So grateful for my Family

Friday, November 25, 2011

What I am Grateful for.

When I look at the way I was brought up, I am grateful for the things I learned from being in this family.

Everyone loves my mom. She is kind, gracious, beautiful, funny and wise. My mom had me at the age of 20, so I feel we grew up together. She is a great organizer and planner, I feel I have inherited those skills from her. I love being around my mom. I admire how she handles the triumphs and the tragedies of life. My mom gave me the skills I needed to seek my own truth and the pathway of my life. I am proud to be her daughter.

I know my dad gave me my love of theater and music. I grew up listening to Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Robert Goulet and Broadway Musicals. My dad always suggested movies he thought I would love and he was always right. From my dad I inherited a bit of a competitive streak when it comes to playing games. I loved when he played Scrabble with mys sister and me. I secretly love it when I play chess at school and the students beat me! I remember arguing with my dad as a teenager, he taught me strategy and how to think before I present my case. My dad has inspired many teachers and students to become the best they can be. He inspired me to work with children and choose to teach. I am proud to be his daughter.

I am the oldest sibling. I have learned so much from being a part of this family, much of it from my sisters and brothers. From my sister Karen, I have learned that dreams do come true. She is successful and has 2 beautiful daughters who are the loves of her life. She works hard, is a terrific mom, and doesn't give up on what her goals are. I am proud of her and proud to be her sister.

From my sister Vicki, I have learned to count my blessings and enjoy every moment of life. Vicki has always been the life of the party and is so good about keeping in touch with family and friends. People trust her and tell her everything. She is a peacemaker. Vicki's eyes light up whenever she looks at our nieces and nephews who adore her. She is compassionate, funny, and lights up the world. I am proud of her and proud to be her sister.

My brother Ron has always been the sweetest and most caring person. He works hard and spends his "free" time with his family. He adores his children and is introducing them to the world with wonder and a positive outlook. Ron has taught me to appreciate those you love and to treat them well. He tirelessly pitches in whenever someone needs help. He has an altruistic side and can be selfless when called upon. I am so proud to be his sister and I am so proud of him.





From my brother Kevin, I have learned to be courageous. When we were younger, Kevin would call to order the pizza because his big sister was too shy. Kevin has had to make choices in his life that require true courage and the ability to be honest with yourself. He is, like our brother Ron, a great dad. He is patient, soft spoken, calm, and loving. He is devoted to his children and they are happy and thriving because of it. I am so proud of my brother Kevin and I am proud to be his sister.

I am a product of this family. What I know, I've learned from them. I am grateful for every moment of joy, every learning experience, and every struggle we went through. I know they are always in my corner and I will always be in theirs. It hasn't always been easy but I am who I am because of our shared experience.

ThanksGIVING

Thanksgiving is an important holiday to talk about and study in class.  In our class we research the history of the holiday, make paper turkeys, write sentences and paragraphs about why we are grateful for the bounty we have in our lives.  This year, our 6-9 class focused on the “giving” of Thanksgiving.

Each month our school has a “Casual Day”.  Elementary and Secondary students do not have to wear the usual uniform.  This year we have implemented a program where each class gets to choose a cause or a charity and those who wish to dress “casually” donate to that cause.  When our class was asked to choose a cause for November, it was easy to make a choice.  We decided to collect food for All Faith’s Food Bank in our town. 

Our third year students formed committees and divided the types of food they expected to collect into different categories.  They decided on “Pasta, Soups, Meat and Fish, Fruits and Veggies, and Miscellaneous.”   The five third year students put together a flyer which went home to the families in our school.

We decided that we would collect food for one week.  Each morning students stood outside our classroom with their handmade signs during “Drop off” time.  The first day did not yield any items and the students were disappointed.  We pointed out that it was a good day for reminding everyone about our Food Drive and tomorrow things would surely pick up.

The next day the food started to come in.  The committees collected the cans, bags, and boxes of items that fit their categories.  They organized the items, made lists of what types and quantities of food they collected, they boxed the food up and by the end of the week we had collected 343 items!

There were discussions about which category some items would fall into.  Would barley go with the pasta group or miscellaneous?  Do we count a six pack of tuna as one item or as six?   Are tomatoes a fruit or a vegetable? Is juice a fruit or is it in the miscellaneous category?  Can we keep the box of chocolate chip cookies?

Students worked together cooperatively to answer these questions and box up the food.  On the Monday before Thanksgiving we loaded it onto the school bus and then traveled to the All Faith’s Food Bank to deliver our bounty.  We were greeted by the volunteers who worked at the food bank.  Jill, a registered dietician gave us a tour of the warehouse.

We found out that we collected 372 pounds of food.  One pound of food feeds a person for a day.  The students were able to get on the scale and we found out that they weighed 949 pounds!  We were able to help sort the food we brought to the food bank.  We checked the dates on the can and then put a line through the bar code.  We sorted the cans into the appropriate boxes.

Students walked up and down the aisles and learned what types of food were needed.  We walked into the “cold rooms.”  In the first room it was 44 degrees, that is where they keep fresh fruit and veggies.  Next we went into the dairy room which was about 32 degrees.  Finally we entered the meat room which was 11 degrees.  That was where they keep the turkeys and other types of meat they have collected.

The students had a great learning experience and walked away feeling proud that they were able to help other families and children in our community. 

Remember, Thanksgiving is a time for being grateful for your blessings and a time to give to help your community!

Just say "No!"

Saying "no" does not a bad parent make.  As a parent your responsibility is to raise a responsible, independent adult who has common sense and skills that will help them thrive.  Dealing with disappointment is a skill that actually needs to be taught.

Face it, none of us has gotten everything we have ever wanted.  From Barbie Dolls and Bicyles to college admissions to dating to job applications to rainy vacations, disappointment is a daily occurance.  What helps us get through life is how we deal with the inevitable.

When I look at the students I have had over the years, some have taken disappointment in stride, some have had tantrums when things don't go their way, some relentlessly persevere and pursue other avenues to get what they want.  There are as many reactions to disappointment as there are children.

So, as a parent, what can you do to help your child develop skills that will allow them to handle disappointment, regroup, and pursue other options?

Children like to be prepared for situations.  When you take a child shopping, have a conversation first.  We are going to the grocery store.  You and I will buy the things on our list. I will hand you each item and you can put it in the cart. I want you to know that today we will not buy anything "extra."  If you do forget and ask me for something special, please know that today the answer will be no.
*Then if the child does ask for something you can refer to the conversation you had prior to the shopping trip.  It is nice to give your child a specific task to do such as putting the items in the cart.  Children like to help.

Before playing a game, have a converstaion.  I would be happy play checkers ( or any game) with you.  You are one of my favorite people to play with.  Let's talk about what a good winner does.  If you win, tell the other players that it was fun to play with them and they did a good job.  If you don't win, tell the winner "Congratulations."  It is good to know how to win and how to lose.
* A child needs to practice being a good loser, I advise you not to let them win every game they play with you.  You should model being a good winner and a good loser.

Before a playdate, have a conversation.  Your friend is coming over to play.  He is our guest so he will get to choose the first game you play.  If you play nicely, you get to choose the next game.  You are a terrific friend and a terrific friend lets others choose first.
*Be close by to remind your child about courtesy when being with a friend.

Before birthday parties, have a conversation.  You are going to be in someone else's home.  You will be the representative of our family.  This is an important job.  Say please and thank you.  If you don't get your way, be calm and wait till you get home and tell me all about it.  Do not ask for "seconds" wait until you are offered seconds.
*The "seconds" thing is a point of politeness and should be practiced at home.  Be sure to ask your child how things went and if they are not enthusiastic ask if there was a disappointment and talk to them about how we don't always get everything we want but you are always loved and important.

When children are very young saying no happens frequently.  You may want to offer another activity or distraction so the child realizes there are other options when things don't go your way.

I have seen many parents give in to children who have wanted something they clearly were not ready for.  Face book accounts for 9 year olds, cars for 16 year olds, i phones for 7 year olds given out of love.  But what seems like love can just be indulgence.  Learn to say no but do it with a conversation.

Taking a Break!

What do you do when everything goes awry?  The kids are fighting, the science projects are due but not yet begun, the baby sitter cancels, the dishwasher overflows, and the phone doesn't stop ringing!  These are just some of the things that can pile up on you during the day.  Hopefully only one situation occurs at a time but there are days when it seems everything happens at once and you want to scream and tear your hair out.

Well, there are a few strategies that help us get through these rough patches. 

In the midst of a multitude of chaotic events you must deal with the ones involving safety first.  So take a few deep breaths and diffuse any situation that could involve injury or safety.

After that I recommend taking a BREAK!

B - spend a few minutes focused on breathing,  take deep, slow breathes and concentrate on the air coming into and out of your body.  Fill your whole body up with air.

R - recognize and regroup, look at the individual components and assess what needs your immediate attention and what can be saved for another time.

E - evaluate, at a neutral moment, evaluate how you were feeling.  Did that play a role in the escalation?  Evaluate the environment, is it conducive to peace and tradquility?  Were you trying to take on too much?  What can you change?

A - attention - pay attention to how these situations began.  Are your children acting out because they are hungry, tired, or need time apart from one another?  Take a moment to focus on how it all began and then provide alternative activities, exercise, snack, or quiet time depending on the need.

K - kindness, be kind to yourself.  Don't beat yourself up over the events that have occured.  Observe and see what changes are possibe and implement them.

You can take a BREAK at least once a day (it is not only for disasters) and it will help you feel more in control of your life.

Here is a post from Penelope Trunk

Here is an interesting post.  Sending your child to a Montessori school is a good way to encourage these important traits in your child.  I am happy to share this:

How School Affects Future Earnings The best way to understand earning power—no matter what your age—is to understand the factors that go into it. For example, most people who have careers that are plateauing usually have a learning problem that manifests itself as an earning problem. And for parents, schooling discussions are really earning discussions. Because you can say that kids with a love of learning are lifelong learners (essential for workplace success today), but truly, who wants an unemployed Ph.D candidate? You don't want a lawyer who can't get a job because of poor social skills, you don't want a kid with perfect SAT scores who marries for money because supporting oneself seems too hard. Every parent wants to raise a kid who is capable of supporting himself and capable of finding engaging work for a stable life. Here's how schooling affects earning power. 1. Focus on pre-K through third grade. Why focus on pre-K? There is very solid data that the earning power of kids who attend a pre-K program is so much higher than kids who don’t that Head Start is one of the most sacred of all publicly funded programs in the US. So the school impact on one’s earning potential starts in pre-K. Why third grade? Research from Project STAR shows that after third grade, the quality of one’s classroom has little impact on one’s future earning potential. There is clear data (spanning 25 years and researchers at six universities) that shows that test scores after third grade are not indicators of future earning potential. 2. Ignore standardized test results, obsess over self-confidence levels. This means, of course, that it doesn’t matter how one performs on national standardized tests since those test scores do not have impact on the sixty years one spends in the workforce. And this conclusion is consistent with one of my favorite studies in the whole world: It is from Alan Kreuger, professor at Princeton, that shows that while it is true that kids who go to Harvard and Princeton have advantages over others when it comes to future earning, you can get those same advantages just by applying to those schools. It’s having ambition and believing in yourself that are the real harbingers of success. The fancy diploma is a red herring. 3. Teach kids to find mentors. Faye Crosby, professor at the University of Santa Cruz says that the two most important factors in a person’s earning potential is quality of schooling and quality of mentoring. Now we know that the schooling part of this equation is up to third grade. So maybe, starting in fourth grade, we should be teaching our kids how to get the best mentors. Let’s consider what life would look like if you took all fourth graders out of school and started teaching them how to get mentors. First of all, the act of finding a mentor is very consistent with what current research on education reform says that kids should be doing: Following the paths that interest them and finding someone to guide them. 4. The best schooling after third grade is unschooling. Here is a fascinating article from Psychology Today about why school reform will not work because schools are so incredibly ill-suited for teaching kids. In fact, the formula for school—telling kids what they should learn and how they should learn—is a method only for killing their creativity. Lisa Neilsen, who manages teacher training for New York City public schools, also comes down hard on the classroom structure. She tells parents that kids should learn in a project-based program where the lesson plans are dictated by a child’s current interests. Neilsen says that if the school won’t do that for your kid, take your kid out of school. 5. Aim for out of the box. Way out of the box. That's when things will look right. So let’s say you take the advice of people whose job is to study what is the best way to teach your kid. Let’s say you take the advice of the reams of research about what factors influence a child’s future earning potential. What you are left with is waking up every day, asking your child what he or she wants to do, and then finding someone to help them, if you are are not the right person. Some days you will offer up some ideas, some days your kid will say no to everything and decide to play video games. Here’s what I’m doing to increase my fourth-grader’s earning potential: Pottery. He told me he wanted to do clay. He said he’s upset that each year of school he got to do a clay project, and this year, since we’re homeschooling, he’s going to miss it. So I did a little Googling, and I found a pottery studio: Bethel Horizons. (It is Christian, of course. Everything in rural America that has funding is either government or Christian.) The minute I walked into the studio, I knew we were so lucky. Krista is the pottery teacher, and she took incredible care to make sure each step was a way to focus mentally and "connect with the clay." She showed him how to use machines and tools and she showed him that part of the process is keeping the workspace neat and clean so the brain and the hands can work in peace. Then Krista told my son he'd make a pot each time he sits at the wheel. I thought about the study about pottery in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers. Students who were asked to make one, great pot, learned much slower than kids who made a terrible pot each time at the wheel. Greatness comes from lots of terribleness, so I liked that we were on that path. I coach so many people who want advice about their career, but so often, these people really just need to learn how to figure out what they want: experiment, find what might be fun. Try it for a bit. People need coaching on how to take risks and not worry if they fail. People need coaching on how to find a mentor who is invested in their particular path. I see that all these things are related to earning power, and all these things are what kids learn when they direct their own curriculum. So, my son probably will not grow up to make expensive pots to sell. But I know that while he's skipping school and managing his pottery-learning himself, his earning power is going up, and it's a joy to watch.

Preparation of the Parent

This past week conferences were held with students,parents, and teachers.  It is always a joy to meet with all of the families in our classroom.  I truly believe that the whole family comes to school with the child each day and that the teacher needs to be a team member with the parents in the development of the child.

Maria Montessori spoke of the preparation of the teacher, the preparation of the environment and the  preparation of the spirit.  She emphasized that the teacher should stay in background, allowing the child to develop with guidance, developing his or her own character,  The teacher is there to prepare the environment so that it calls to the child.

Maria Montessori spoke of preparing the teacher's spirit.  As teachers we are taught to observe our students and the environment, present new lessons, to stand back and allow children to work on something until they achieve understanding, to be patient, and to renew our commitment to our students daily.

It occurs to me that parents really don't have the same type of preparation.  How do you prepare to be a parent?  Taking on this job is a lifelong commitment.  It will bring you joy and heartache.  Your spirit needs to be renewed daily so that you can provide the best for your child.

Take time for yourself.
Date your spouse.
Pursue a hobby.
Reflect, keep a journal.
Be grateful.
Exercise.

Find what you love to do and make time for it.  You and your child will benefit from this.  Your child is a gift and will develop his or her character according to how you see yourself.  Love yourself and your child will learn to love himself as well.

How to create the next Steve Jobs

I have been thinking about the passing of Steve Jobs.  And although I mourn the loss of this visionary, I have to wonder how he got to be who he was?  How can I help my students become visionaries?  How can teachers and parents foster the creativity, confidence, and vision it takes to change the world?

Well, this got me thinking about other great visionaires.  They seem to have a few attributes in common.

Here are the qualities I want to foster in our children:

1. Embrace mistakes and failure, learn from them.
2. Simple is better.
3. Find your passion and pursue it wholeheartedly.
4. Don't let anyone tell you, it can't be done.  Don't tell yourself it can't be done.
5. When working makes you happy you are working on the right thing.
6. Time is limited, don't wait, do it now.
7. Trust your heart.

Giving your child a Montessori education is a good start.  Help them learn to celebrate mistakes.  I see so many children who fear doing it "wrong".  I tell them that I make more mistakes than anyone.  That's why they make erasers.

Simple is elegant.  Simple is timeless.  Simple leads to successful.

Love what you do.  Love it so much you don't even know time is passing by while you are working on it.  Everyone has a passion although I must admit it is harder to find in some.  I see it in my students, some love to draw (the artists and the engineers), some love to play chess (the CEO's and the game creators), some love to argue (the lawyers), some love to talk (the communicators), some love to read (the authors and researchers).  Help your child find his or her passion.

Be a cheerleader for your child.  Let your child try as many things as they want.  Cheer wildly and believe in their dreams.

Banish the word "can't" from your vocabulary.  

Notice what keeps your child busy and happy.  Nurture these activities.

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today!  Who knows how many tomorrows we have?

Trust the child, trust that she has everything she needs to learn and grow.

Last but not least, turn off the TV.  Children cannot be creative when they are passively entertained.

Steve Jobs, you will be missed.  God speed.