudd hat a number of years ago, everyone laughed at me. I was an oddity on the playground. Here I was with what is essentially a deer hunting hat (ironically, made of deer skin) while everyone else had their toques. My colleagues teased....until I invited them to try it on. Let's just say that the laughing stopped. My hat is warm and cozy and keeps the wind from attacking me.
But my hat does even more than that. My hat buffers the noise of all the little children playing on the yard. When I'm wearing my beloved hat, all of the yells and whoops and chants of the kids sound like one big mush, kind of like my avocado after it has been mushed by my other beloved inanimate object. It's fabulous! Or is it?
Today, the Jewish world celebrates the festival of Purim. One of our duties is to read the Megillah, the Scroll of Esther. Every time the villain Haman's name is mentioned, we are to make a lot of noise, so as to drown his name out. Over and over again through the reading, there is this blast of noise. Strangely, after a few times, the sound becomes tolerable. I start to get used to it. The kids who have waited an entire year for the chance to make a lot of noise become less and less excited, to the point of boredom. It all begins to sound like white noise.
I became accustomed to the white noise of chatting children when I taught kindergarten. There is a constant buzz in a kindergarten class, more so than in the grades. Over time I learned to tune out a lot of things. In many ways, tuning out was a blessing. Sometimes back then, knowing that I could tune out bothered me. It bothers me now, too.
We all 'tune out' many times during the day. We daydream. We focus on a TV show, or the newspaper, or the crossword or whatever we're tinkering with while someone else is talking and don't hear them. Sometimes for our own sanity we have to tune out, but we can only imagine what we're missing when we're not tuning in.
We all know the phrase, Don't go into the light! I think we have to start reminding ourselves not to go into the white noise. The trick is to pay attention, and swim through the white noise in order to listen to the voices that need to be heard. It isn't easy, but something tells me that it's worth the exercise.
Today I will drown out the sound of Haman. Tomorrow, I will try to break the white noise sound barrier!
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Kvetch and the World Kvetches With You
Two dire needs of students baffle me during the school day; (a) snack time and (b) the necessity to put ice on the most minor of injuries. Granted, either or both aren't earth shattering, but I suppose it's the sense of impending doom that occurs when each is needed that throws me.
In the Middle Ages when I was a child, snack time didn't exist after kindergarten. One was expected to go all the way from breakfast to lunch, and from lunch to home time before eating. Now, I'm not denouncing the benefits of small, healthy noshes. I read the magazines. But just to let you know, I did survive the horrors of no snacking...and come to think of it, it's sort of like a cellphone...if you never have one, you don't know that you're missing it. I didn't have snacktime at school, and didn't know that I was supposed to be noshing. Miracles of miracles, I survived.
I simply cannot believe the horror on the faces of the kids if snack is, for whatever reason, late or cancelled. Class trips are always contentious, because the children know that it's possible that they won't get snack due to time constraints. Following the announcement that there will most likely be no time for snack, the kids, in lightening speed, travel through all five stages of grief: denial (Sure there'll be time for snack), anger (What do you mean, there'll be no time for snack!), bargaining (Can't we just take our lunchboxes on the bus?), depression (Really? No Snack? Ahhhhhwwww.) and finally, acceptance (Okay, let's go line up). It's a scary sight.
Not only did we not have snack all those years ago, but apparantly we didn't have ice, either. To my recollection, if we hurt ourselves, we got up, dusted ourselves off and went on. But those were uncivilized times, and now we have ice. In these modern times, the minute a child finds that a leaf has landed on him, he runs in horror, and complains wincing eyed to the teacher on duty, begging for a pass so that he can go to the office (along with an accomplice, two if it's cold outside, who will help the poor, pain riddled child) to get ice to treat the gaping wound. I admit, I can only handle this behaviour to a certain extent. When little Sarah Bernhardt or mini Rudolph Valentino approach me with their Oscar nominated kvetching, I ask them one simple question; If you were in your backyard now, or playing on your street, and the same thing happened to you, would you run inside your house to ask your mother or father for a piece of ice? The child then looks at me, smiles, turns around and runs off to play.
The absurdity of all of this begs the question; are we encouraging our children to feed into an already over-litigious society by teaching them to make mountains out of molehills? And furthermore, are we teaching them to be wusses by allowing them to complain about every boo-boo?
Perhaps. I don't remember if it was an article I read or if I had heared an expert on parenting discussing why a parent should not spank his child. Whichever it was, the person said that hitting is a result of the parent's frustration at himself. When a person feels internally stuck, there is a tendency to lash out at the person who is causing the frustration. The lesson to be learned is to deal with one's own frustration and not take it out on the child. Why am I going off on this tangent you ask? Because I'm wondering if there is a parallel. I'm wondering if our little ones complain about the little things because they are frustrated by the miniscule amount of free time we grownups have to spend with then and are vying for our attention. And I'm wondering if we grownups realize this subconsciously or otherwise and play into it as a way of giving our children the attention they deserve.
Ok, I hear you. You are saying that I am way off base and that this has nothing to do with a plea to spend time with them. Teaching one's child to get ice for a hangnail is instructing them to become proactive, self-sufficient and self-reliant. Children learn to self-advocate. It is part of the self-actualizing process, whereby children learn to respect themselves, and begin to confidently express their needs to others. You are, of course, correct. By the way, have you read, The Boy Who Cried Wolf lately?
As with almost everything, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Our free time to spend with our children is becoming tragically limited. It is difficult to find time and ways to constructively show our affection and concern for our darlings. By reacting over the small stuff, children can quickly see that we care. Unfortunately, our good intentions tend to backfire, as children learn to model our behaviour and begin to sweat the small stuff too, hence the crying over melted ice on a potential blister. And at the same time, those same children are learning how to self-advocate. They know how to form a posse and rescue one in distress by lassoing them and hauling them off to the office for a bandaid. And that is pretty admirable.
In the end, the children will find their way. And wherever that place may be, you can be rest assured that they'll have ice.
In the Middle Ages when I was a child, snack time didn't exist after kindergarten. One was expected to go all the way from breakfast to lunch, and from lunch to home time before eating. Now, I'm not denouncing the benefits of small, healthy noshes. I read the magazines. But just to let you know, I did survive the horrors of no snacking...and come to think of it, it's sort of like a cellphone...if you never have one, you don't know that you're missing it. I didn't have snacktime at school, and didn't know that I was supposed to be noshing. Miracles of miracles, I survived.
I simply cannot believe the horror on the faces of the kids if snack is, for whatever reason, late or cancelled. Class trips are always contentious, because the children know that it's possible that they won't get snack due to time constraints. Following the announcement that there will most likely be no time for snack, the kids, in lightening speed, travel through all five stages of grief: denial (Sure there'll be time for snack), anger (What do you mean, there'll be no time for snack!), bargaining (Can't we just take our lunchboxes on the bus?), depression (Really? No Snack? Ahhhhhwwww.) and finally, acceptance (Okay, let's go line up). It's a scary sight.
Not only did we not have snack all those years ago, but apparantly we didn't have ice, either. To my recollection, if we hurt ourselves, we got up, dusted ourselves off and went on. But those were uncivilized times, and now we have ice. In these modern times, the minute a child finds that a leaf has landed on him, he runs in horror, and complains wincing eyed to the teacher on duty, begging for a pass so that he can go to the office (along with an accomplice, two if it's cold outside, who will help the poor, pain riddled child) to get ice to treat the gaping wound. I admit, I can only handle this behaviour to a certain extent. When little Sarah Bernhardt or mini Rudolph Valentino approach me with their Oscar nominated kvetching, I ask them one simple question; If you were in your backyard now, or playing on your street, and the same thing happened to you, would you run inside your house to ask your mother or father for a piece of ice? The child then looks at me, smiles, turns around and runs off to play.
The absurdity of all of this begs the question; are we encouraging our children to feed into an already over-litigious society by teaching them to make mountains out of molehills? And furthermore, are we teaching them to be wusses by allowing them to complain about every boo-boo?
Perhaps. I don't remember if it was an article I read or if I had heared an expert on parenting discussing why a parent should not spank his child. Whichever it was, the person said that hitting is a result of the parent's frustration at himself. When a person feels internally stuck, there is a tendency to lash out at the person who is causing the frustration. The lesson to be learned is to deal with one's own frustration and not take it out on the child. Why am I going off on this tangent you ask? Because I'm wondering if there is a parallel. I'm wondering if our little ones complain about the little things because they are frustrated by the miniscule amount of free time we grownups have to spend with then and are vying for our attention. And I'm wondering if we grownups realize this subconsciously or otherwise and play into it as a way of giving our children the attention they deserve.
Ok, I hear you. You are saying that I am way off base and that this has nothing to do with a plea to spend time with them. Teaching one's child to get ice for a hangnail is instructing them to become proactive, self-sufficient and self-reliant. Children learn to self-advocate. It is part of the self-actualizing process, whereby children learn to respect themselves, and begin to confidently express their needs to others. You are, of course, correct. By the way, have you read, The Boy Who Cried Wolf lately?
As with almost everything, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Our free time to spend with our children is becoming tragically limited. It is difficult to find time and ways to constructively show our affection and concern for our darlings. By reacting over the small stuff, children can quickly see that we care. Unfortunately, our good intentions tend to backfire, as children learn to model our behaviour and begin to sweat the small stuff too, hence the crying over melted ice on a potential blister. And at the same time, those same children are learning how to self-advocate. They know how to form a posse and rescue one in distress by lassoing them and hauling them off to the office for a bandaid. And that is pretty admirable.
In the end, the children will find their way. And wherever that place may be, you can be rest assured that they'll have ice.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Pfffffftttttt
For a time, I thought that Velcro was going to get the better of me.
Do you remember when laces on children's running shoes began to be replaced with Velcro? I sure do. Circle time in Kindergarten became a nightmare. Sure, parents were thrilled. Their little darlings could now be more independent beings. They could put on their own shoes and close them up without anyone helping them. Theoretically, I was all for it, because I'm all for children feeling the pride of accomplishment when they learn to master a skill. But who would have thought of the ramifications!
Picture twenty five little five year olds sitting cross legged on a carpet, most of them wearing shoes with Velcro. There I am doing my thing, when all of a sudden I hear pfffffttt. I look toward the sound and see a child with a shoe undone. A second or two later, the shoe is closed up again and all is well...until, pfffffttt, someone else starts in. Before you know it, a virtual Velcro symphony is playing in the background of my lesson. It's positively unnerving.
Even more unsettling though, is the thought that increasingly, children are not learning how to tie their shoes because, well, they don't have to! Velcro closes things that used to take a lot more small motor dexterity. Winter coats might have zippers, but there is often an over layer of material that can be closed with Velcro. Often, children forgo zipping up the jacket in favour of simply using the Velcro. Heck, even Barbie doll clothes are closed with Velcro, which makes the old clothes that I had with tiny snaps, zippers and hook and eye closings seem positively medieval.
Now, don't get me wrong. Velcro is surely a handy dandy thing. For children or adults who have any motor issues, Velcro closings are indeed brilliant, and serve a fabulous purpose. They afford people the independence and dignity they richly deserve. Velcro has many incredible uses. In the scheme of things, it's almost as invaluable as duct tape or Saran Wrap. To me though, the appearance of Velcro in my classroom was the harbinger of something even more significant; Velcro heralded the age of technology.
Yes, computers were invented a few years before Velcro, but Velcro came into the classroom first. Pfffffttt preceded, 'You've got mail'. Velcro showed up around the time that digital clocks--my other bone of contention, appeared. You see, as well as children not being able to tie their laces anymore, the lack of regular use of analogue clocks is making it difficult for children to learn how to tell time. Think about it, what does 9:13 mean to a person who isn't familiar with a clock with hands and a face? Should we be concerned that children are missing these skills?
As much as I've bemoaned the situation over the years, I'm beginning to think that I'm the one who is out of step with the times. Moving forward in anything means leaving some things on the back burner. Small motor skills are being acquired differently. People might not necessarily know exactly what 8:52 means, but they somehow manage to get where they're going on time.
I remember with fondness how my elementary school teachers used to ask us to feed the movies we would watch in school through the reel-to-reel. They had no idea what to do. The technology was beyond them. They let the next generation take over and lead them. This generation, however, is different. We're learning along with our children. We use technology every day to enhance our lives and those of our students. For better or for worse, we are taking our lessons from the past and embracing the future.
And to all those who disagree, I say, PFFFFFTTTTTT!
Do you remember when laces on children's running shoes began to be replaced with Velcro? I sure do. Circle time in Kindergarten became a nightmare. Sure, parents were thrilled. Their little darlings could now be more independent beings. They could put on their own shoes and close them up without anyone helping them. Theoretically, I was all for it, because I'm all for children feeling the pride of accomplishment when they learn to master a skill. But who would have thought of the ramifications!
Picture twenty five little five year olds sitting cross legged on a carpet, most of them wearing shoes with Velcro. There I am doing my thing, when all of a sudden I hear pfffffttt. I look toward the sound and see a child with a shoe undone. A second or two later, the shoe is closed up again and all is well...until, pfffffttt, someone else starts in. Before you know it, a virtual Velcro symphony is playing in the background of my lesson. It's positively unnerving.
Even more unsettling though, is the thought that increasingly, children are not learning how to tie their shoes because, well, they don't have to! Velcro closes things that used to take a lot more small motor dexterity. Winter coats might have zippers, but there is often an over layer of material that can be closed with Velcro. Often, children forgo zipping up the jacket in favour of simply using the Velcro. Heck, even Barbie doll clothes are closed with Velcro, which makes the old clothes that I had with tiny snaps, zippers and hook and eye closings seem positively medieval.
Now, don't get me wrong. Velcro is surely a handy dandy thing. For children or adults who have any motor issues, Velcro closings are indeed brilliant, and serve a fabulous purpose. They afford people the independence and dignity they richly deserve. Velcro has many incredible uses. In the scheme of things, it's almost as invaluable as duct tape or Saran Wrap. To me though, the appearance of Velcro in my classroom was the harbinger of something even more significant; Velcro heralded the age of technology.
Yes, computers were invented a few years before Velcro, but Velcro came into the classroom first. Pfffffttt preceded, 'You've got mail'. Velcro showed up around the time that digital clocks--my other bone of contention, appeared. You see, as well as children not being able to tie their laces anymore, the lack of regular use of analogue clocks is making it difficult for children to learn how to tell time. Think about it, what does 9:13 mean to a person who isn't familiar with a clock with hands and a face? Should we be concerned that children are missing these skills?
As much as I've bemoaned the situation over the years, I'm beginning to think that I'm the one who is out of step with the times. Moving forward in anything means leaving some things on the back burner. Small motor skills are being acquired differently. People might not necessarily know exactly what 8:52 means, but they somehow manage to get where they're going on time.
I remember with fondness how my elementary school teachers used to ask us to feed the movies we would watch in school through the reel-to-reel. They had no idea what to do. The technology was beyond them. They let the next generation take over and lead them. This generation, however, is different. We're learning along with our children. We use technology every day to enhance our lives and those of our students. For better or for worse, we are taking our lessons from the past and embracing the future.
And to all those who disagree, I say, PFFFFFTTTTTT!
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