My 9 year-old cried bewildered tears Wednesday. This was a very black and white issue for her, and she is a sensitive soul. Naturally, I felt like crap for having exposed her to needless sadness. I just really, really thought she would value being able to tell her kids that she was there, for this important day. She pushed the button. Yes, I’m that idealistic. Wednesday morning we explained that, though it seems like people liked the bully more than the smart girl, there are many other things going on, and she was safe. I wish every mom could have been able to say that, Wednesday morning.

Policy, anti-establishment sentiment, those damn emails – these were all cited as justifications to vote for Donald Trump. Unfortunately, the multitudes cared more about those justifications than about saying “NO” to racism, sexism and a whole host of other crap we shouldn’t allow out of basic human decency. The prevalence of that mindset was not something I could previously conceive of in my NPR-listening, blue state-living, white, middle-class, privileged bubble. I didn’t realize that so many people actually thought policy was more important than people. Holy crap, America.

Thinking as a parent, since this is a parenting blog (most of the time), I’m offering the following: No, Clinton was not an ideal candidate with an ideal track record. There are NONE OF THOSE. They don’t exist. Ok, maybe Justin Trudeau. #dreamy The problem is that in this election we have journeyed past politics. We are now disassembling basic morality for our children. Think about what we teach kids: You treat people the way you want to be treated. You take care of people. You welcome new friends. Your body is yours alone, it is a good thing, and it should be respected. How about the one preschool teachers keep on repeat, all day: “Keep your hands to yourself!” Dear Donald, “grabbing” means you are doing it wrong. 

Not to mention the tired old slogan, “Girls can do anything boys can do.” *sigh* Hang on, girls. Change comes slow, but it does come. Look at where we started.

Speaking of girls, as Clinton was on Wednesday: “And — and to all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.” Forget the sadness that we have to state that at all. “Valuable” is my favorite word, here. I’m still more of a believer in the social commentary and symbolism of this election than in specifically electing Hillary Clinton – remember, I just wanted a girl to win, for once. I just thought this was immensely cool to hear. They knew, she knew, that little girls had serious stock in this election. And she asked them to hang on, too.

You know what else was cool? A friend of a friend of mine made a beautiful design of the above quote, and posted it on Facebook. I shared it, and the designer was kind enough to send me the high resolution version. I grabbed a frame, and this actually cheered my kid up. She moved a My Little Pony art project off the wall to make room for this! This was important stuff!!

Moving forward, I’m choosing to be hopeful and expect the best from people, including President-Elect Trump and his future cabinet appointees. I’m going to repeat the closing of my previous post. I’m praying it’s still true, though now it refers to a different “someone”. We’ve done enough of tearing people down. It’s my fervent hope as a mom and teacher that tomorrow our nation will raise up someone who will makes it their job to raise up others.

Also, I’m posting a link to a wonderful article containing the names of non-profits. If you liked this post, chances are you will find one whose ideals you agree with. If you’re feeling powerless in the wake of last week, and looking for something to do to feel more empowered, donating to any of these amazing charities is a great way to feel like you, too, are valuable.

Click here for the list of charities. Thank you.

As the expert, I will now share the important process of:

“How To Do Your Homework”

1. Make coffee, do morning things, hug & kiss Hubby goodbye.
2. Instruct children to please pick up their rooms and go play, because Mommy is working.
3. Go into kitchen to get coffee mug first. Become concerned that the pile of dishes in the sink will attract ants. Do dishes.
4. Head downstairs (split level) to office, with coffee. Scroll through Twitter, check Facebook, read The Skimm, play Crossy Road and Brain Dots on phone, because ‘all work and no play’…
5. Break up argument between children in the laundry room. Notice that laundry needs “flipped over”. Do that.
6. Upon returning from laundry room, look longingly at the lovely curled form of the horn on its stand, in the office. No. Not right now. Decide that it’s time to work.
7. Play horn anyway. Marvel just a little that high C still comes out fine, after months off.  Gloat a tiny bit. Feel very happy and almost decide to text brass-people friends, but try to rein self back in and get to work. Actually open a text book.
8. Discover that there are actually no less than five separate assignments due. Re-evaluate whether a Master’s degree is really that important.
9. Untie, open, peel, and fix something for each kid, a minimum of 3-4 times.
10. Realize that the correct Spotify station is essential for concentration, child noise-coverage, and ambiance. Spend 10 minutes deciding on which list and another 10 trying to find the one pair of earbuds left in the house that works.
11. Sit down. Get back to work. Wait, where is coffee? Go find mug.
12. Focus and complete the first of five assignments, like a boss.
13. Play with hair. Wonder if French braiding own hair is still in personal skill set. Braid own hair, enjoying the fact that ‘dos like the popular girls at that 1992 Girl Scout camp are now finally within grasp.
14. Swivel aimlessly in desk chair while playing with hair. See horn. Think of playing again but turn around to get back to work.
15. Realize that coffee is cold. Realize that this whole routine has been going on for quite a while and only one out of five assignments are complete. Realize this is not ok.
16. Respond to texts from Hubby, friend, and sister, and play new Monument Valley levels.
17. Decide that now it’s very seriously time to do the other four assignments. But first, coffee.
18. Heat up coffee in kitchen where the dog has found a My Little Pony toy to chew to bits. Clean that up.
19. With coffee, half a grapefuit because breakfast never actually happened, and a new mindset to be productive, go back downstairs. Sit down, resolved to knock out those other four assignments. Right. Now.
20. Blog about the process instead.

1.  I was really sick and I didn’t know it. Always tell your parents and go to the doctor when you feel like you can’t breathe right.

2. My heart doesn’t pump very well right now. (My phrase for this is “wussy heart syndrome”. They eat that up.)  It might get better and it might not, but either way there’s no reason to think I won’t be ok. I am tough.

3. I have to take medicines that  will hopefully help my heart get stronger. But, they make me very tired sometimes, and dizzy. If anyone ever faints, we do NOT touch them. We find the nearest adult to help. This is not likely to happen to me at all, so relax.

4. I have to wear a special undershirt that has little circle things in it to check how my heart beats, day and night. It’s connected by a wire to this box I’m wearing like a purse. If my heart stops pumping right (“wusses out”), the special shirt will zap me with electricity so my heart will work again. The black box might ‘ding’ sometimes when the shirt isn’t working right. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong.

5. This is not something that is likely to happen to you, or anybody else you love.

This has been a nice time to sit down and just talk to my 500+ kiddos. Their concern has been real and their questions and responses have been a little too real.

But hey, if you can’t laugh at cardiomyopathy, what can you laugh at, right?

So these are questions and responses I have gotten from my 5 – 11 year old students when I explain the above list to them. I started writing them down to share, because I love these little nutjobs.  My responses are italicized.

“Will your heart tell you when it’s fixed?” No, they will take pictures again, but that would be cool.

“Do they let you keep the pictures?” I doubt it but if it’s good I’ll frame it.

“My grandpop had a heart attack because he ate too much red food. Did you do that?” You mean did I eat too much red meat? No, I –  “No! Meat is brown.”

“Did it hurt when you died?” Um…No. I’m good.

“Will it hurt if it zaps you?” No. I would have probably fainted by then. “But it will zap us if we’re touching you?” Possibly, but you’re not going to touch me or anyone who has fainted, you just get an adult. “Will it reach out and like lightening, and zap us?” NO. You’re picturing Return of the Jedi.

“Can you use the box to save somebody else’s life? Like the school’s one? [Defibrillator]” Yes, I’m going to be the new super hero, Defibrillator Woman. Zap zap. Just kidding. But cool question.

“What are you gonna do if you can’t go swimming in the summer!?!?!?!” I will most likely be done wearing this, one way or another, by summer. Hopefully. Otherwise, I will cry.

“Um…it [the box] blinked red. Are you OK?” That just means it’s on. I’m good.

“What would happen if ALL the adults in the school fainted at the same time?” I’d say we would leave (extremely unlikely, quiet student) in charge.

“So, like, you can’t take it off? Are you not gonna shower?! For months?!!” Um… I take it off to shower. EW.

“What happens if you faint in the shower with the shirt thing off?” Well this is getting personal. It’s not likely that I’ll faint at all. But I guess then it would turn into taking a bath.

“What happens if you faint when you’re going to the bathroom?” Well that would be bad, but wouldn’t I have worse problems, at the time?

“What happens if you drop it [the monitor box] in the toilet?” Thanks, now I’m going to worry about that, too.

BUT the winner is:

“Did you know that the hospital is where they take babies out of your tush?” Yes. Yes I did.

Parents, teachers, and friends, I need you to tell me what you think of that move.

Here’s the background:

I have the feeling that my kid has been put in the ‘rough’ class several times now, probably because she can fend for herself academically and assertively.  Talking to parents whose children are in other classes in my daughter’s grade has confirmed it: They’re having a lot more fun. There’s always a ‘rough’ class. How do you know if your kid has landed there this year? Count the rings under her teacher’s eyes. 

But it’s a teacher conflict too. We all have a story about that teacher, who seemed miserable and possibly scared the #$%@ out of us in grade school. Mine had a foot-shaped hole in the tile floor where it was rumored she had screamed and stomped her foot so hard that it Broke. The. Floor. She supposedly left it that way as a grim reminder to future students that things could get UGLY. 

The elder offspring’s 2nd grade teacher has decided that whole-class punishment is her classroom management tactic. Several times now, all the kids have missed recess as punishment for bad behavior. Yes, like when we were in school. Although for me, that was the 80’s and I don’t remember much of this happening. 

Although I (empty) threaten individual students with this consequence sometimes (actually quite effective), I disagree with this policy on several levels:

1. Though occasionally necessary, regularly punishing the whole group is unfair and bad for morale.

2. These are 7 year-olds. They need recess. If you make the mistake of keeping 7 year-olds from running outside and being crazy, you might as well feed Gremlins after midnight, because that’s what you’re gonna get. 

Cute before you make a giant mistake. Just like 2nd graders. It will be a loooong afternoon.

The kid has been a little down about this. I am extremely tempted to be that mom and email the teacher, questioning her policy and telling her my kid doesn’t like school. It’s not the academics. It’s not for lack of friends. It’s this feeling that she’s in a “bad class”, that needs to be punished all the time. Additionally, a few times her librarian has also denied the whole class the chance to take out new books, because of ‘bad behavior’ in library class.

So one (tearful) night the elder offspring was bemoaning her class’s situation. I asked her if she was very, very sure that she was not part of the problem. She may have inherited my inability to shut up in class, how do I know? I suggested that she do something more productive than complaining to Mommy, like writing a R-E-S-P-E-C-T-ful letter. Writing is her thing, and mine. With email and texting and handwritten words like that above, you can think about how to phrase important things…as opposed to the “word vomit” that usually comes out of my mouth. #meangirlsreference This way, I could monitor her, uh, “tone”, too.

I let the kiddo give that letter to her teacher, and she got no response. For what it’s worth, that day they had recess but the next day, they missed it again. As a teacher who has been questioned many times by parents myself, the next-to-last thing I want to do is undermine another educator. I’m playing it cool and wondering exactly how bad this class really is, till conferences. I can’t wait to hear the teacher’s side of the story.  It’s not that big a deal; this may just be the year my daughter isn’t in love with school. Or, I may have to grow some Mommy balls.

The last thing I want, of course, is for my kid to hate school. At least until she has to take Calculus. Then it’s genetically inevitable. 

So, I’m curious: (Comments very appreciated!)

• What do you think of the policy?

• What do you think of the letter?

• What would you ask at conference time, if this were your kid?

This quote and stunning portrait of Secretary Duncan popped up on social media last week. It’s from his speech during a 2009 visit to a Brooklyn elementary school. It is, of course, taken out of context here.  But that just means it’ll fit right in with every other quote on the internet, ever. Here’s a post about Mr. Duncan addressing the “educational crisis” in this speech.

He seems to be claiming that you can tell where kids will end up, higher education-wise, because of how they’re testing in second grade. Reading this on a friend’s wall, I actually said aloud,  “You leave my second grader ALONE, Arne!”  Yes, that’s a tad dramatic, but Arne is a fun name to say aloud.

Though well-meaning, this is some serious oversimplification, and rhetoric to sell the need to test small children.  I teach K-5 and let me tell you: By second grade, a couple of them haven’t even really mastered holding a #2 pencil yet, let alone having one help decide their future.  In second grade, they’re about 8 years old. Meaning that every bit of their little life has occurred in a shorter time than Seinfeld was on the air. Just let that sink in.

No, Arne, we should not.  I mean, I can totally pick out the future trophy wives by the time they’re leaving 5th grade, but that’s as cynical as I’ll allow myself to get as a teacher.

Let’s put aside the fact that college is not the right path for every person in the first place. We’ll also try to excuse the elitist undertones in his poor choice of the phrase “good college”.  Although I would never rule it out, I have no iron clad plan for Ivy League schools in my children’s futures. Arne would probably not approve.

But I do have my own second grader. Right now she is, if I may brag, one of those kids who is intrinsically motivated to learn and madly in love with reading and writing. She also thinks practical applications of Math is “neat”. Sadly, her school is already test-happier than I’d like them to be.  Last Thursday night she gloomily announced that she had three the next day. My kid is 7, but she’s known for years how to fill in test bubbles because how-to-take-a-test knowledge is woven into their little homework sheets each night. This is the direction that education is moving, and it’s quotes like Arne’s up there that point to the cause.

I think we’ll be lucky; my kid will still love reading and writing and (dare I wish it) probably even Math when all is said and tested.  Others definitely won’t be so lucky.

I’m fortunate enough to work for a school district that still clings (some years by its fingernails) to the ideal of growing the whole child. The humanity, not just the testable parts. The arts are still offered, and the students have easy access to artistic and performing groups within their regular school day. I’ve also had a close view of others that weight the tested subject areas doubly in the student schedule, and jam in some test-prep classes for good measure. If scores go up, on paper, it looks like students are learning, and all is supposedly right with the world.

A September article in the Washington Post explains what this emphasis on testing does in lower-income districts. The arts, proven for years to improve acquisition of testable knowledge and life in general, are not offered to all students equally. As the Post article states, the kids who need arts education the most are often the ones not receiving it, as their “failing” schools opt instead to focus energy and funds on performance of a much less humanistic sort. Non-tested subjects (and sometimes, the people who teach them) are not valued, because frankly, there are tests to take. And there are no mandated score growth objectives for Art and Music that relate to the school’s status or funding. Do not get me started on the concept of punishing failing schools by removing funding. I kick stuff when I get angry, and I presently not wearing any shoes. Ouch. 

I’m sure we’ll find other sources of funding somewhere.

However, in a quote from August 22,d 2014, Mrs. Duncan said, “[I]n too many places, it’s clear that the [testing] yardstick has become the focus.” And, “No school or teacher should look bad because they took on kids with greater challenges. Growth is what matters. No teacher or school should be judged on any one test, or tests alone — always on a mix of measures.”

 Am I nuts, or does this sound more reasonable?  What a different tune he’s singing than the one usually sung by those who legislate education reform. Probably because somebody reinstated the choir program that got cut in 2009? This is also coming from someone who had an idea (test the crap out of kids to prove we’re teaching something), ran with it, and found it wasn’t working exactly the way he planned. Could it be, after some hands-on experience and trial and error, he’s acquiring new knowledge and gaining a better understand that may help in the future? Isn’t it great when actual education takes place?

She was wrong at the time. I hated him.

At her suggestion, I checked out his TV special called “Hilarious” on Netflix, which was supposed to be pretty good. Hilarious, in fact.  It started out with a pudgier, red-haired guy ranting about the word “faggot”. When he was younger it didn’t mean what it means today. Why is it such an insult now? “Faggot” had nothing to do with a judgement of one’s sexual orientation; it meant your social behavior was annoying and you were being, well, a “faggot”.  And he went on like that.

Already I feel like apologizing for this ugly word, and I’m just quoting someone else.  I got tired of hearing that word pretty quickly then, too, and turned off the TV. I wouldn’t blame you if you already clicked off this post. You didn’t, did you? Still here? Well you did better than me. At the time, I completely missed the point in his opening bit: Though societal factors affect their connotation, words have only the power that we give them. I know, deep, right? I still turned it off. I just didn’t hear the message over voice expressing it; swearing like a sailor. Or a crabby, balding, 8th grade boy.

I recently gave him another chance when he came up on a comedy radio channel on Spotify (more about this addiction another day). I was driving through several states to see my sister, and there was Louis. He was explaining both sides of the spanking issue. Kids are tiny, barely-formed people who trust wholeheartedly and whose behavior is mostly our fault, and we’re BIGGER than them, yet we hit them as punishment…but on the other hand, parenting is a high pressure job that sucks you dry and he can completely understand life’s stressors contributing to someone lashing out – because he’s wanted to a billion times. Me too, buddy. Me too.

I switched off of radio and onto his albums. I was cackling so much on the George Washington Bridge that I got several “look-at-that-crazy-lady” glances – in New York!  Now, I don’t mean to assert that everything that comes out of the guy’s (filthy) mouth is golden. But that time, so much of his material resonated with me. He talked philosophy, socioeconomic issues, education, health and fitness, ethics, and more. “More” being every bit of foul language and sex joke imaginable. It all combined artfully into a little stew of screwed-up wisdom.

Why does some random comedian warrant a post at this illustrious blog? Because it seems to me that most of stand-up comedy today is about grossing you out, shocking you, or both.  This is very good fun and should never, ever stop. However, I feel like I’ve found in Louis a performer who is also using the stand-up mic to ask you to think, and challenge you to change. His content is of a higher quality.  And then he drops F bomb. Because that is also quite funny. The colorful tone of his communication may alienate people, and that’s unfortunate. But because he forever earned my respect when he used an interview with Letterman as a platform to talk about the needlessness of standardized testing.

In an article in the New York Post, he is quoted as saying, “My kids used to love math. Now it makes them cry. Thanks, standardized testing and Common Core!” Love!

Ok, I know: This post reads like fan mail. Comedians have taken up social issues for years. It’s very stylish. It just so happens that I agree wholeheartedly. Plus, I’m highly biased. The guy looks (and thinks) like he could be related to my sister and I.  That’s not a good endorsement of our pretty faces, is it? Whatever, we know we’re hot. Deal with it. I mentioned this when I got to sis’s house after laughing all the way to Massachusetts. After a little further study and discussion (Netflix and Oreos were our research assistants, I believe), she and I concurred with enough of his content that we (I?) decided that Louis C. K. is our unofficial long-lost older brother*. This theory can probably be attributed to her new-mom lack of sleep and my Oreo + whiskey diet that weekend. Also, when I was younger I wished for an older brother to drive me around, be funny, and help me hang up my NKOTB posters.

*Author note: We later discovered that Louis C. K. is older than he looks, and is closer in age to our dad. He resembles Dad, too.  So hey, Louis, if you ever want to come to one of our non-existent family reunions where we order take-out, drink, and talk shit, contact me.  You are of our ilk.

Here’s a smattering of what the guy has to say, in pretty little quote graphics.  I can’t agree more without committing copyright infringement:

I can’t improve on that, except to buy posters of this quote to hang in every room in my house, including my own.

In our family we pretend that our standard, polite word for passing gas is “toot”.  In reality, it is not.  When we’re down to the four of us, it’s called a FART, and it is FUNNY. Because we are raising well-bred little ladies over here.

This is a great start to a great post for another day when I feel like alienating half the people I know via blogging. But I’m good for today. 

Zen master. 

Pretty much, in every way I can think of, except I still need be able to beat them at board games.

 Spread a little comment love so everybody else can laugh: 

Who else do you like in the comedy world?

Actually? When I was in Kindergarten I was the dead-last kid to learn to tie my shoes. This was humiliating. Nowadays, motor skills like these develop later. I presume this because it is not a standard skill among my first graders.  I have even had 8 year olds asking me to tie their shoes. Spoiler: I did not.  Now ask me if my 7 1/2 year-old is all that good at it…

This past summer I ran across a great blog post from the blog A Magical Childhood, and loved it. “What Should a 4 Year Old Know” was a calming reminder that, though my little one is not reading or writing like my big one was at this age, there are far more important things than a knowledge of the two sounds “G” makes.   I will admit to buying a Pre-K workbook for us to use when we ‘played school’ in the summer.  We cracked it once. Again, we had stuff to do.

Related, I swear, is this gorgeous little book:

Meg’s World (On Amazon here). Written by author/illustrator John Kollock and originally published by Peachtree Publishers in 1970, I have loved this book, I think, forever. Yes I know it’s older than I am. 

In it, 4 year-old Meg explains her week to someone, including the family schedule, and other fun happenings in between. One such event is having company over: “Company does not always want to play what you want them to. Last week I wanted to play gorilla, but Mary wanted to be a fairy tale. You can’t always have your own way, even if you yell. We get the costumes from the big box at the foot of my bed. When you play “dress-up” the company always gets to be the princess or the fairy. This is called manners. I get to be the boy – or the gorilla, when they will play it. After “dress-up” we get out some more toys. Sometimes we remember to put-each-thing-back-in-its-place-when-we-have-finished-playing-with-it.

Sometimes we forget.”

It goes on like that, and gets better. As a former player of He-Man and Ninja Turtles, I totally related to the gorilla thing. In her eyes, Meg stays home each day, not because she’s too young to go to school, but to help her mother with the housework. This mainly consists of trying to vacuum up the cat. There is nothing regular on her family calendar for Wednesdays, so she’s doubts aloud that there is one every week. Mother likes washing dishes so much, that she does them again when Meg is finished her turn. And then there’s this:

Pardon the orange marker stain. Everything in my house has a marker stain.

She is awesome, this kid. I’m so proud that we share a name.  If any 4 year-old is ever this simultaneously carefree and opinionated, their mom and dad can be satisfied with their parenting work thus far. This is the kind of kid that the above blog post is talking about. Secure, creative, and unburdened by, as Kollock puts it in his beautiful little introduction, “the learning process – the discipline of facts – A+ and D-.”

In a high school literature class we were asked to bring in our favorite book. Not trying to be cutesy, but rather to start a discussion on narrative voice and perspective, I unwittingly brought along Meg. Yes, I was 18. I stand by my decision.

Nowadays, as a teacher and parent, I would love to bring it somewhere again, as another type of example.

Because I got your ‘4 Year-Old Curriculum’, right here:

My memory may be failing me in my old age, but I swear to God the person who sat next to me in that lit class brought in Atlas Shrugged.