Your kid can change the world

We've begun our foray into the college world. My oldest is a teenager with ADD and an aversion to academics. Yet, she wants to go to college and study. She used to want to be a Broadway actress. Now she wants to study special education.

I remember her first day of "real" school, the first day of preschool where she came to the classroom and the teacher said hello and told her where to hang her backpack and tuck away her lunch box. It felt strange. My baby was only four years old; clearly she wasn't ready for a classroom yet. When I asked how my daughter had done on the entrance exam, the teacher who had conducted the exam skirted the question, saying something about every student developing at different paces. I went to work and cried, because my baby was starting school, and because I didn't know what her future held.

By the time she was in second grade, it was clearly event that she was not going to be the class valedictorian. I had run out of circumstantial explanations for her classroom performance. The teachers called for more than a parent-teacher conference. I tried to be rational and mature.

I came home from that first assessment meeting and cried. I couldn't get my thoughts straight. I just kept trying to come up with a way to understand it all. She seemed perfectly nice and sweet. Why was it so hard for her to just follow her teacher's directions? Pay attention for one minute during ballet class? Sit and read a book with me without being frustrated after 15 seconds? Notice that the ball was coming for her and kick it during a soccer game, instead of letting it sail past while her teammates yelled at her?

One morning before school, when she was in third grade, we were both particularly on edge. She stated flatly that she didn't want to go to school anymore. She was crying. And I was crying. And the school bus was coming. And I didn't have the luxury of missing work that day or driving her to school that day. I turned her towards me and said (roughly):

"Grace, there are two kinds of people in this world. There are people who use up the world and all it has, leaving it to waste. And then there are people who decide to give what they have and change the world and make it a better place. You have something to give to the world, but if you don't go to school and try, you'll never be able to make the world a better place. So go to school now!"

And then I pushed her out the front door, into the snow-covered day, running for the bus. She was still upset. So was I. I really hoped the words I had just spoken held some validity.

There has been a lot of tumultuous water under the bridge between that snowy and tearful morning and now. A couple weeks ago, we went to Michigan State for the day. It was our first official trip to a college. I wasn't sure what to expect. I told Grace to dress a little better than average and behave as if it were a job interview. We arrived in time to grab bad Mexican in the Union for lunch and then trudged up two floors to find about fifty families waiting quietly for a welcome presentation by an admissions counselor.

She started with this video:



And as it played, I felt myself start to cry. I held it back because I was pretty sure Grace would die of embarrassment if her mother started bawling in front of all these people. By this point in her life, I've figured out how to hold back my tears in until I'm in private.

It's the idea that my kid could change the world. She's not a kid anymore; she's going to go off into the world and make her own way. Make her own decisions. Influence her environment the way she wants to.

Hopefully the words I gave to her half her life ago were not just wishful thinking. Maybe, just maybe, it's possible that one person can change the world for the better. That if one girl makes up her mind to do good, she will do good.

Election Day! Civics and Kids

Across the US today, people are standing in lines at polling stations to do their civic duty and vote. There are elections at all levels of government except President - federal, state, and local. Schools across the country have been holding mock elections to teach the electoral collage process to students. But at our school, another lesson in civic duty is being learned. Our school's fifth grade class will soon visit Exchange City.

I visited Exchange City when I was in 5th grade - I loved it. The program has been going strong in Kansas City for over 30 years. I'm so excited for my son to finally get his turn to go. Students visit in a day long field trip where they each get a job, a paycheck, pay taxes, bills and sometimes fines (like speeding tickets, or in their case, running tickets.) Jobs consist of things like Bank Manager, Police Officer, Postal Carrier, Radio Station DJ, or even the City Judge.

The City Judge is the only position which must campaign to be elected for this office at school in the weeks prior to the field trip. The kids who choose to run make posters, and create slogans. It prepares them for the concepts of running for student council office in the next few years, once they get to middle school and high school. (Kids go to middle school starting in sixth grade where I live.) All other jobs require students to make a resume, apply for a first, second and third choice job and explain why they are qualified, and get references from two adults (not family.) There's a lot of work before the big day of the field trip itself.

It's an excellent program. I remember I learned so much that day. I had no idea how my parents' jobs and paychecks were affected by taxes and bills, it was eye opening. I had no idea how you have to budget your money, and how fines can eat up so much of a paycheck (I, was, er, ticketed several times for running and yelling, I remember. I think I ran out of money to buy snacks and candy at the store - although we did have sack lunches.)

Other cities have similar programs, though they may not all be attended through school field trips. Check for such a program in your area. Exchange City Kansas City also has a summer camp program - although the 2011 information isn't up yet.

Teaching kids about elections and how we vote in the US is crucial to their understanding of government and civics. But teaching them how to function in society and business is even more important. Things you can do at home to help keep your kids in the know:

• Have a conversation with your school age kids about money, how what you earn affects the family, how bills are paid, etc.
  
• Give allowance, either in exchange for chores or just because, and teach them to save for things they want like Lego sets and video games.
• Dave Ramsey, financial guru, radio host and author of Financial Peace University, has programs for kids to learn how to save and use money to avoid debt. He also has teen programs. (They are Christian based programs.)
• Check out Kids.gov, the official kids portal for the federal government

And finally, if your kids' school takes a field trip related to civics and or business such as Exchange City, make an effort to go along as a chaperone, so you can discuss later. The best thing we can teach our kids is how to be involved, by showing them.

Mean people suck.

There's been a lot in the news lately about a rash of child suicides over bullying, mostly regarding being gay. I don't want to discount the horror of that kind of hateful harassment, but there's not always a discernable reason for why a child gets bullied. All educators, therapists, parents and survivors can agree on is that the kids being bullied are seen as different somehow, and that the kids doing the bullying also have some insecurities they are trying to hide.

For bullying to have finally become portrayed as wrong, and sometimes even criminal is a step I never thought would happen in my lifetime. The bullies that chose me when I was a child were ignored by teachers and administrators, the problem was always with me, and how I must be taunting them by standing out, by getting their attention. A bully then was just an aggressive kid, and if I could only learn to shrink back into the shadows and not be so weird and glaringly annoying, one teacher actually told me, maybe they wouldn't notice me anymore. Maybe if I just ignored them, instead of getting angry and fighting back, they would find me less entertaining and would move on to someone else.

Not so much.

Because it wasn't about stopping the bullying, according to those teachers and administrators. Bullies will be bullies, just like boys will be boys and play in the mud, according to the system then, there just wasn't much you could do about mean kids. It was not about stopping the hate, or redirecting the behavior of the kids being aggressively mean. It was every kid for herself, just get away from their laserbeam, and someone else can become their victim.

I am hopeful that my children will not know the feeling of inescapable doom* that comes with seeing a particular kid walking toward them in the hall, when no one else is around to bear witness. So far, they've been luckier than I in that way. I am pleased to see their elementary school establish anti-bullying guidelines, internal communication/marketing campaigns, and special small group discussions with the counselor which are positioned as an honor to be invited to participate. I am not so pleased that the kids that I know to be bullies are not necessarily participating in these programs. And I know that the programs are not enough. It is not enough until the parents of the mean kids are called out (if they exist), that attention is focused on the insecurities of those children, and solving their problems. It is not enough for educators and counselors to focus action steps of avoidance and reporting toward victims, rather than bullies themselves.

But it is a start. A step in the right direction. I believe the most important thing I can do as a parent to avoid my children becoming a target is listen to them, without judgment. To know who the problem kids are on the bus, in the classrooms, and in the hallways, and to help them devise realistic solutions to dealing with these kids. I can be present up at the school, volunteering, building rapport with teachers and administrators. It is not every child for themselves anymore.

Department of Education Anti-bullying programs

* My elementary school bully grew up to become a school psychologist. Now that's irony, folks.

Oh goodness, time

How you fly past me. I have to apologize dear MWP readers, I have dropped the proverbial ball this week. I have been in one of those existential places in which the actual place in reality is skewed. Confused? Let me explain.

This is the time of year in Education where we are closing up the current year and starting to plan for the next year. This is the time of year where colleagues receive pink slips, students start to shut down, department chairs start looking for requests for next year's curriculum, and it is the time of year that drives me bonkers. On top of teaching High School English, my 1st grader is involved in field trips on which he would like my attendance, my daycare mom (bless her) is on medical leave for her son's surgery, and it is busy for Randy, my meteorological husband.

Spring has sprung...and I am in too many places in my brain and am missing places in my reality.

So I'm sorry, and I hope you will be able to forgive.

Do you have times that are like this for you? The annual school transition is one in which I cannot seem to just breathe through. I can breathe through the holiday madness. I can breathe through the beginning and end of school, but this transition is....muddy.

Like Spring.

Write What You See by Hank Kellner

Write What You See by Hank Kellner

As bloggers, we all need inspiration for our writing. We run out of ideas, we hit walls, we give up. I know my personal blog has fallen off the wagon lately. But most of us, when our ink well is drying up, so to speak, we are wishing for the surge of creative and the enjoyment we have when writing with passion.

I checked out a book this week that I thought might help. Write What You See by Hank Kellner. A collection of black and white photographs accompanied with writing prompts. The book is intended to be used as a classroom instructional resource for teachers, maybe in creative writing, composition, or exposition. Sharp tweens would enjoy it, all high schoolers should try it and get something out of it.

But me?

I enjoyed the way it provoked my thoughts. It made me think beyond my own world and be innovative. It made me think about things I hadn't considered in a long while.

Maybe I could write about being scared, like in a terror movie kind of way.


Or about adventure and danger.


About what it will feel like, I mean what it will really feel like, to be old some day.


We all know that our visual world sparks our creativity and gets the gears of our mind turning. This book was a surprising find, one that was just the catalyst I needed about now.

Now if I could only figure out a faster way to clean diapers so that I had more time to write...