Some of you may remember that about a month back I wrote about the selection of the annual musical at Grace's high school, Annie Get Your Gun, and whether the arts should be censored for teenagers. I argued that the arts should not be censored for teenagers and that parents alone should be held responsible for addressing their own values surrounding controversial issues at home. There were no dissenters in the comments. I was surprised. I expected at least one of you out there to say I was off my rocker. You really all agree with me? You believe that the public schools shouldn't limit access to the arts?
I bring this up now because one person who read the post emailed me directly and told me I was wrong. Dead wrong. On Monday, after we finished our family celebration of Children's Day, I read my email and received a message from a parent at Grace's school who had been forwarded the URL of the post. And it wasn't just any parent; it was the parent who had raised the objection to the choice of the musical in the first place. She corrected some errors I had made in the original post (there is an amendment to that post now). She also revisited the issue of how the school should be responding to Native Americans and women being marginalized in Annie Get Your Gun, as well as firearms being glorified. Since she presented her points in an email, unfortunately those of you reading the post wouldn't have the benefit of her comments. I thought it would be fruitful to revisit the issue again in order to give voice to an opposing view.
The concerned parent and I agree on the core issues, like the problems stemming from children having access to firearms and the desensitization to racial and gender-based discrimination when it arrives in subtle forms (or in any form, for that matter). Despite this common agreement, from reading what she has written to me, we disagree on how minors should be educated about these issues. I take it to be my role as a parent to educate my child at home as to what values I hope for her to take as her own. The other parent believes that some collective body should make those decisions for all students and all of them should be taught those values at school. For instance, this parent wrote to me in her email that fake firearms, such as those used as props in a play, are a public health risk, plain and simple. Since this is fact, we should never allow guns to be used as props in a school building since the presence of firearms anywhere constitutes a public health risk to all exposed (most importantly, minor students). Further, if arts containing firearms are present in the school, it is the responsibility of the school to educate students about gun control. In order for these actions to be made, some appointed authority would need to endorse these decisions as fact. If individuals hold a different opinion from that which the authoritative group decides, too bad. Now, while it is true that the majority of voting adults in our community support gun control, I'd say that the issue is a far cry from a closed-book issue. I mean, if we were suggesting that high school students in a public school located somewhere differently, like, say, in Oklahoma or Texas, should be taught that gun control is the only policy that will do, I can imagine that there would be some vehement vocal disagreement. So rather than bring controversial two-sided arguments to the school system to render a verdict on, I prefer that the educational system educate students about the issues and leave the verdicts up to parents.
So that's gun control. For me, I err on the side of protecting individual rights. I may not exercise my right to have a firearm at home, but I want to be very careful about limiting the right altogether. Maybe it's the American in me. Maybe it's the southerner in me. Maybe it's my experience in rural parts of the country that makes me feel this way, you know, places where it's useful to have a firearm because if someone untoward drives into your farm up to no good, you can meet them at the door with your rifle aimed just in case law enforcement doesn't show up before the ruffians do.
But on a broader scale, what about other topics? No one who commented on my original post indicated that they thought the educational system or some other authority should have the right to limit students' access to the arts, no matter what the content. Really? You guys think that sex and rock 'n' roll and rap and all the rest should be available to teens?
Do you think we should have rating systems on movies and television and music, keeping minors from their consumption, or do you think that kind of censorship is ok?
Birth control? Abortion?
What about argumentation that the sex industry is liberating?
What about expressions of disgust for the government?
What about expressions of disgust for opposition to the government?
War? War protests?
Gang warfare? Legalizing all mind-altering substances?
All of it? You all think that all of this information should be openly available to teens to digest for themselves, hoping that their parents or guardians will help guide their thinking in order to prevent societal chaos?
In all fairness, in the comments of my original post, Angelawd qualified her support for my position by writing "I do believe all ideas and materials should be appropriate for the age, and for the individual. Some kids are able to handle more reality than others." That sounds sensible. But now we have to ask, what is appropriate for teenagers? And what if some of those teenagers are able to handle more reality than others? How do we teach them all in the same school? I'm sure there are things that some of you think the schools should not allow students to access, aside from those things that are illegal. As you can see from my laundry list of questions above, Annie Get Your Gun is nowhere near as controversial as we could get.
I'll give you the behind the scenes to why I think parents should be the ones making these decisions at home and teaching their children those values at home. I've lived in four very different regions of the US: South Florida, Central Texas, Southeast Michigan and Washington, DC. You can imagine that the mainstream values in each of these locales differed considerably. But whether or not I shared those mainstream values, that was what my community would endorse in the educational system. Along the way, through my own education and in taking part in my daughter's, I realized that it was not the values that were taught in the schools that were important. What was most important was that no matter what the majority of concerned citizens around us valued, my daughter would learn from me the things I believed were correct. For myself, I wish I had gotten the benefit of other viewpoints and opinions than the ones I was taught at school. For my daughter, I've realized that my involvement in her life as a parent is far more important than my involvement as a mover and shaker in her community. But once someone else has taught your child a value, sometimes it is difficult to teach your child something very different.
Now, that's a more lengthy version of my stance and I'm still sticking to it. But I really want to hear from the rest of you. Think about it. Are you willing to have your children hear information that you vehemently disagree with in order for them to hear a balanced view? Or would you rather they be educated in line with your own values? Are the arts (literature, drama, music, visual) any different from social sciences or physical sciences? How does religion play into this, if at all? What do you think of the education at the college level?
~~~ For those of you out there who want more controversial discussion, stay tuned. Monday I will finally publish a post that has been rattling around inside my head and in various drafts for over a month. Annie Get Your Gun raises issues of racial discrimination; I have been wrestling with the marginalizing of biracial couples and mixed race children. ~~~
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Friday, October 16, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Update on homeschooling
When I was a sophomore in high school, while studying the Renaissance as part of World History, I was assigned to write a short report on the Italian architect Brunelleschi. I remember little else about the architect except that he designed the dome for Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Italy. It never occurred to me at that point in my life that I might get to actually see the dome.As if our family life did not involve enough ups and down and turnabouts, my husband and I decided the last couple weeks to do something a little unexpected. Not crazy, just unexpected. We thought we'd take the family to Italy for a semester. My husband had been pursuing teaching abroad for the winter and spring of next year. I encouraged him to do this, since he hasn't gotten the chance to travel for a sabbatical. The one snag of course was that going would mean he would leave our family behind. Me, Grace, and our new baby. Not the end of the world, but not what we really wanted either. So we started working on the unexpected plan -- taking the whole family to Italy for a semester.
No problem for me. No problem for the baby. But Grace. How do you work in a semester away when a kid is in high school and still make sure she stays on track to graduate? People do these sorts of things, there must be a way to do it. I contacted her guidance counselor and asked what we could do. He was more than enthusiastic and helpful. He said, no problem, he'd contact one of his colleagues at one of the other high schools in the city. The solution? Grace could do her studies at home using online resources already approved by the district, and while she was here in the states, she could still participate in swim team, orchestra, sit in on classes that would be good (like language classes and an AP course). Once we went abroad, she could continue her homeschooling using these resources and supplement using anything we wanted that seemed of use abroad (hello, AP World History).
We didn't tell Grace. We wanted to wait until we knew everything was a go. I was pretty sure she would go for it because she had been begging us for weeks to let her do an exchange program abroad during her sophomore year. That was out of the question because, oh my god, do you know how much those programs cost? But still...Italy...in the spring...I didn't think it would take too much convincing.
I started thinking about all the amazing benefits and possibilities. Our family, by that point the full four of us, could travel together and live away together. We could spend 4-5 months together. Grace with a new little sister, me with my two daughters, my husband with his daughter and his stepdaughter together, my husband and I, away from the hub bub of our typical American life. We'd get the chance to be in a new place for longer than a few days or a few weeks...we could actually get the chance to settle into a place and get to know it, a place that presents new perspectives and new experiences.
Under these conditions could I take up the task of homeschooling? Oh, yes. Sure, it would be a change of pace and something I'd have to begin planning for. But the chance to have one year just to give it a shot, spend time together, do learning in a way that Grace wanted to rather than how a teacher wanted to...that is irreplaceable.
Just about the time everything was settling down and the guidance counselor was pulling together all the information, we hit a glitch. The project abroad had been downsized and we no longer had the opportunity. Some other year in the future, maybe, but not now. But at that moment I realized what I had lost. It occurred to me that my family, one that is still in the making, has precious short years before the oldest child becomes an adult. The chance to sweep the whole family up and go on a venture together is slipping away from us.
So now I'm trying to figure out how to have that experience without the actual act of going away physically. I'm realizing that it's very important for me to have the family bond. I'm trying to figure out how to make the most of every day, every holiday, every birthday, every moment.
Ciao, Italia.
Friday, May 29, 2009
More unexpected news. Well, at least coming from me, it is.
I started this calendar year by throwing you all for a loop and announcing I was pregnant. That was such unexpected news, given my previous constant rantings about having only one child, a teenager, and you all have been great with that change in tone of my blog.
And then shortly thereafter I started in on my two month or so rant about Grace's diagnosis with ADD and what all that meant for her medically and at school and beyond. Again, you all were great. You gave me so much encouragement and advice.
So it seems I have come to another completely unexpected turn in my life. Most likely, for Grace's sophomore year of high school next year, we'll be doing homeschooling.
No, really. I'm not kidding.
I've never even considered doing this before, much less actually plan to do it and go through with it.
Just call me Dr. Homeschooling Mom.
It's a long explanation, and one that's worth dishing out. If this actually goes through, I'll fill you in when the details are settled. If it doesn't work out, I'll still give you the abbreviated explanation.
As you can imagine, any thoughtful advice is welcome and sought out by me at this juncture.
And then shortly thereafter I started in on my two month or so rant about Grace's diagnosis with ADD and what all that meant for her medically and at school and beyond. Again, you all were great. You gave me so much encouragement and advice.
So it seems I have come to another completely unexpected turn in my life. Most likely, for Grace's sophomore year of high school next year, we'll be doing homeschooling.
No, really. I'm not kidding.
I've never even considered doing this before, much less actually plan to do it and go through with it.
Just call me Dr. Homeschooling Mom.
It's a long explanation, and one that's worth dishing out. If this actually goes through, I'll fill you in when the details are settled. If it doesn't work out, I'll still give you the abbreviated explanation.
As you can imagine, any thoughtful advice is welcome and sought out by me at this juncture.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Catching up on some open folders in my inbox
Let's see here, where were we? I left off last Friday saying that we were headed to the DVD premiere party of Twilight at a local bookstore. How was that party, then? Well, it certainly proved to be fodder for photography, though the events scheduled were a bit, ah, how shall we say? Ah yes, lame. A couple of sales girls from the store led the happenings by reading out various trivia questions about the movie to a group of fans about 40 strong. The attendees were mostly teens, some trying to look cool because they were out alone late at the bookstore alone, others trying to look cool despite being there with their parents. There were also a few adults who seemed to know all the right answers to the questions. Not me.
Grace was happy enough. She had $11 dollars, enough to buy exactly nothing. There was an Edward Cullen action figure for $20 -- I don't think so. Maybe that was marketed to the adults who knew all the answers to the trivia questions. What do you do with an Edward Cullen action figure anyway?
Despite the rather flat entertainment, there were some payoffs after about an hour. Grace got a free advertising poster for the motion picture soundtrack, which she promptly posted to her bedroom wall the next morning:
And my husband, a fluent French speaker, found something fun to read:
No, I'm not worried that he's getting ready to pick up women in a language I don't speak. We actually loved reading it because we're nerdy linguists and we love to read about how to make language learning more enticing, especially in the US. The book's called Hide This French Book (Berlitz, retail $9.95) and it's full of all the stuff they never teach in language class but that you really, really need to learn if you intend to survive in somewhere that the language is used. Like how to really order drinks and talk about sex (both actively and passively) and gossip and more. After enjoying it for about 30 minutes, we decided Grace didn't need it for her French studies quite yet and $10 was way too much for this kind of information anyway.
Just before midnight rolled around, when all the other fans lined up to buy their DVDs, we decided to go home, smiling because we knew our copy of the DVD had already shipped and we had paid $15 less than we would have at said local bookstore. I know, it's sad; we're taking the sale away from a local bookstore and giving it to a big warehouse dot-com like Amazon. But $15 is still $15, and we figure local businesses, while we strive to given them our business whenever possible, have to be able to compete while not breaking the pocketbooks of local patrons. Alas.
On to other issues. If you'll recall, a month ago the furnace was acting up. We called and had it repaired. But that really didn't quite address the bigger issue: our bedroom that is freezing cold that we still haven't moved into. As it turned out, the repair that the furnace needed was covered under our home warranty, so the money we saved in that slight inconvenience is now being applied to the purchase and installation of a new furnace. The work was completed yesterday. Thank goodness. Now that winter is over, we may have a furnace that works properly and doesn't cost an arm and a leg to operate. The furnace salesman/installation specialist swears that we'll see our winter power bills drop by 20%. I sure hope so.
A much more enjoyable and superfluous detail that I left open-ended was what Grace would decide as far as cutting her hair. As of Friday night, she was still going with the trusty ponytail, full as it ever was:
By Saturday morning, she was ready. She asked for me to make her an appointment. She said she wanted it short, and could we also have it dyed a dark brown color?
A. Ha. I laughed. Could she have it dyed dark brown. Her hair is dark brown, she just couldn't tell anymore because it's so damaged and bleached out. I assured her that if she cut it short, it would be dark brown.
And so we made the appointment and she excitedly found two pictures online that captured the look she wanted. Pixie cut. Really, really short pixie cut. I wasn't sure she would really go through with it or that she would be happy with it when it was finished. Nonetheless...
...off came half of it in the first snip. The stylist held the fistful of hair in her hand and showed it to Grace. Then Grace took it from her. Her eyes opened like saucers sitting there looking at the massive tresses and feeling the weight in her hand and no longer on her head. And then she smiled and started laughing. She threw the wad to the floor and the stylist went on from there.
You can't tell from the picture, but the toes inside those Converses were wriggling with excitement the whole time.
I gotta say, it looks so cute and so good. We went shopping for about an hour afterward and she just kept saying, I look so mature! I look so stylish! I look so fun!
I guess I'm not such a bad role model for hair care as I thought afterall. And yes, she was relieved to discover that her hair is still dark brown.
Lastly, while downloading pictures off Grace's camera for this post, I found all the other pictures she had taken lately. I wish I could entice you with something spicy, but alas, my daughter appears to be rather well behaved. She did take several pictures of this, though:
It's the Bach Prelude she's in the last stages of working on now. It's getting better and better each day, and bringing joy to my heart each down it springs forth. Kind of like Grace.
Grace was happy enough. She had $11 dollars, enough to buy exactly nothing. There was an Edward Cullen action figure for $20 -- I don't think so. Maybe that was marketed to the adults who knew all the answers to the trivia questions. What do you do with an Edward Cullen action figure anyway?
Despite the rather flat entertainment, there were some payoffs after about an hour. Grace got a free advertising poster for the motion picture soundtrack, which she promptly posted to her bedroom wall the next morning:
And my husband, a fluent French speaker, found something fun to read:
No, I'm not worried that he's getting ready to pick up women in a language I don't speak. We actually loved reading it because we're nerdy linguists and we love to read about how to make language learning more enticing, especially in the US. The book's called Hide This French Book (Berlitz, retail $9.95) and it's full of all the stuff they never teach in language class but that you really, really need to learn if you intend to survive in somewhere that the language is used. Like how to really order drinks and talk about sex (both actively and passively) and gossip and more. After enjoying it for about 30 minutes, we decided Grace didn't need it for her French studies quite yet and $10 was way too much for this kind of information anyway.
Just before midnight rolled around, when all the other fans lined up to buy their DVDs, we decided to go home, smiling because we knew our copy of the DVD had already shipped and we had paid $15 less than we would have at said local bookstore. I know, it's sad; we're taking the sale away from a local bookstore and giving it to a big warehouse dot-com like Amazon. But $15 is still $15, and we figure local businesses, while we strive to given them our business whenever possible, have to be able to compete while not breaking the pocketbooks of local patrons. Alas.
On to other issues. If you'll recall, a month ago the furnace was acting up. We called and had it repaired. But that really didn't quite address the bigger issue: our bedroom that is freezing cold that we still haven't moved into. As it turned out, the repair that the furnace needed was covered under our home warranty, so the money we saved in that slight inconvenience is now being applied to the purchase and installation of a new furnace. The work was completed yesterday. Thank goodness. Now that winter is over, we may have a furnace that works properly and doesn't cost an arm and a leg to operate. The furnace salesman/installation specialist swears that we'll see our winter power bills drop by 20%. I sure hope so.
A much more enjoyable and superfluous detail that I left open-ended was what Grace would decide as far as cutting her hair. As of Friday night, she was still going with the trusty ponytail, full as it ever was:
By Saturday morning, she was ready. She asked for me to make her an appointment. She said she wanted it short, and could we also have it dyed a dark brown color?
A. Ha. I laughed. Could she have it dyed dark brown. Her hair is dark brown, she just couldn't tell anymore because it's so damaged and bleached out. I assured her that if she cut it short, it would be dark brown.
And so we made the appointment and she excitedly found two pictures online that captured the look she wanted. Pixie cut. Really, really short pixie cut. I wasn't sure she would really go through with it or that she would be happy with it when it was finished. Nonetheless...
...off came half of it in the first snip. The stylist held the fistful of hair in her hand and showed it to Grace. Then Grace took it from her. Her eyes opened like saucers sitting there looking at the massive tresses and feeling the weight in her hand and no longer on her head. And then she smiled and started laughing. She threw the wad to the floor and the stylist went on from there.
You can't tell from the picture, but the toes inside those Converses were wriggling with excitement the whole time.
I gotta say, it looks so cute and so good. We went shopping for about an hour afterward and she just kept saying, I look so mature! I look so stylish! I look so fun!
I guess I'm not such a bad role model for hair care as I thought afterall. And yes, she was relieved to discover that her hair is still dark brown.
Lastly, while downloading pictures off Grace's camera for this post, I found all the other pictures she had taken lately. I wish I could entice you with something spicy, but alas, my daughter appears to be rather well behaved. She did take several pictures of this, though:
It's the Bach Prelude she's in the last stages of working on now. It's getting better and better each day, and bringing joy to my heart each down it springs forth. Kind of like Grace.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Follow-up to test taking
I said it yesterday, and I'll repeat it today: THANK YOU to all of you who commented and emailed me about my post regarding Grace and test taking. As many of you noted, I was feeling very scared and very confused and very frustrated. Sometimes the best remedy for that is time to think it through. Time has helped, but it has also helped to get all of the ideas y'all made.
So here's some more information about our situation. Sorry in advance for the very lengthy post, but I wanted to address each of these ideas carefully since I don't think Grace or I are the only people who could benefit from the discussion. Hopefully it will be beneficial to many out there.
Natalie and Amanda both ask about alternative schools, educational approaches, and teaching philosophies out there. Yes, I've thought about this. We do have an alternative high school here that is hugely successful. The philosophy is that students drive their own learning. For the most part, the students design their own curriculum around their interests and learn because they are self-motivated. The high school is uncontroversially ranked highest in the state in scores on state mandated standardized testing, SAT and ACT scores, graduate rate, and placement in colleges (both by numbers and by national ranks of the college/university). Grace was enormously interested in going there. Unfortunately, so is every other 8th grader in the district. They place about 120-125 students in the freshman class every year from about 350-400 applications. No special privileges, no preferential treatment, no consideration of what the student brings to the table. The lucky new freshmen are selected entirely on the basis of lottery. And Grace was number 290-something. So, it's unlikely her number will come up anytime soon.
The high school Grace does go to has its own neighborhood district, but it also includes a magnet program. Several, in fact. The high school curriculum is tailored to one of four broadly defined career fields and the students in the magnet programs are able to spend their 10th, 11th, and 12th grade years in specialized courses that meet state requirements for graduation. Because of this, the high school also has a lottery for incoming freshmen outside the school's prescribed district. We didn't live in the high school's neighborhood district last year, but Grace wanted to put in an application. And she got selected on lottery. Elated, she sent in her acceptance right away. She's hoping she gets into the communication and media magnet program. But again, 40 slots, 400 freshmen, all on random lottery. That's good for Grace, because if it were on merit there's probably no way she'd get in right now without some major strings being pulled.
Another perk of her high school is that they do mastery learning. This means that students don't get away with just checking out of a course, not doing work, and subsequently failing the class and taking it in a watered-down version in summer school. If they get below a C in a class, they have to sign a contract with the teacher and work through the content until it is mastered on their own time in the next term. This is NOT done in a testing format. So for the first term when Grace failed Algebra, she actually got an incomplete and has been working ever since to master the content of tests and quizzes she didn't pass.
So in a sense, Grace already goes to a high school with an alternative approach to education.
All in all, I think where she's at is a good place. Especially given that the only other alternatives would be Catholic school (arguably less flexible) and home schooling (yeah, right, with all my spare time). For those who are curious, if I could do everything all over again knowing everything then that I know now, I would have home-schooled from day one using an unschooling method.
Natalie also asked about whether there's a university close by. More than close by, it's where my husband and I teach and do our research. The school district benefits greatly from this in that they work hard to work with the researchers at the university, do collaborative work, and implement the findings of research directly into the curriculum and the classroom policies. This is especially true of the two high schools that have lotteries for new students (e.g., Grace's high school). For instance, in the two lottery high schools, science is taught as a three-year integrated curriculum. There is no designated biology or chemistry or geology course; the content of these courses is taught topic by topic, since so many scientific topics require learning two or more of the traditional content areas in order to master. It's a bummer to transfer in or out of the system, but if you're in it throughout the four years of high school, the results have proven to be overwhelmingly positive. In the next two school years, all the high schools in the district will have changed completely to this model. Since Natalie suggested seeking advice beyond the district itself, I've seriously thought about going over to the relevant faculty at the school of education once I have more information and asking, what is your best recommendation? We'll see.
Phd in yogurtry and Little Miss Sunshine State both address going through the school for a full evaluation in order to identify any kind of learning disorder and to develop an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) for Grace in order to implement a well-defined set of goals and strategies for meeting those goals in school. You know, if there's one thing I could tell people out there who are watching their child struggle in school, go straight to the guidance counselor or teacher and say you want your child to be evaluated. The school is required to furnish you with information about testing and schedule it in a reasonable amount of time, usually within 45-60 days. It is the law of the land, and your right to this has been fought for long and hard by thousands of parents and educators. Once testing is completed, the school district will assemble a team of relevant professionals, including the parents, in order to determine if the child has a need for special intervention and develop an IEP to address that need. Now that I've given that public service announcement...
I know all about IEPs. I used to write IEPs, actually. My first job out of college as a budding psychology BA was to work in early intervention, that is, assessing and delivering services to children ages birth-36 months with any kind of developmental delay. It's required by law to be funded by every state, free of charge, and it's the precursor to the special education system which is normally available to students from age 3 years+. I assessed the infants and toddlers and wrote IFSPs, Individualized Family Service Plans. Once the child turned 3 years old, our agency worked with the local school district to develop an IEP that would pick up where we left off. So fortunately I benefit from the knowledge of the laws surrounding kids with special needs, the obligations of the educational system, and the process by which kids are helped. More than once I have called the school on violations on the law. When this happened, my standard line was to find the appropriate supervisor and tell them, I could sue the district and win, but I'd really rather that you do your job so that my kid could get what she needs.
Grace has been evaluated three times, once in 3rd grade, once in 4th grade, and then a last time in 6th grade. 3rd was the initial eval for qualification for intervention, 4th was because she was in a new school district after we moved and they were going to end services because they doubted she really had a problem. 6th grade was in that same district and was the mandatory re-eval to determine continued eligibility for intervention. During the re-eval in 6th grade, Grace decided to conscientiously object. She told the psychologist that she didn't want to do the testing. The psychologist persisted through it, and when the results were reported, they were almost comical. When they were presented to the team, my husband and I asked the team why the psychologist even bothered to administer the tests when she knew the conditions would result in unreliable and invalid data. She didn't give a great defense. The special ed teacher was embarrassed and apologized to me afterward. The next academic year, I went through Grace's permanent file and removed all the testing records from the re-eval. Then we came back to district number one without an IEP or a current eval. That was the start of 8th grade.
In earlier evaluations, the main finding was that Grace tested positively for ADD/ADHD and that no other impairment was found. Much to her current chagrin, Grace scored the highest in mathematical reasoning and logic. She showed some delay in planning skills which evidenced itself mostly in written composition, but, as all her educators say today, she's completely overcome the evidence of this deficiency. Still, there's my lingering questions about planning skills -- wouldn't this have an effect on her ability to learn material, studying for a test, and spitting back that information in a testing environment?
Right now our goal (Grace's, mine, the team at the school) is to treat ADD with medicine, put a system in place that keeps Grace motivated to do her work when it's assigned even when she doesn't find it useful or interesting, and have her catch up on all her missing assignments. All this is in process now. Then we meet together in about 3 more weeks. At that point, she'll have no missing assignments, she'll have the benefit of 4 weeks using a medication to treat symptoms of ADD, and we can ask, are her problems solved? Maybe, maybe not. But if they aren't solved, we know we can try and identify what's causing symptoms that are independent of just lack of attention and interest in work (symptoms of ADD).
Joanna and Urban Panther and Little Miss Sunshine State all tell about family members or their own children who dealt with ADD or ADHD. This, I think, is one of the biggest things I am missing. I don't have a group of friends who have kids with the disorder. Or even one friend. I have two friends, each with one daughter, who have had a teacher suggest ADD or ADHD may be the cause of the problems their daughter is experiencing in school. Both rejected the suggestion of ADD/ADHD soundly. Both said that there was nothing wrong with their child, that the school system was deficient somehow. Now, I won't say I can't relate to this idea. The educational system in the US tends to find kids with ADD/ADHD at a much higher rate than in other countries, and these kids are treated as much more impaired than is generally thought elsewhere. For instance, Grace looks perfectly average in Brazil. The idea that a kid doesn't like school so much and talks a lot and likes to be outgoing and festive is pretty normal. However...
I realized recently in tears in a conversation with my husband that part of what makes it so difficult to help a child with ADD/ADHD is that the disorder is associated with trouble. If you're a kindergarten teacher, you'd just as soon not have in your classroom the student who's in the midst of being diagnosed. You want that over-active boy who sometimes can't help but hit other kids when he gets mad on the playground fixed. When I was working in early intervention and we heard a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD, we all groaned; in contrast, we didn't groan when we heard autism or cerebral palsy or speech delay. There's a stigma attached to ADD/ADHD. There's something wrong with the child, and professionals are excused for reacting in a negative way to the symptoms.
What I was crying about with my husband was that I longed for someone to say, "I've been there; it's rough, but it will be ok in the end." All this to say, it felt so good, even from you bloggers out there who I've never met, to hear you assure me of this.
I emailed Grace's assistant principal on Wednesday evening. I told him of my concerns and asked him to keep an eye on tests and quizzes, especially once Grace has completed all missing assignments and she is keeping up with what's going on in the classroom. Hopefully when we meet in three weeks, we won't have lost any time and we can look at this with less confusion and less convoluted circumstances.
Finally, I talked to Grace. I told her how important it was for her to just keep at it. I told her that she was important, that she was smart, and that I wanted all of us in our family to work together on this. I told her that we want to solve at least part of her struggles (keeping up with daily work, having difficulty paying attention), and then we could make sure that anything else causing problems for her could be addressed better. She was receptive to this. As I've said before, she's really the core of this whole thing, and she needs to be in the middle of it, both in terms of working on the problem and in having control over solving the problem.
So here's some more information about our situation. Sorry in advance for the very lengthy post, but I wanted to address each of these ideas carefully since I don't think Grace or I are the only people who could benefit from the discussion. Hopefully it will be beneficial to many out there.
Natalie and Amanda both ask about alternative schools, educational approaches, and teaching philosophies out there. Yes, I've thought about this. We do have an alternative high school here that is hugely successful. The philosophy is that students drive their own learning. For the most part, the students design their own curriculum around their interests and learn because they are self-motivated. The high school is uncontroversially ranked highest in the state in scores on state mandated standardized testing, SAT and ACT scores, graduate rate, and placement in colleges (both by numbers and by national ranks of the college/university). Grace was enormously interested in going there. Unfortunately, so is every other 8th grader in the district. They place about 120-125 students in the freshman class every year from about 350-400 applications. No special privileges, no preferential treatment, no consideration of what the student brings to the table. The lucky new freshmen are selected entirely on the basis of lottery. And Grace was number 290-something. So, it's unlikely her number will come up anytime soon.
The high school Grace does go to has its own neighborhood district, but it also includes a magnet program. Several, in fact. The high school curriculum is tailored to one of four broadly defined career fields and the students in the magnet programs are able to spend their 10th, 11th, and 12th grade years in specialized courses that meet state requirements for graduation. Because of this, the high school also has a lottery for incoming freshmen outside the school's prescribed district. We didn't live in the high school's neighborhood district last year, but Grace wanted to put in an application. And she got selected on lottery. Elated, she sent in her acceptance right away. She's hoping she gets into the communication and media magnet program. But again, 40 slots, 400 freshmen, all on random lottery. That's good for Grace, because if it were on merit there's probably no way she'd get in right now without some major strings being pulled.
Another perk of her high school is that they do mastery learning. This means that students don't get away with just checking out of a course, not doing work, and subsequently failing the class and taking it in a watered-down version in summer school. If they get below a C in a class, they have to sign a contract with the teacher and work through the content until it is mastered on their own time in the next term. This is NOT done in a testing format. So for the first term when Grace failed Algebra, she actually got an incomplete and has been working ever since to master the content of tests and quizzes she didn't pass.
So in a sense, Grace already goes to a high school with an alternative approach to education.
All in all, I think where she's at is a good place. Especially given that the only other alternatives would be Catholic school (arguably less flexible) and home schooling (yeah, right, with all my spare time). For those who are curious, if I could do everything all over again knowing everything then that I know now, I would have home-schooled from day one using an unschooling method.
Natalie also asked about whether there's a university close by. More than close by, it's where my husband and I teach and do our research. The school district benefits greatly from this in that they work hard to work with the researchers at the university, do collaborative work, and implement the findings of research directly into the curriculum and the classroom policies. This is especially true of the two high schools that have lotteries for new students (e.g., Grace's high school). For instance, in the two lottery high schools, science is taught as a three-year integrated curriculum. There is no designated biology or chemistry or geology course; the content of these courses is taught topic by topic, since so many scientific topics require learning two or more of the traditional content areas in order to master. It's a bummer to transfer in or out of the system, but if you're in it throughout the four years of high school, the results have proven to be overwhelmingly positive. In the next two school years, all the high schools in the district will have changed completely to this model. Since Natalie suggested seeking advice beyond the district itself, I've seriously thought about going over to the relevant faculty at the school of education once I have more information and asking, what is your best recommendation? We'll see.
Phd in yogurtry and Little Miss Sunshine State both address going through the school for a full evaluation in order to identify any kind of learning disorder and to develop an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) for Grace in order to implement a well-defined set of goals and strategies for meeting those goals in school. You know, if there's one thing I could tell people out there who are watching their child struggle in school, go straight to the guidance counselor or teacher and say you want your child to be evaluated. The school is required to furnish you with information about testing and schedule it in a reasonable amount of time, usually within 45-60 days. It is the law of the land, and your right to this has been fought for long and hard by thousands of parents and educators. Once testing is completed, the school district will assemble a team of relevant professionals, including the parents, in order to determine if the child has a need for special intervention and develop an IEP to address that need. Now that I've given that public service announcement...
I know all about IEPs. I used to write IEPs, actually. My first job out of college as a budding psychology BA was to work in early intervention, that is, assessing and delivering services to children ages birth-36 months with any kind of developmental delay. It's required by law to be funded by every state, free of charge, and it's the precursor to the special education system which is normally available to students from age 3 years+. I assessed the infants and toddlers and wrote IFSPs, Individualized Family Service Plans. Once the child turned 3 years old, our agency worked with the local school district to develop an IEP that would pick up where we left off. So fortunately I benefit from the knowledge of the laws surrounding kids with special needs, the obligations of the educational system, and the process by which kids are helped. More than once I have called the school on violations on the law. When this happened, my standard line was to find the appropriate supervisor and tell them, I could sue the district and win, but I'd really rather that you do your job so that my kid could get what she needs.
Grace has been evaluated three times, once in 3rd grade, once in 4th grade, and then a last time in 6th grade. 3rd was the initial eval for qualification for intervention, 4th was because she was in a new school district after we moved and they were going to end services because they doubted she really had a problem. 6th grade was in that same district and was the mandatory re-eval to determine continued eligibility for intervention. During the re-eval in 6th grade, Grace decided to conscientiously object. She told the psychologist that she didn't want to do the testing. The psychologist persisted through it, and when the results were reported, they were almost comical. When they were presented to the team, my husband and I asked the team why the psychologist even bothered to administer the tests when she knew the conditions would result in unreliable and invalid data. She didn't give a great defense. The special ed teacher was embarrassed and apologized to me afterward. The next academic year, I went through Grace's permanent file and removed all the testing records from the re-eval. Then we came back to district number one without an IEP or a current eval. That was the start of 8th grade.
In earlier evaluations, the main finding was that Grace tested positively for ADD/ADHD and that no other impairment was found. Much to her current chagrin, Grace scored the highest in mathematical reasoning and logic. She showed some delay in planning skills which evidenced itself mostly in written composition, but, as all her educators say today, she's completely overcome the evidence of this deficiency. Still, there's my lingering questions about planning skills -- wouldn't this have an effect on her ability to learn material, studying for a test, and spitting back that information in a testing environment?
Right now our goal (Grace's, mine, the team at the school) is to treat ADD with medicine, put a system in place that keeps Grace motivated to do her work when it's assigned even when she doesn't find it useful or interesting, and have her catch up on all her missing assignments. All this is in process now. Then we meet together in about 3 more weeks. At that point, she'll have no missing assignments, she'll have the benefit of 4 weeks using a medication to treat symptoms of ADD, and we can ask, are her problems solved? Maybe, maybe not. But if they aren't solved, we know we can try and identify what's causing symptoms that are independent of just lack of attention and interest in work (symptoms of ADD).
Joanna and Urban Panther and Little Miss Sunshine State all tell about family members or their own children who dealt with ADD or ADHD. This, I think, is one of the biggest things I am missing. I don't have a group of friends who have kids with the disorder. Or even one friend. I have two friends, each with one daughter, who have had a teacher suggest ADD or ADHD may be the cause of the problems their daughter is experiencing in school. Both rejected the suggestion of ADD/ADHD soundly. Both said that there was nothing wrong with their child, that the school system was deficient somehow. Now, I won't say I can't relate to this idea. The educational system in the US tends to find kids with ADD/ADHD at a much higher rate than in other countries, and these kids are treated as much more impaired than is generally thought elsewhere. For instance, Grace looks perfectly average in Brazil. The idea that a kid doesn't like school so much and talks a lot and likes to be outgoing and festive is pretty normal. However...
I realized recently in tears in a conversation with my husband that part of what makes it so difficult to help a child with ADD/ADHD is that the disorder is associated with trouble. If you're a kindergarten teacher, you'd just as soon not have in your classroom the student who's in the midst of being diagnosed. You want that over-active boy who sometimes can't help but hit other kids when he gets mad on the playground fixed. When I was working in early intervention and we heard a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD, we all groaned; in contrast, we didn't groan when we heard autism or cerebral palsy or speech delay. There's a stigma attached to ADD/ADHD. There's something wrong with the child, and professionals are excused for reacting in a negative way to the symptoms.
What I was crying about with my husband was that I longed for someone to say, "I've been there; it's rough, but it will be ok in the end." All this to say, it felt so good, even from you bloggers out there who I've never met, to hear you assure me of this.
I emailed Grace's assistant principal on Wednesday evening. I told him of my concerns and asked him to keep an eye on tests and quizzes, especially once Grace has completed all missing assignments and she is keeping up with what's going on in the classroom. Hopefully when we meet in three weeks, we won't have lost any time and we can look at this with less confusion and less convoluted circumstances.
Finally, I talked to Grace. I told her how important it was for her to just keep at it. I told her that she was important, that she was smart, and that I wanted all of us in our family to work together on this. I told her that we want to solve at least part of her struggles (keeping up with daily work, having difficulty paying attention), and then we could make sure that anything else causing problems for her could be addressed better. She was receptive to this. As I've said before, she's really the core of this whole thing, and she needs to be in the middle of it, both in terms of working on the problem and in having control over solving the problem.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Confounding variables
So ADD it is. Apparently things are ok for now in the treatment of that disorder. The main thing we are trying to focus on improving at school is completing every assignment and turning it in on time. Actually, turning it in at all, but if Grace can finish it and turn it in on time, all the better.
And then, an old reminder rears its ugly head. Tests and quizzes. Examinations.
I'm one of those moms who has had too much experience in education and psychology and teaching. I see the grades and the numbers and the performance and I can't help but start evaluating the whole situation. Then I start forming hypotheses. Then I get in the picture and start trying to problem solve. I've said it before -- I'm one of those parents who asks a lot of questions, and wants good answers. I'm not pretentious or rude or patronizing, I just figure if I know the jargon, then meet the educators where they are and talk to them in a way that I know how to. Also, I want to include my daughter in the process and have her understand the jargon, not just have things being said about her and have the words and ideas zoom right past her because they are not being said in a user-friendly kind of way.
Back to tests. Grace is really really bad at being tested. This has cost her a lot in classes with teachers who place a heavy weight on test and quiz scores. English in 7th grade -- F because she never passed her weekly vocabulary tests. Math in 6th grade -- complicated as to why she didn't do well, but mostly attributable to a teacher who ruled with an iron fist and placed a big weight on tests. F. Same in US History in 8th grade. I studied with her for three hours one night for a test. Next day? F on the test. Science in 8th grade. Saved by labs and the science fair. But tests? Straight Fs. Now she's meeting her match in Algebra. Her teacher says she's so frustrated because Grace will know a concept and roll through the problems one after another right in front of her. Then on the test? F. And I don't mean a subtle F. On the last round of tests in Algebra, she got 1 point of 30. That's right -- she scored a 3% on the test. Two performance tests in orchestra this term. Performance, which she ain't bad at. Score? F...and an F.
Then came theatre. The shining light in her day. The class she loves. The class she cannot stop talking about. First test - F. Second test, given yesterday -- F.
Am I frustrated? Yeah, you could say that. It means this is outside of ADD, for all intents and purposes. If she can't transfer the knowledge she has in her head into an examination setting, she's sunk. Really. She probably won't be able to graduate. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I am facing the possibility that something else is going on. Which means more evaluation and testing. And more changes. And things Grace may not like.
I talked to her honestly and openly last night at dinner. I told her I was frustrated and scared, scared because I didn't know how to help her. I told her I was nervous because I wasn't sure she was aware of the problem. I asked her, please, come to us for help! Go to your teachers! Ask them for help! Ask them for information. Ask them exactly what will be on tests, ask them how they will format the test, ask them precisely how you should study, ask us at home for help, get into it!
Then I sent her an email this morning. I told her ideas of how to study. I told her, make a blog. Don't publicize it, just make it. When you're studying for something, just put all the facts in there, make them come alive. Think of different ways to present the ideas.
Or memorize the facts and act them out like you're on stage.
Or draw a picture on drawing paper or on the computer. Use any media you like. Like think, how do I visually present a quadratic equation? How could I use the picture to learn what I need to remember?
Or...
or...
or...
I feel like I'm trying so hard, Grace is trying in her own way, and we are both failing. Quite literally. I told her last night, we do this every year, right? You start the year and try to do it on your own. Somewhere around Christmas time, it comes out that you're not pulling it together. Then we go into massive intervention mode. Somewhere in the spring we all get exhausted and give up. Then the end of the year is horrible, maybe there's summer school, and we start over again the next fall. Then I asked her, how can we stop doing this? How can we nip this in the bud and get everyone else out there to realize, you are a smart person who can learn and be competent?!!?
Suggestions are welcome. For the educational problem Grace is facing and for the emotional problem of mom.
On the bright side of this, my kid is damn talented. Everyone who's seen her blog agrees -- she's a damn good writer and very good at figuring out how to put together a layout and make it aesthetically pleasing. And all this with absolutely no adult intervention. No adult pushed her to do it or helped her with it in any way. She's making a PSA for her English class right now. And she's doing a really good job. Still photos, video, audio (speech, music, and sound effects), all put together into a 2-3 minute project. Really good. She's amazingly sensitive to putting together her outfits and being stylish. And as you all know, I am not the one who bestows gifts of designer trends. She shops secondhand shops and puts it together in her own way, her own creativity of combination and judgment. And it looks great. She creates visual art on her computer that is far beyond her years. She's got the goods, ladies and gentlemen, and that's why it kills me to see her held back by a system. HOW TO GET PAST THE SYSTEM, I ask. HOW?
And then, an old reminder rears its ugly head. Tests and quizzes. Examinations.
I'm one of those moms who has had too much experience in education and psychology and teaching. I see the grades and the numbers and the performance and I can't help but start evaluating the whole situation. Then I start forming hypotheses. Then I get in the picture and start trying to problem solve. I've said it before -- I'm one of those parents who asks a lot of questions, and wants good answers. I'm not pretentious or rude or patronizing, I just figure if I know the jargon, then meet the educators where they are and talk to them in a way that I know how to. Also, I want to include my daughter in the process and have her understand the jargon, not just have things being said about her and have the words and ideas zoom right past her because they are not being said in a user-friendly kind of way.
Back to tests. Grace is really really bad at being tested. This has cost her a lot in classes with teachers who place a heavy weight on test and quiz scores. English in 7th grade -- F because she never passed her weekly vocabulary tests. Math in 6th grade -- complicated as to why she didn't do well, but mostly attributable to a teacher who ruled with an iron fist and placed a big weight on tests. F. Same in US History in 8th grade. I studied with her for three hours one night for a test. Next day? F on the test. Science in 8th grade. Saved by labs and the science fair. But tests? Straight Fs. Now she's meeting her match in Algebra. Her teacher says she's so frustrated because Grace will know a concept and roll through the problems one after another right in front of her. Then on the test? F. And I don't mean a subtle F. On the last round of tests in Algebra, she got 1 point of 30. That's right -- she scored a 3% on the test. Two performance tests in orchestra this term. Performance, which she ain't bad at. Score? F...and an F.
Then came theatre. The shining light in her day. The class she loves. The class she cannot stop talking about. First test - F. Second test, given yesterday -- F.
Am I frustrated? Yeah, you could say that. It means this is outside of ADD, for all intents and purposes. If she can't transfer the knowledge she has in her head into an examination setting, she's sunk. Really. She probably won't be able to graduate. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I am facing the possibility that something else is going on. Which means more evaluation and testing. And more changes. And things Grace may not like.
I talked to her honestly and openly last night at dinner. I told her I was frustrated and scared, scared because I didn't know how to help her. I told her I was nervous because I wasn't sure she was aware of the problem. I asked her, please, come to us for help! Go to your teachers! Ask them for help! Ask them for information. Ask them exactly what will be on tests, ask them how they will format the test, ask them precisely how you should study, ask us at home for help, get into it!
Then I sent her an email this morning. I told her ideas of how to study. I told her, make a blog. Don't publicize it, just make it. When you're studying for something, just put all the facts in there, make them come alive. Think of different ways to present the ideas.
Or memorize the facts and act them out like you're on stage.
Or draw a picture on drawing paper or on the computer. Use any media you like. Like think, how do I visually present a quadratic equation? How could I use the picture to learn what I need to remember?
Or...
or...
or...
I feel like I'm trying so hard, Grace is trying in her own way, and we are both failing. Quite literally. I told her last night, we do this every year, right? You start the year and try to do it on your own. Somewhere around Christmas time, it comes out that you're not pulling it together. Then we go into massive intervention mode. Somewhere in the spring we all get exhausted and give up. Then the end of the year is horrible, maybe there's summer school, and we start over again the next fall. Then I asked her, how can we stop doing this? How can we nip this in the bud and get everyone else out there to realize, you are a smart person who can learn and be competent?!!?
Suggestions are welcome. For the educational problem Grace is facing and for the emotional problem of mom.
On the bright side of this, my kid is damn talented. Everyone who's seen her blog agrees -- she's a damn good writer and very good at figuring out how to put together a layout and make it aesthetically pleasing. And all this with absolutely no adult intervention. No adult pushed her to do it or helped her with it in any way. She's making a PSA for her English class right now. And she's doing a really good job. Still photos, video, audio (speech, music, and sound effects), all put together into a 2-3 minute project. Really good. She's amazingly sensitive to putting together her outfits and being stylish. And as you all know, I am not the one who bestows gifts of designer trends. She shops secondhand shops and puts it together in her own way, her own creativity of combination and judgment. And it looks great. She creates visual art on her computer that is far beyond her years. She's got the goods, ladies and gentlemen, and that's why it kills me to see her held back by a system. HOW TO GET PAST THE SYSTEM, I ask. HOW?
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Coming to terms with who I am
I've written about my frustrations with organized religion. In a separate vein, I've written about my frustrations with my daughter and her difficulties in school, personal organization, emotional development, and maturing in general. Today I will bring these two together. Why? Because I realize that they are both exacerbated by the same mixed bag I bring to the table from my childhood.
Yesterday I wrote about parenting a kid with ADHD, how I realized it was like being in a desert in that I was dying of thirst for someone, anyone, to volunteer praise for my daughter. For more than 10 years of formal education, I've heard that she was "within the normal range of development in most areas," that there are things she "needs to work on," what her "areas of improvement" should be, and what her "developing skills" are. I've stood by teachers who gave her a stern talking-to, hoping that this one would be the one that would jump-start the maturity. I've concluded that, whereas the politically correct language used to address students with ADHD is better than the labels I got as a kid, as a parent I know (and I presume my daughter knows) what these euphemisms really mean. They mean that something is wrong with your kid and it needs to change. It means the kid isn't what the educational system wants, really. What they want is for your kid to be different than what they are.
Through a series of comedic errors, she's never officially been diagnosed with ADHD. Oh, if I told you the whole story, you would laugh out loud. It seems as though the teachers who complain the loudest and most frequently are also the slowest at taking action when you ask them to objectively report on the student for the purposes of diagnosis by a physician or psychologist. I'll save my many stories because, frankly, there are too many to mention and I get so angry just thinking through the whole saga. After more than a decade I discovered that it made no difference whether Grace had a label of ADHD or not. It made no difference whether there was an IEP or a special ed folder or not. Grace does well in a classroom when a teacher is willing to see her for who she is and adapt to her. And Grace does terribly in a classroom when a teacher decides that Grace needs to conform to the rigid way school has always been done.
Inevitably when I think through these things, I realize I am not objective in my thinking. No, I don't mean that because I am Grace's mother I can't see her shortcomings, er, ah, I mean, challenges accurately. I mean that many times when I watch her and hear what her teachers say about her, I find myself instantly taken back to childhood. Most of us over the age of 30 never even considered ADHD or ADD until we were parents, which leads to a looming question: what does an adult with the disorder look like? I don't know, but I do know that many times when I hear what Grace's educators say, I think, you just don't understand because you've never felt it. It doesn't feel wrong or flawed when it's your mind and your actions; it just feels like who you are. You can't just BE different; you are who you are.
As a child (and a teen, and a young adult, and...) I talked too much. My mind wandered in the classroom. I was hopelessly disorganized. This all led to a poor performance in school, both academically and behavior-wise. I remember one year especially well, 5th grade. My trouble started with unfinished schoolwork, but once I was realized where I was on the scale of good-to-bad based on not turning in schoolwork, my behavior in other areas declined as well. My class ate lunch outside on picnic tables and then got to play after eating. However, if you hadn't turned in an assignment, you were "benched" for lunch and recess time. This meant you sat at a table with the teacher, eating your lunch without being allowed to talk to anyone, and then worked on schoolwork. I was benched the entire year. No, really! I didn't have lunch with my friends once that year. It quickly became clear that I was at the very bottom of the barrel in terms of getting into trouble. No one was benched as often or scolded as much or behind in as many subjects and assignments as I was. I was the worst.
It didn't take long for my enthusiasm for school to wane completely. I faked being sick a lot just so I wouldn't have to go. I avoided my teachers completely. I stopped doing schoolwork altogether unless someone forced me to do it (and yes, there were some drastic measures taken to get me to do some of it). I virtually dropped out of academics entirely and went to school only because I was forced to. This attitude pretty much prevailed for another school year. By the end of 6th grade I was failing half of my subjects. Somehow by the time I started middle school in 7th grade I felt it was more socially beneficial to do well in school and changed gradually.
To this day I look back on that point in my life and realize that was when I felt there was no advocate. I was alone, and completely screwed up. And though I survived academically, I'm not sure I survived emotionally and spiritually.
I didn't have the benefit of an educational system that understood or adapted to this. I was deemed to be a troublemaker, a slacker, and one who was "not living up to her potential." The school endorsed, embraced, and implemented at every turn a philosophy that children were to be molded into good and proper and righteous individuals. This meant children were to be hard workers, submissive to authority, and well-behaved, constantly being reminded that they are God's representatives on earth. Accordingly any deviation from good behavior was deemed "un-Christ-like" and an appropriate punishment was issued. The system was based in classical conditioning, most specifically that negative enforcement (=punishment) would result is a cessation of un-Christ-like behavior. I guess no one there knew that behaviorism died in the 1950s with the cognitive revolution, but hey, they were traditionalist so maybe they didn't mind.
I won't say my experience was all bad. A few times everything came together and I was able to benefit from the efforts of my parents and my teachers. But one thing was massively clear to me: my shortcomings, the issues I struggled with on a daily basis, were not minor. They were sins and I was sinful for not changing them.
"Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not stray from it." It's Proverbs 22:6. I'll have you know, I heard that bible verse so many times that I didn't even have to look it up to include it here. Granted, reading it now, there is nothing about this passage that necessarily means you must constantly punish children in order to get them to conform to the way you think all children should be. But as far as I can see that was the interpretation of the school I went to and the adults around it.
Two things came out of this experience. First I concluded that I'm not a good person. Given a doctrine of original sin, that's not necessarily a problem. But it is a problem if who you are, your very personality traits and tendencies, are deemed to be sinful. To say that a kid who talks too much and can't stop is sinful is as ridiculous as saying that a child who has a vision problem and can't correct the vision is sinful. But nonetheless, that was what I consciously concluded. Whatever it takes to be a good Christian, I just don't have it. So why keep trying at something that you're bad at? (I wish I could say that this conclusion was erroneous in my youth, based on the incomplete data set of just a few bad days at school, but alas, as an adult my uppity-ness still seems to get in the way of being a good christian woman. So I still ask, why keep trying to something you're clearly not cut out to do well?)
Second, I realized that education should not be all about getting kids to behave in a way that is deemed socially acceptable. Yes, you need some semblance of order to have a group of students together, but what if a child simply cannot stop talking and daydreaming no matter how hard she tries? I have sat through many parent-teacher meetings and marveled at how little some educators were able to imagine what it was like to be Grace. It was as if her perspective was irrelevant and the only one that mattered was that of the adults. Just so you know, I never go to parent-teacher conferences anymore. As of 7th grade, we have parent-teacher-student conferences and I encourage Grace to say what's on her mind while listening to her teachers.
There's a more important issue in all this, which is what impact this has on me. And that is what this blog revolves around, you see. When I see my daughter struggle, I so often see myself. When she is misunderstood or misjudged, when she is in trouble, when she is down, so many times I see myself. I wish I could say that I worked all those feelings out, but clearly I haven't. And my feelings drive my desire to want to shield her from the world, whether that's the best thing for her or not. So, I march onward trying to sort all this out.
Yesterday I wrote about parenting a kid with ADHD, how I realized it was like being in a desert in that I was dying of thirst for someone, anyone, to volunteer praise for my daughter. For more than 10 years of formal education, I've heard that she was "within the normal range of development in most areas," that there are things she "needs to work on," what her "areas of improvement" should be, and what her "developing skills" are. I've stood by teachers who gave her a stern talking-to, hoping that this one would be the one that would jump-start the maturity. I've concluded that, whereas the politically correct language used to address students with ADHD is better than the labels I got as a kid, as a parent I know (and I presume my daughter knows) what these euphemisms really mean. They mean that something is wrong with your kid and it needs to change. It means the kid isn't what the educational system wants, really. What they want is for your kid to be different than what they are.
Through a series of comedic errors, she's never officially been diagnosed with ADHD. Oh, if I told you the whole story, you would laugh out loud. It seems as though the teachers who complain the loudest and most frequently are also the slowest at taking action when you ask them to objectively report on the student for the purposes of diagnosis by a physician or psychologist. I'll save my many stories because, frankly, there are too many to mention and I get so angry just thinking through the whole saga. After more than a decade I discovered that it made no difference whether Grace had a label of ADHD or not. It made no difference whether there was an IEP or a special ed folder or not. Grace does well in a classroom when a teacher is willing to see her for who she is and adapt to her. And Grace does terribly in a classroom when a teacher decides that Grace needs to conform to the rigid way school has always been done.
Inevitably when I think through these things, I realize I am not objective in my thinking. No, I don't mean that because I am Grace's mother I can't see her shortcomings, er, ah, I mean, challenges accurately. I mean that many times when I watch her and hear what her teachers say about her, I find myself instantly taken back to childhood. Most of us over the age of 30 never even considered ADHD or ADD until we were parents, which leads to a looming question: what does an adult with the disorder look like? I don't know, but I do know that many times when I hear what Grace's educators say, I think, you just don't understand because you've never felt it. It doesn't feel wrong or flawed when it's your mind and your actions; it just feels like who you are. You can't just BE different; you are who you are.
As a child (and a teen, and a young adult, and...) I talked too much. My mind wandered in the classroom. I was hopelessly disorganized. This all led to a poor performance in school, both academically and behavior-wise. I remember one year especially well, 5th grade. My trouble started with unfinished schoolwork, but once I was realized where I was on the scale of good-to-bad based on not turning in schoolwork, my behavior in other areas declined as well. My class ate lunch outside on picnic tables and then got to play after eating. However, if you hadn't turned in an assignment, you were "benched" for lunch and recess time. This meant you sat at a table with the teacher, eating your lunch without being allowed to talk to anyone, and then worked on schoolwork. I was benched the entire year. No, really! I didn't have lunch with my friends once that year. It quickly became clear that I was at the very bottom of the barrel in terms of getting into trouble. No one was benched as often or scolded as much or behind in as many subjects and assignments as I was. I was the worst.
It didn't take long for my enthusiasm for school to wane completely. I faked being sick a lot just so I wouldn't have to go. I avoided my teachers completely. I stopped doing schoolwork altogether unless someone forced me to do it (and yes, there were some drastic measures taken to get me to do some of it). I virtually dropped out of academics entirely and went to school only because I was forced to. This attitude pretty much prevailed for another school year. By the end of 6th grade I was failing half of my subjects. Somehow by the time I started middle school in 7th grade I felt it was more socially beneficial to do well in school and changed gradually.
To this day I look back on that point in my life and realize that was when I felt there was no advocate. I was alone, and completely screwed up. And though I survived academically, I'm not sure I survived emotionally and spiritually.
I didn't have the benefit of an educational system that understood or adapted to this. I was deemed to be a troublemaker, a slacker, and one who was "not living up to her potential." The school endorsed, embraced, and implemented at every turn a philosophy that children were to be molded into good and proper and righteous individuals. This meant children were to be hard workers, submissive to authority, and well-behaved, constantly being reminded that they are God's representatives on earth. Accordingly any deviation from good behavior was deemed "un-Christ-like" and an appropriate punishment was issued. The system was based in classical conditioning, most specifically that negative enforcement (=punishment) would result is a cessation of un-Christ-like behavior. I guess no one there knew that behaviorism died in the 1950s with the cognitive revolution, but hey, they were traditionalist so maybe they didn't mind.
I won't say my experience was all bad. A few times everything came together and I was able to benefit from the efforts of my parents and my teachers. But one thing was massively clear to me: my shortcomings, the issues I struggled with on a daily basis, were not minor. They were sins and I was sinful for not changing them.
"Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not stray from it." It's Proverbs 22:6. I'll have you know, I heard that bible verse so many times that I didn't even have to look it up to include it here. Granted, reading it now, there is nothing about this passage that necessarily means you must constantly punish children in order to get them to conform to the way you think all children should be. But as far as I can see that was the interpretation of the school I went to and the adults around it.
Two things came out of this experience. First I concluded that I'm not a good person. Given a doctrine of original sin, that's not necessarily a problem. But it is a problem if who you are, your very personality traits and tendencies, are deemed to be sinful. To say that a kid who talks too much and can't stop is sinful is as ridiculous as saying that a child who has a vision problem and can't correct the vision is sinful. But nonetheless, that was what I consciously concluded. Whatever it takes to be a good Christian, I just don't have it. So why keep trying at something that you're bad at? (I wish I could say that this conclusion was erroneous in my youth, based on the incomplete data set of just a few bad days at school, but alas, as an adult my uppity-ness still seems to get in the way of being a good christian woman. So I still ask, why keep trying to something you're clearly not cut out to do well?)
Second, I realized that education should not be all about getting kids to behave in a way that is deemed socially acceptable. Yes, you need some semblance of order to have a group of students together, but what if a child simply cannot stop talking and daydreaming no matter how hard she tries? I have sat through many parent-teacher meetings and marveled at how little some educators were able to imagine what it was like to be Grace. It was as if her perspective was irrelevant and the only one that mattered was that of the adults. Just so you know, I never go to parent-teacher conferences anymore. As of 7th grade, we have parent-teacher-student conferences and I encourage Grace to say what's on her mind while listening to her teachers.
There's a more important issue in all this, which is what impact this has on me. And that is what this blog revolves around, you see. When I see my daughter struggle, I so often see myself. When she is misunderstood or misjudged, when she is in trouble, when she is down, so many times I see myself. I wish I could say that I worked all those feelings out, but clearly I haven't. And my feelings drive my desire to want to shield her from the world, whether that's the best thing for her or not. So, I march onward trying to sort all this out.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Good teachers are a gift.
I recognize that my kid may not be the dream-come-true student for many teachers. She talks too much, she gets distracted, and she has a difficult time paying attention to something she doesn't find interesting. In many ways she is a square peg in the round hole that school presents to her. Thus when she gets a good teacher, I jump up and down in excitement because I know this one is worth their weight in gold.Grace has an amazing collection of teachers this year. I really cannot say enough about this. You know, you go through years of schooling as a student and as a parent and sometimes you hit some real duds, so when you get a good one, you know it. I, for one, am the first one to tell a good teacher thank you. I know teaching has its ups and its downs and that on some days and with some students it is really a pain. I really cannot do enough for my child's teachers to encourage them that I really am appreciative for all that they do.
One teacher in particular stands out this year -- Grace's science teacher. I can't say enough about him. He is magnificent. He has so many excellent ideas about philosophy of life, er, I mean, philosophy of teaching (is there a difference?). This weekend when I read his weekly newsletter in my email inbox, I couldn't help but yell out in exuberance, "oh, YES!"
On the second page, with a bright red header, he included a short 300 word blurb about ways parents should encourage students who are less than enthusiastic about doing their schoolwork (read: slackers who text message and facebook all day instead of finishing their schoolwork). The teacher wrote, if a parent is threatening to take away privileges (like cell phone use) yet not following through on the threat, the parent is wasting their time. Rather, do what you need to do (like take the cell phone away) and say 'get to work and all will be good again.' Yes, teens will argue and yell and tirade about the swift actions rather than threats, however parents should use the line "I love you too much to argue." Similarly, the teacher uses the line "I respect you too much to argue."
I knew he was good before this tidbit, but oh, I was elated to finally see a teacher who wasn't just talking straight to parents about a philosophy of parenting but also implementing this philosophy in the classroom! Let me explain. Sometimes when I get a phone call from a teacher about a problem with Grace at school, I sense that the call is simply a gripe session. The teacher has called not just to inform me the parent of what the situation is, but to recuse themselves of the situation and place the responsibility for the events solely in my hands. While I agree that parents and discipline at home does have an effect on school behavior and performance, not every problem at school has its roots at home. When I sense that a phone call is developing towards a blame game, I ask the teacher, 'what do you do in your classroom about the situation?' If there is not a satisfactory answer, I explain what we do at home, and encourage the teacher that I will have their back if they are extra strict on my daughter in areas that are causing a disruptions in the classroom. That's usually the last phone call I get.
Word has it that in the district, I am a "tough" parent who "asks hard questions." That's good. I want teachers who ask hard questions too. I want cooperation between home and teachers and schools, not an assumption that teaching is all the school or all at home.
See, I am the parent who took away the cell phone. And the iPod and the Nintendo DS. And the Video Now. And locks the channels on the tv when I'm not at home. And password protects the wireless internet in the house. I limit phone calls on school nights, I make sure my kid dresses in a way for school that doesn't distract her or others. I'm the one who told her that no matter how much she wants to be a professional actress, she is not allowed to audition for a play until I see two consecutive grade reports on honor roll. And if she doesn't pass French this term with a B or higher, she's not even getting to take the theatre course.
I make sure that at every turn I remind her that her education is important and should be prioritized.
I had Grace read the teacher's blurb. About halfway through she started smirking. By the time she got to the end she was smiling. I told her I loved her and it looked like she had a super teacher who really cared about her success in school and in life. Then I emailed the teacher to thank him. He replied "Hey, thanks for the positive comment on the newsletter and my philosophy in the class. Grace is great in class."
Oh, YES!!!!!!!!! Grace is great in class! It happened! It finally happened! I contacted a teacher of Grace's and the reply was POSITIVE!!! YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!!!!!
I didn't realize how dry the desert was out there looking for a positive sign from her teachers. Over the years I have developed an ability to always find the silver lining in whatever her teachers communicate to me. Because all of what they communicate is negative. I never get a note home that says, "Grace is great in my class." I never get a teacher seeing me and approaching me to talk about Grace in a positive way. My correspondences with Grace's teachers have always been tainted with something that needs to be improved, changed, remedied, etc. I wish I could say that I am overgeneralizing on this, but alas, I am not. I have never gotten an unadulterated compliment of my daughter's performance or behavior or person from one of her teachers.
I don't think I realized how down I was about this. I'm sure Grace has felt my emotions about this. I'm sure it hasn't helped her to be working in an environment that projects this negativity upon her (both home and school).
So, two lessons learned. First, as a parent, stand by your kid. No matter how much negative feedback you get from the school, no matter how much you have to reprimand you kid to get them on track, no matter how frustrated you feel about the situation, stand by them and encourage them. You may be the only one who communicates this positive message to them. Second, as a teacher, remember that the problem student in your class may NEVER have had a teacher or coach or scout leader or counselor or anyone ever tell them they were good at something. If you approach them as someone who needs fixing, you just add to the negative message. You are not the one they have been waiting for who is going to send the right harsh message to get their butt in gear; rather, you are probably the 10th or 20th or 100th person to think you are so enlightened. These students especially need positive messages.
Tomorrow, I have a feeling we're going to delve deeper into Heather's experience as a childhood troublemaker.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Money management
How old were you when you understood the value of a dollar? How easy did money find its way into your hands when you were a kid? We were middle/upper-middle class suburban kids with pre-babyboomer parents and solid depression-era grandparents. They were loving and generous, but they knew the value of a dollar and doggone it, they were going to make sure the kids learned that value too. My granddaddy, God rest his soul, gave us each a quarter when we came to visit he and my grandma in Hialeah, Florida. Once I had the coin firmly in my hot little hands, he took us to the local five and dime called Murphy's and let us stroll the candy aisle. With 25¢ we could afford to buy a candy bar and some smaller accompaniment like a simple sucker or a few pieces of 1¢ Super bubble gum. I especially loved getting bubble gum in flavors like sour apple and watermelon.
Oh, I was an impulse purchaser. The coolest new thing I saw, I wanted it. I had to really really work to save money. My middle sister (that is, not my oldest older sister) was amazingly disciplined in saving money. She always seemed to have bills folded up into neat wads in her tiny wallet. She not only was disciplined in her saving and spending, but in her loaning. It didn't matter how much I pleaded with her, she was very reluctant to loan money to me, her younger and much more financially irresponsible sister. And as well she should have been because I was a bad credit risk. I had no reliable income, I didn't have a good credit history, and I was usually completely insolvent. I suppose if I had been the sister of a loan officers at one of the many faltering U.S. banks, these problems wouldn't have prevented me from getting a dime or two for one more candy bar. But not my sister; she was a wise cookie. Today she is still very frugal, conservative, and frankly, solvent.
There was one exception to my sister's willingness to involve her finances with mine, which was called "putting our monies together." I was a savvy scam artist, I was. I swear that I don't remember actually pitching this and conceiving of it as a scam, but I may just be repressing the memories in order to feel better about myself. I would propose to my sister that we put our money together. In my young age, I didn't realize "money" was a mass noun that needed no plural marker, thus the term "monies." By having a larger pot of money, we would be able to purchase things that neither of us would otherwise be able to afford. It was always for a good cause - a new accompaniment for our ever-growing amassment of Barbie stuff, a big box of special chocolates, or when we got a little older, a pair of earrings that were très magnifique. It worked. The money would all get put in one pot, but before we could ever agree on what it was we would buy, we would get into a fight so awful that a parent would have to intervene. The only resolution at that point was to divide the money up. But (and here comes the scam part) we of course never kept records of how much each of us had contributed to the kitty. The total amount was divided into two equal parts and given to each of us -- guess who always came out ahead in the end ;-) My sister learned after a couple rounds of this type of transaction to always keep a careful accounting of her assets. Like I said, she's one smart cookie financially.
In light of all of these influences, a frugal older sister, frugal parents, frugal upbringing, I learned to curb my spending habits somewhat and be less impulsive.
Now I find myself trying to teach a kid to value a dollar. She has no older sisters to negotiate with or to be jealous of as I was when I realized my older sister always had money and I didn't. Worse, she has a set of parents and grandparents who are not so frugal. My husband and I are penny-pinchers and my family treats Grace in the same way they treated myself in childhood, however, there's also Grace's paternal side of the family who are not so frugal. The bottom line is, Grace never really has had to budget or plan or do without because there's always someone there to give money or gifts to her when she asks.
This set of circumstances has led to a teenager who NEVER has money. The second she gets it, she spends it all. I don't know if she even thinks before she spends. She buys things that she wants without ever thinking about whether it is worth what she's spending on it. About a year ago, she and I had a conversation in which I tried to illustrate this last principle to her. I asked her, if we were on a road trip and we stopped at the only rest stop for 500 miles and you wanted a soda, but they were charging $50 for a single 20 ounce soda bottle, would you buy it? Without even batting an eyelash she replied, 'yes, because I wouldn't be able to get it anywhere else.'
So, this brings us to where we are now. As of Saturday morning, Grace owed me $80. It's a long story how she ended up in debt to me, but nonetheless that was the situation. Since we're trying to teach about financial responsibility and budgeting and planning, this debt has been an opportunity for her to discover how being in debt cripples you a bit. I haven't been giving her money at all. But on Saturday afternoon we had family in town and she and her cousin wanted to go to the mall. She asked if she could have some money so I gave her the smallest bill I had, a twenty, and told her her to bring $10 back. 5 hours later she sat in the living room showing me a $3 top from Aeropostale, a $5 set of rings from H&M, a $5 stick of lipgloss from Bath and Body Works, and receipts from Auntie Anne's and Starbucks. I asked why she spent the $10 that I wanted back and she answered, "whatever."
My resolution? I told her, you now owe me $20 more dollars. I gave you the $10 freely, but you spent more than that, so now you have to pay it all back. Return what you can to the mall and give me the cash immediately. And as a final punishment, I don't care what it is you want, I don't care how much it means to you, I will not give you any more money until the debt is paid off. I told her she should be grateful because a credit card company wouldn't be nearly so gracious with over limit fees and default of payment.
She made a plan to got to the mall on Tuesday to return the items and she gave me all the money she had in the world at that point, $5 in change. Which brought us to a total of $95 of debt.
Here comes the heartbreaking part.
Tuesday night she came to me and said she needed $10 for t-shirts the swim team is buying. The proceeds from the sale of the shirts support breast-cancer awareness and the proceeds from their purchase are going towards research on breast cancer. The team has been working on their design for several weeks now and all the girls are extremely excited about this. And it's a team thing; if you're the only one on the team who doesn't have a t-shirt, where does that put you? But, but...ugh. I can't go back on my word and bend. It's not that I think the expense is unreasonable, it's that I can't give her the money for the t-shirt. It's that giving her another $10 means that I will have sacrificed the whole lesson because one t-shirt means a lot to her.
If this whole lesson works and Grace ends up on the other end as a financially responsible young adult, I will say that this was worth it. But it makes me sick to see her realize she really messed up and have to pay the price for it.
Oh, I was an impulse purchaser. The coolest new thing I saw, I wanted it. I had to really really work to save money. My middle sister (that is, not my oldest older sister) was amazingly disciplined in saving money. She always seemed to have bills folded up into neat wads in her tiny wallet. She not only was disciplined in her saving and spending, but in her loaning. It didn't matter how much I pleaded with her, she was very reluctant to loan money to me, her younger and much more financially irresponsible sister. And as well she should have been because I was a bad credit risk. I had no reliable income, I didn't have a good credit history, and I was usually completely insolvent. I suppose if I had been the sister of a loan officers at one of the many faltering U.S. banks, these problems wouldn't have prevented me from getting a dime or two for one more candy bar. But not my sister; she was a wise cookie. Today she is still very frugal, conservative, and frankly, solvent.
There was one exception to my sister's willingness to involve her finances with mine, which was called "putting our monies together." I was a savvy scam artist, I was. I swear that I don't remember actually pitching this and conceiving of it as a scam, but I may just be repressing the memories in order to feel better about myself. I would propose to my sister that we put our money together. In my young age, I didn't realize "money" was a mass noun that needed no plural marker, thus the term "monies." By having a larger pot of money, we would be able to purchase things that neither of us would otherwise be able to afford. It was always for a good cause - a new accompaniment for our ever-growing amassment of Barbie stuff, a big box of special chocolates, or when we got a little older, a pair of earrings that were très magnifique. It worked. The money would all get put in one pot, but before we could ever agree on what it was we would buy, we would get into a fight so awful that a parent would have to intervene. The only resolution at that point was to divide the money up. But (and here comes the scam part) we of course never kept records of how much each of us had contributed to the kitty. The total amount was divided into two equal parts and given to each of us -- guess who always came out ahead in the end ;-) My sister learned after a couple rounds of this type of transaction to always keep a careful accounting of her assets. Like I said, she's one smart cookie financially.
In light of all of these influences, a frugal older sister, frugal parents, frugal upbringing, I learned to curb my spending habits somewhat and be less impulsive.
Now I find myself trying to teach a kid to value a dollar. She has no older sisters to negotiate with or to be jealous of as I was when I realized my older sister always had money and I didn't. Worse, she has a set of parents and grandparents who are not so frugal. My husband and I are penny-pinchers and my family treats Grace in the same way they treated myself in childhood, however, there's also Grace's paternal side of the family who are not so frugal. The bottom line is, Grace never really has had to budget or plan or do without because there's always someone there to give money or gifts to her when she asks.
This set of circumstances has led to a teenager who NEVER has money. The second she gets it, she spends it all. I don't know if she even thinks before she spends. She buys things that she wants without ever thinking about whether it is worth what she's spending on it. About a year ago, she and I had a conversation in which I tried to illustrate this last principle to her. I asked her, if we were on a road trip and we stopped at the only rest stop for 500 miles and you wanted a soda, but they were charging $50 for a single 20 ounce soda bottle, would you buy it? Without even batting an eyelash she replied, 'yes, because I wouldn't be able to get it anywhere else.'
So, this brings us to where we are now. As of Saturday morning, Grace owed me $80. It's a long story how she ended up in debt to me, but nonetheless that was the situation. Since we're trying to teach about financial responsibility and budgeting and planning, this debt has been an opportunity for her to discover how being in debt cripples you a bit. I haven't been giving her money at all. But on Saturday afternoon we had family in town and she and her cousin wanted to go to the mall. She asked if she could have some money so I gave her the smallest bill I had, a twenty, and told her her to bring $10 back. 5 hours later she sat in the living room showing me a $3 top from Aeropostale, a $5 set of rings from H&M, a $5 stick of lipgloss from Bath and Body Works, and receipts from Auntie Anne's and Starbucks. I asked why she spent the $10 that I wanted back and she answered, "whatever."
My resolution? I told her, you now owe me $20 more dollars. I gave you the $10 freely, but you spent more than that, so now you have to pay it all back. Return what you can to the mall and give me the cash immediately. And as a final punishment, I don't care what it is you want, I don't care how much it means to you, I will not give you any more money until the debt is paid off. I told her she should be grateful because a credit card company wouldn't be nearly so gracious with over limit fees and default of payment.
She made a plan to got to the mall on Tuesday to return the items and she gave me all the money she had in the world at that point, $5 in change. Which brought us to a total of $95 of debt.
Here comes the heartbreaking part.
Tuesday night she came to me and said she needed $10 for t-shirts the swim team is buying. The proceeds from the sale of the shirts support breast-cancer awareness and the proceeds from their purchase are going towards research on breast cancer. The team has been working on their design for several weeks now and all the girls are extremely excited about this. And it's a team thing; if you're the only one on the team who doesn't have a t-shirt, where does that put you? But, but...ugh. I can't go back on my word and bend. It's not that I think the expense is unreasonable, it's that I can't give her the money for the t-shirt. It's that giving her another $10 means that I will have sacrificed the whole lesson because one t-shirt means a lot to her.
If this whole lesson works and Grace ends up on the other end as a financially responsible young adult, I will say that this was worth it. But it makes me sick to see her realize she really messed up and have to pay the price for it.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Lesson for life
I have a bachelor's degree in psychology. As many people know who have either attempted and/or earned a degree in the field, there's a big hurdle that must be jumped over early in your career: statistics. When I took introductory statistics, it was my first semester back at college after taking a two-year hiatus to get married and have a baby and to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had scheduled 8a classes for every day and had a full 17 hours load. I wanted to be done with this degree already. My Mon/Wed 8a was statistics lab, with the lecture in the afternoon at 1p. After the lecture, I walked home and hopefully found my daughter asleep at her nap.
I liked the class ok; I got a B+. The course was what is referred to in the trade as a "weed-out" course, though -- a course that is designed to challenge students at the start of studies so that only the strong survive. In a field like psychology it made sense I guess because tons of students come to college thinking psychology is what they want when it really is not. Nonetheless, stats was something you had to approach with gusto and courage.
The course was taught by Dr. Roger E. Kirk. He wrote the textbook used: Statistics: An Introduction. He headed the PhD program in psychological statistics. He was one of the most senior colleagues in the department and in his field. He was an expert in a field that charges a pretty penny for its services. He could have done anything other than teach 220 reluctant undergraduates introductory statistics every fall and spring semester. But he was clear to tell his large lecture every semester, he continues to teach the class because he feels it is important for him to teach beginning students.
The course material is dry and Dr. Kirk knew it. He was not a charismatic teacher, but he was sensitive to the attention level of his students. When he sensed that a good portion of the class was tuning out, he would stop and go down what he called "a bunny trail." He would tell us about his wife and a ballroom dancing event they attended together. He would tell stories about his own experience as a student and how he reacted to pretentious leaders of the field when they were less than kind (names withheld ;-) ) Or he would just say what was going on in his garden or some inconvenience in his daily life or a recent cooking experiment he and his wife cooked up. He cared that we as students were there and that we would likely not succeed if we saw our instructor as insensitive to our struggle to even pay attention.
Perhaps the best lesson I ever learned in a classroom I learned from Dr. Kirk. On the last day of lecture, at the very end of the lecture, Dr. Kirk set aside 5 minutes to give us one last lesson. He stood in front of the classroom in his same humble and reserved posture and addressed us all. As we had learned from him before, he reminded us that he had finished a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in music. He played the trombone or the trumpet, I can't remember which. He had thought his entire life he would be a professional musician. But he said that he realized he wasn't very good at playing the instrument. Yes, he could understand the principles he had learned, but he had to face the fact that he wasn't good at the career he was pursuing. It was at this turning point in his life that he applied to his PhD program in psychology and went on to become one of the leaders in the field of modern statistics. The moral of the story, he told us, is that we may have struggled through the class and found ourselves questioning our value, our worth, and our ability to do anything right. But the important thing to realize is that our success in one course in college is not indicative of our overall abilities. Maybe we just hadn't found what we were really experts at yet. He said, I am glad to have gotten to teach you, and I look forward to what each and every one of you will do in your life, regardless of what that is.
In all of my studies and training, I'm very grateful I got to hear that lesson. It helps keep everything in perspective.
I liked the class ok; I got a B+. The course was what is referred to in the trade as a "weed-out" course, though -- a course that is designed to challenge students at the start of studies so that only the strong survive. In a field like psychology it made sense I guess because tons of students come to college thinking psychology is what they want when it really is not. Nonetheless, stats was something you had to approach with gusto and courage.
The course was taught by Dr. Roger E. Kirk. He wrote the textbook used: Statistics: An Introduction. He headed the PhD program in psychological statistics. He was one of the most senior colleagues in the department and in his field. He was an expert in a field that charges a pretty penny for its services. He could have done anything other than teach 220 reluctant undergraduates introductory statistics every fall and spring semester. But he was clear to tell his large lecture every semester, he continues to teach the class because he feels it is important for him to teach beginning students.
The course material is dry and Dr. Kirk knew it. He was not a charismatic teacher, but he was sensitive to the attention level of his students. When he sensed that a good portion of the class was tuning out, he would stop and go down what he called "a bunny trail." He would tell us about his wife and a ballroom dancing event they attended together. He would tell stories about his own experience as a student and how he reacted to pretentious leaders of the field when they were less than kind (names withheld ;-) ) Or he would just say what was going on in his garden or some inconvenience in his daily life or a recent cooking experiment he and his wife cooked up. He cared that we as students were there and that we would likely not succeed if we saw our instructor as insensitive to our struggle to even pay attention.
Perhaps the best lesson I ever learned in a classroom I learned from Dr. Kirk. On the last day of lecture, at the very end of the lecture, Dr. Kirk set aside 5 minutes to give us one last lesson. He stood in front of the classroom in his same humble and reserved posture and addressed us all. As we had learned from him before, he reminded us that he had finished a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in music. He played the trombone or the trumpet, I can't remember which. He had thought his entire life he would be a professional musician. But he said that he realized he wasn't very good at playing the instrument. Yes, he could understand the principles he had learned, but he had to face the fact that he wasn't good at the career he was pursuing. It was at this turning point in his life that he applied to his PhD program in psychology and went on to become one of the leaders in the field of modern statistics. The moral of the story, he told us, is that we may have struggled through the class and found ourselves questioning our value, our worth, and our ability to do anything right. But the important thing to realize is that our success in one course in college is not indicative of our overall abilities. Maybe we just hadn't found what we were really experts at yet. He said, I am glad to have gotten to teach you, and I look forward to what each and every one of you will do in your life, regardless of what that is.
In all of my studies and training, I'm very grateful I got to hear that lesson. It helps keep everything in perspective.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
AAUW reports on so-called "boys' crisis"
Recently the 'boy's crisis' has made headlines, reporting that attention to the needs of girls in the classroom is resulting in the fall of boys' success in the same setting. Today the American Association of University Women (AAUW) AAUW released the most comprehensive analysis to date on trends in educational achievement by gender, race, ethnicity, and income. This report directly addresses the so-called 'boy's crisis' and its results demonstrate that girls' successes do not come at the expense of boys'.
See here for the press release at the AAUW's website. Gender equity in the classroom is still a huge issue. These statistics are real and not inflated.
If you are a woman, teacher or parent, this issue affects you directly. The discrepancies won't just disappear. Somehow the idea was trumped up that boys' drop in success in the classroom was directly related to addressing gender inequity. And it's easy to believe this idea is correct because it makes logical sense. The problem is that the facts, research and data don't support that conclusion.
Women are drastically underrepresented in the sciences, as many can attest. Check out FemaleScienceProfessor for a view from a women at the top of the sciences.
On gender inequity, my belief is that the discrepancy begins in elementary school. By the time girls are in pre-adolescence, the grand majority believe that boys are smarter than they are and that many traditionally male-oriented fields are beyond their grasp. By the time they are graduating from high school, the rift is many times too broad to hurdle. If we are to make a real change in in favor of gender equity, we need to pay attention to the elementary school classroom.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Anyone have a good recipe?
Grace and I volunteered to bring a food item to the once-a-semester teacher appreciation come-and-go breakfast in the media center at her school on Friday morning. I said we liked to cook and bake. The parent in charge asked if we could bring a 'breakfast casserole.' I replied sure, and it was only a few minutes later that I asked myself, 'what is a breakfast casserole?'
I'm thinking this is going to be a joint effort between Grace and I*. She is interested in what it takes to become a chef, and in an act of appreciating HER teachers, we can learn together what a breakfast casserole is and how to make it.
Can someone please tell me a good recipe for breakfast casserole? Preferably one that has actually been tried before and proven to be good?
*This is a comment for the language mavens out there. In rereading my past blog posts, I realized that I commonly use nominative case-marked 'I' in object position (as in "between Grace and I" above) and accusative 'me' in subject position (as in "I think that Grace and me are pretty smart"). If you are a language maven and this drives you crazy, I apologize. I am a linguist and I get away with doing this because my study primarily concerns descriptive grammar. Yes, I am aware that the prescriptive grammar of American English requires that I not use accusative case in subject position nor nominative case in object position. But I do it in speech, as do most English speakers. Since I see my blog as an extension of my speech, I shall continue to do this. If you don't know the difference between what I am talking about here, I highly recommend that you read Language Myths or The Language Instinct. If you're really into it, you can try Atoms of Language or The Ascent of Babel. All these books are on my bookshelf on the left.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Growing too old to remember childhood?
So here's a dilemma: I think I've become one of those mothers who parents without remembering what it was like to be a child. I *think*
Here's the lowdown.
I became a mother at the ripe old age of 22. I was young and I thought, 'wow! I can remember what it was like to be a teenager! I will be such a good parent of a teenager! I will be so much better than older moms will be! I will never ever act towards my kid without trying to understand her!' Ah, those were the days.
In my early 20s, since I was a mother, the fact that I was young didn't stand in the way of interacting with other mothers who were old enough to be my mother. I can remember conversations I had with those who had children 5 or ten years older than Grace. Children who were already teenagers. And I would think, 'you sillies! You don't understand your kids! Here, I will enlighten you with my insight because I understand your teenager!'
A-ha. It took only years of parenting for me to realize how gracious and kind and tolerant those other mothers were being with me. I am so thankful that they wanted my friendship despite my naivety and arrogance. When I realized this, I took on a new mantra. Any time you think you've had enough experience as a parent to understand everything there is to know about parenting, go talk to someone whose kids are at least five years older than your own. Hopefully adhering to this mantra has prevented even more of the 20/20 hindsight realizations of my unabashed stupidity.
Fast forward to the present. I now have a teenager, and I teach college students. As much as the college-age population would like not to hear what I'm about to say, here goes. I have always thought my students were more like my daughter than like me. That is, a 19-year-old student seemed to me to be more like a 11, 12, or 13-year-old than like me as a 30-something. Many a graduate student while teaching just sees herself as a senior version of the demographic. Not so with me. I was over 30-years-old when I started my PhD studies, and my students were hardly ever in my generation. In fact, my colleagues in the graduate program weren't really my generation.
In recent conversations, an early 20-something who has some knowledge of me and Grace has been criticizing my parenting of Grace. Things like, I should let Grace watch a more varied bit on TV and in movies. And I should let her have more freedom and not worry about where she is all the time. And that I should just realize that Grace's performance in school is fine, she's a smart kid and she'll do fine eventually. The commentary is not such a big deal, because the 20-something is not someone who will matter one iota in the long run. It's sort of like someone at the laundromat observing your child for the 3 hours it takes to do your laundry and then picking up conversation with you. The bystander's opinion doesn't really matter at all, but nonetheless, their opinion may rile you.
How does this affect me? Unfortunately I hear the refrain of my own early-20-something self in this commentary. I am now facing the question, am I out of touch with what it is to be a teenager and have wholesale bought into the 'mother' role, or was I just terrifically naive and arrogant as a young adult? In short, was I right then or am I right now? Was I ever right? Am I just completely lost on this one? I can't really decide.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Artichokes = how to be a good parent?
My husband read this story by Susan Russo on the NPR website yesterday, the content of which is largely borrowed from her blog, Food Blogga. After reading this my husband said, I wanna try making artichokes. I realized that I had never told that we used to have artichokes all the time when I was a kid.One of my very earliest memories is of my dad wallpapering the house. I was probably about 2- or 3-years-old. The project of "wallpapering the house" entailed wallpapering two bathrooms, two bedrooms and the kitchen. For the kitchen walls, he and my mother selected a perfect 70s pattern - green stripes and artichokes. I suppose you could say it was artichoke green, not avocado green. The appliances were avocado green, though.
The wallpapering job looked great and the kitchen remained artichoked well into the 80s. I think I was in high school before the artichoke wallpaper was replaced with a country-ish stenciled pattern.
Why artichokes? It never really seemed weird to me at all. Of course people always commented on the wallpaper, but we just explained that we liked artichokes.
When we had artichokes for dinner, everyone ate an artichoke first, then all the artichoke paraphernalia was cleared from the table and we ate the rest of the meal. My mom would prepare the artichokes and then serve each one on a small dish. Along with each artichoke came a small pyrex dish of garlic butter dipping sauce. When I was very young, still sitting in a high chair, my mom would take leaves from her artichoke, dip them in butter sauce and then give them to me on my plate to eat, instructing me to only eat the flesh off the tip of the leaves. When I was older she gave me my own small artichoke to eat the leaves off of. But when it came time to eat the heart, she took the artichoke from me, opened it and cleared away the thistle, cut the heart up and placed the pieces directly in the butter container. I ate the chunks straight out of the butter. Yummy! The last stage of "learning how to eat an artichoke" came when I got my own artichoke AND I got to open and get the heart myself.
We had artichokes so often that my mom finally bought a set of six artichoke plates. There was a place in the middle for the artichoke to sit in, space around the edge to put discarded leaves, and a small space for the butter dipping sauce. We looked much more elegant eating them now since our artichokes actually sat up on the plate and we didn't have to use the same old scratched pyrex dishes for sauce that we used to make jell-o pudding.
What I am most amazed of in this recollection is that my mother got us to eat artichokes, like them, and learn how to eat them elegantly. I never was even aware that I was "learning" how to eat an artichoke when she was only giving me the leaves and teaching me how to eat just the tip where the meaty flesh was. She did this teaching so well with other things as well. She taught me how to make pizza dough. And how to cross stitch. She taught me how to iron a shirt properly, though that was something I was well aware she was teaching me how to do -- dad's uniform shirts needed ironing every single week!
I want to be the kind of mom who is good at teaching about life. But I don't want my kids to realize they were learning until after the learning is well over. I want them to enjoy the process.
The wallpapering job looked great and the kitchen remained artichoked well into the 80s. I think I was in high school before the artichoke wallpaper was replaced with a country-ish stenciled pattern.
Why artichokes? It never really seemed weird to me at all. Of course people always commented on the wallpaper, but we just explained that we liked artichokes.
When we had artichokes for dinner, everyone ate an artichoke first, then all the artichoke paraphernalia was cleared from the table and we ate the rest of the meal. My mom would prepare the artichokes and then serve each one on a small dish. Along with each artichoke came a small pyrex dish of garlic butter dipping sauce. When I was very young, still sitting in a high chair, my mom would take leaves from her artichoke, dip them in butter sauce and then give them to me on my plate to eat, instructing me to only eat the flesh off the tip of the leaves. When I was older she gave me my own small artichoke to eat the leaves off of. But when it came time to eat the heart, she took the artichoke from me, opened it and cleared away the thistle, cut the heart up and placed the pieces directly in the butter container. I ate the chunks straight out of the butter. Yummy! The last stage of "learning how to eat an artichoke" came when I got my own artichoke AND I got to open and get the heart myself.
We had artichokes so often that my mom finally bought a set of six artichoke plates. There was a place in the middle for the artichoke to sit in, space around the edge to put discarded leaves, and a small space for the butter dipping sauce. We looked much more elegant eating them now since our artichokes actually sat up on the plate and we didn't have to use the same old scratched pyrex dishes for sauce that we used to make jell-o pudding.
What I am most amazed of in this recollection is that my mother got us to eat artichokes, like them, and learn how to eat them elegantly. I never was even aware that I was "learning" how to eat an artichoke when she was only giving me the leaves and teaching me how to eat just the tip where the meaty flesh was. She did this teaching so well with other things as well. She taught me how to make pizza dough. And how to cross stitch. She taught me how to iron a shirt properly, though that was something I was well aware she was teaching me how to do -- dad's uniform shirts needed ironing every single week!
I want to be the kind of mom who is good at teaching about life. But I don't want my kids to realize they were learning until after the learning is well over. I want them to enjoy the process.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
When schools crack down on electronics
I just received the email newsletter from Grace's middle school. Front and center is the following announcement:
Cell Phone, I-Pods, etc.
Please note that Cell Phones, I-Pods, MP3 players, any other electronic devices are not permitted for student use at any point during the school day. If these items are seen or heard during school hours, they will be confiscated and a parent will have to pick up the device from your child’s house office.
Note that the school district has a very strict policy already. It is explicitly detailed in the district handbook for students and for parents. Why are teachers not confiscating these items already? Is there ever a circumstance in which the presence and use of an iPod (or cell phone or MP3 player or digital camera or gameboy or fill-in-your-electronic-device-of-choice-here) is justifiable in a school setting? I guess I'm taking the perspective of the teacher on this one. There is nothing more annoying than someone's cell phone going off during a lecture. And there is nothing more rampant in university settings than "creative" new ways to cheap during examinations. I can't believe that the use of electronics for cheating begins at the college level.
My understanding on the ban of cell phones in public schools was that it was originally put in place to prevent drug deals going down on the school premises. But now cell phones could be used for anything from covertly cheating by sending text messages to voyeuristic photography in the ladies room to remotely setting off bombs. I won't waste my space here, but we need only use of imagination to think of the ills of other electronics in the school settings. Nintendo DS's create their own network within a local range.
I check and find out whether my kid is bringing electronics to school. She told me two days ago she is bringing the iPod to school in order to listen to it on her walk to and from school. After receiving this newsletter from the school, I reminded her that she should not let the iPod be seen during school hours. Do other parents do this? Do they understand the necessity of limiting the presence of distracting electronics at school? Or do they just think the school is over-reacting? I'm so sick of unnecessary electronics in educational settings. . .
Monday, April 21, 2008
I passed
For as much as I go on and on about science and what my daughter is learning in 8th grade, I couldn't resist finding out how I measure up.
Apparently not as well as I lead others to believe I do. My score was a 73%. Could I plead a subject bias and say that my training is in the cognitive sciences, and this test primarily asked questions about physical sciences (biology, chemistry, earth science and physics)?
I'm just going to count my lucky stars that the quiz was quite obviously graded on a curve. When I reviewed my answers, I discovered I had missed 7 of 15 questions. This means I would receive a 53%, a solid F. Well, I would have gotten an F when I was in 8th grade. They no longer give Fs -- it's an E now. I'm not sure what E stands for, but maybe the powers that be decided that they should be consistent and no longer skip E in the grading scale.
When my students get 8 out of 15 they get an F, not an E. Unless I determine that I did a poor job in developing the assessment.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Arts and Sciences
As part of her middle school curriculum, Grace takes an elective class each quarter that lasts only nine weeks. She could have taken a foreign language for the whole year instead, but we (that is, she and I together) decided that elective classes would be better for her. I think the whole idea of learning a language just hit a little too close to home since there are two linguists in the house. The elective courses are in all kinds of areas: arts, music, computer technology, writing, PE, and a lot of others. In the first two quarters she took strictly arts classes that included sculpting, drawing, and design. This third quarter she is taking web design. She is very good at this and now knows how to write html from scratch. And she understands the logic of how code is organized. So far, she has gotten straight As in her elective classes.
Now we come upon the fourth and last quarter. She is enrolled in "music technology." She says she doesn't want to take this class because her friend Maddie took it in a previous term and said it wasn't fun. Instead, Grace wants to repeat a course in ceramics and sculpting. My guess is that "music technology" is basically Garage Band. Grace says they use computers and a piano keyboard to compose music. Sounds pretty cool to me. And it sounds like something that she should try since she wants to go into the performing arts.
In order for her to change her schedule, she has to get written permission from a parent. She and I and her stepdad all discussed this last night at dinner. We emphasized that the stuff she would learn in music technology might be something cool for her learn since she wants to go into performing arts. She likes music, she likes computers, she loves iTunes, sounds like this class takes all the things she likes and puts them together. And even more important, we're trying to emphasize to her that one need in the world is people who are good at design and arts who also can hack the more technical stuff. Since it seems like she has both talents and likes both things, maybe music technology is the kind of course she should run to.
We also pointed out to her that there were a lot of things she didn't want to do this year that turned out to be pretty cool in the end. Like swimming. She didn't want to try swimming at all. But she went to practice for both competitive swimming and synchronized swimming and competed with both of the teams. Now she wants to do competitive swimming and synchronized in high school. We reminded her that in the fall she said she didn't want to participate in sports at all and tried every bargain she could think of to get out of it.
I'm hoping she's getting closer to really liking to learn new stuff. I can accept that there are things she really doesn't find interesting. I mean, everyone has some story to tell about what subject they hated in school and how even into their adulthood they avoid it. But what I really hope to see is her finding something she loves and going for it. Not just saying she likes it and barely showing up and not learning anything new, but really jumping towards something she finds cool. I see her doing this with music, with acting, with visual arts, and with computers. With all this, doesn't it seem like "music technology" would be the perfect class for her to take?
Friday, March 21, 2008
x = -b plus or minus...
Today we learned the quadratic formula. In case the details are fuzzy, it's how you solve for x in a quadratic equation. My husband couldn't remember what it was. Grace learned it in 20 minutes. She then did 5 problems, solving for x and then checking her answers by substituting the value for x into the formula and seeing if the two sides of the equation were indeed equal.
I'm convinced she doesn't have any difficulty with the concepts in mathematics. She's a bright girl. But her teacher sent me a very glib reply to one of my emails this week. When I inquired of the teacher what she thought the problem was, she stated,
Yes, she put a frowny face at the end. I'm not sure what that was intended to convey. I read once that most (more than 50%) of email messages are misunderstood because the sender assumes that the reader can read implicit messages into what is written. I think this is an example of such a miscommunication.
Grace and I talked about what it means to say "I know ____." She doesn't like to be wrong. She doesn't like to admit that she doesn't know something. She doesn't like to examine her understanding of something to see if it really makes sense to her. This is difficult to address because it has nothing to do with aptitude; it has to do with attitude. We're now spending our tutoring sessions at home making sure Grace says the phrase "I don't know," when she doesn't know the answer. We've cut out "I think I know" and "I'm pretty sure" altogether. Either you say "I don't know" or "I know." And saying "I don't know" is followed by teaching and learning, not humiliation. When we are learning, we must be humble and admit ignorance. To act otherwise means that you are not learning.
OK, so this is a lot of pedagogical details and philosophy of teaching and other stuff. And I'm afraid Grace suffers from a mother with too much background in education, psychology, communication, science, and pedagogy. But I think I'm learning something far more valuable than how to get Grace to understand mathematics. I'm realizing that children are individuals. What works for one child may not work for another. It seems like such a mundane and simplistic truth, yet I had to be smacked in the head with experience to remind myself of this truth. My daughter is unique, and I am probably the person who knows her best (other than her knowing herself). I should spend time thinking of ways to enhance who she already is and the strengths she brings to any task, and recognize her weaknesses and build them up. Taking on a strategy that won't work for Grace is useless -- because GRACE is my daughter, not someone else.
The kicker? Grace is not as much like me as I am tempted to believe she is. So a strategy that worked for me is many times useless when working with her.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Math
I was pretty good at math. I knew I was. I loved math. I understood it from the very youngest age. In fact, the only thing holding me back in math was my own willingness to do my homework. When I was in 1st or 2nd grade my parents gave me the coolest calculator I had even seen. It looked like a little robot, and the screen was supposed to look likes its cyclops eye. It was one of those calculators that had blue lights for the numbers. And it made a lot of noise. And it played games, like "guess which number I am thinking over between 1 and 100." I loved it. My mom later bought me a book at a school book fair that was calculating things your calculator could say. You know, you read some story they made up and while reading it you have to do the calculations in the story. Then when the story is over, you turn your calculator over and there is something to read like "hi" or "eh." I never didn't get math. Well, I didn't get calculus, but that's another story entirely.
Grace is not so good at math, *I think.* Actually, I used to think she was good at math. She scores fine on her proficiency tests, and she manages to understand things after going through them. Some concepts are really easy for her. Yet, there is a breakdown somewhere. I just found out she has a D in math. She's turned in all her work, she passed some of the tests, but still, a D.
Ironically, the subject I did worst at in school was literature. I don't get literature at all. And don't even get me started on poetry (what is the point?). I like to write, I like to parse, I like to analyze the structure of language. I like foreign languages. But I do not like the metaphor and analogy of language. Actually, it's not that I don't like it -- it's that I don't understand it. I got cold chills the last time I sat in a classroom and a teacher threw poetry up on the board. Within 5 minutes, the other students had all concluded in laughter that it was terrible poetry and had given their reasoning. Meanwhile I was still scribbling down what everyone was saying, trying to figure out what made it poetry, much less bad poetry.
I never mastered literature. I just took my required classes, fudged through them, asked for a lot of help from my two sisters who were literature majors and my two roommates who were writing majors. When my colleagues bring up literature in a knowledgeable way, I just smile and try to look as if I know what I'm talking about. But in the end, I have no ability to "get" literature. I read it, and then I go to someone who understands it and ask them to explain it to me. (An extremely poignant example of this was when my friend Jason explained The Hours to me. No, really, I was the female in that exchange and he explained it to me.)
So I am unsure what to do about Grace and math. Unlike literature, I don't think Grace can do well enough in high school to get into college if she's lagging behind in 8th grade math. I want to encourage her that this is something fun and useful, even though it's difficult. I supposed this is just another great question that I ask myself in the annuls of parenting...
Thursday, March 13, 2008
a-ha! Learning to learn.
We had a couple good experiences this week. For quite a while I've been troubled by the apparent lack of Grace's wanting to master things. I really didn't care what it was that she wanted to master, I just wanted her to master something. Sure, she does well in orchestra. But she only recently started actually approaching her playing as a skill. She's perfectly happy to play pieces in an adequate way. The killer for her lack of a desire to master is in school. She looks over her books and class notes, and then heads into a test. And she almost always fails. Now I don't say that lightly -- she has gone through courses in which she never passed a test or quiz. Take vocabulary quizzes in 7th grade Language Arts. Or 8th grade science first term. Or US History in 8th grade. Or science in 6th and 7th grade. When I say she almost always fails tests and quizzes, I mean that about 70-80% of all examinations she takes she does not pass. Her standardized scores are "proficient" and she has never been even close to being considered for accelerated classes. Yet all her teachers agree that she is very bright.
What is the breakdown, you ask? Good question. We've been around and around and around on this since she was in kindergarten. We thought an ADHD diagnosis would take care of it. The school provided her the opportunity to take as long as she wanted to take exams, and mandated that she take them in a separate classroom without distractions. COMPLETE and UTTER failure of an idea. She hated it. She protested. And she whizzed through her tests, almost in protest. She absolutely refused to slow down in taking tests. It was as if checking one's work was an insult. But you see, I have another explanation. The reason she whizzed through the tests and didn't check her work was because she hadn't prepared at all for any test appropriately. So there was no reason to go slow. If you don't know the answers, they aren't going to come to you like magic . . .
Getting back to the point . . . Grace had two very good experiences this week. First, she presented her science fair poster to her class. And second, she took a test on Tuesday in US History on the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. When she completed her presentation, her teacher said, "this is what real scientists do." After that, I couldn't care less whether she received an award. The point is, she did hard work and her teacher saw that. Then, she stayed up studying for the test in History. After taking it, she said "it was easy." After a short discussion, she agreed that this was because she had prepared well, and not because the test was somehow an easier format.
When studying for both of these things, I tried everything I could to get her motivated to learn. I told her to make a webpage of her history lessons and explain things the way she wished they had been explained. I told her to make a powerpoint presentation for the same reason. Finally, since she is obsessed with the idea that she is going to be a Broadway actress, I told her she needed to study and memorize her "lines" (the material from her notes) for her "performance" (the test) tomorrow. She was mad at me because she thought I was mocking her goal of becoming an actress. I explained no, rather she'd better find something about the whole experience to relate to something she liked.
Anyways, we are learning how to learn. And slowly, ever so slowly, it is paying off.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
