jeopardy

someone I knew was on jeopardy last week, a woman I went to high school with and am in FB contact with only.

Anyway, it reminded me of the time I tried out for Jeopardy and I thought I would share it.

It was 1994. I was 23 and recuperating from a bad illness. i couldn't do much but lie in bed or watch TV and I watched Jeopardy religiously. One night we saw that they were having tryouts in Atlantic City. My mother in law(or my boyfriend's mom at the time) loves AC. So we decided to take a trip down with her and I would try out.

I forget which casino the first test was in but we had to go through a maze of slot machines to a small conference room. Some guy explained that we would have, I think five minutes to take a ten question quiz. You had to get 7 of the ten right to move on. I sat down and got 6 almost right away. I didn't know the name of the "famous milanese opera house" (what is La Scala?) and I had another iffy answer, time was running out but at the last minute I looked at "rocky island" and for some reason 'bikini atoll' popped into my head. I almost shouted "Atoll! Atoll!" but wrote it down. They said to wait and listen if our name was announced and come back if it was in ten minutes or something like that.

We were playing slots when what do you know- they called my name. It was very exciting. They gave me a sheet of paper and told me to come back in a month for round two.

For round two my future mother in law drove me down. I was actually still pretty weak and couldn't handle a long drive. I crocheted the whole down, working on what became a queen sized blanket. I still think of it as my sick blanket. I just sat and watched tv and crocheted that blanket over me the whole winter.

At the start of Round Two there were about 80 people. We sat at long conference tables, 6 footers, two or three to a table. One woman came in late and seemed really fussy about where she would sit. This time there were 50 questions. They came up on a TV screen and we were told that they were all 800 or 1000 questions from previous shows. You would only have 30 seconds to answer before the next question came up. It didn't have to be in the form of a question. It was hard. Again, I remember the answers I knew I didn't know- a sphygnomanometer measures this( what is blood pressure?) and he composed Peer Gynt (who is Grieg?). I was sure I bombed.

They vanished for a bit and when they came back they said "If we say your name, congratulations, you passed." they start reading names, I'm getting ready to tell my mother in law i failed and not feeling too terribly disappointed when I hear my name. I was so surprised I said "Really?" Somebody laughed and the guy reading the names said "Yes, really." After they finished reading the list they said, "If we haven't said your name, I'm sorry but you won't be advancing. We don't share the scores of the tests so if your friends ask how you did you can tell them you just missed by a point." I'd say half to maybe two thirds of the people in the room didn't pass the test. Those of us who were left had to move to the front and fill in the empty seats.

I wound up sitting next to the woman who had come in late. We had a few minutes and she starts chatting with me about her doggie day care business and how she thinks this will get her on the show and she motions for me to come closer so she can show me some article she brought and I realize that she has been drinking. Now this thing started at 10 in the morning and she reeked. I'm looking around the room wondering "does anyone else know?" and also, "how the hell did she get through this test" I also noticed that I was the youngest person in the room by at least 15 years(I thought at the time, 15 years ago, HA). We had to introduce ourselves, say what we did, why we were hear. As the people were talking the list of occupations sounded like this "teacher, lawyer, lawyer, doctor, teacher, librarian, lawyer, teacher, teacher.." you get it. maybe with the occasional engineer. Then they get to me and I say "Hi, I'm a 23 year old waitress but not actually working right now. maybe I'll go back to college some day. I just thought it would be fun to see how well i could do." Oh, I forgot to mention that I had been on prednisone for about six months at this point so a lot of my hair had fallen out and my face was really puffy, so I can't even imagine what some people were thinking as I got up to give my spiel.

Then dog lady gets up and she was not exaclty incoherent but the guy asked her to repeat something she said and she started, I don't know how to explain it, speaking as loudly as someone could without shouting. and she was sort of waving her article around as she did it. I'm trying not to laugh, not because of what she was saying but because she was drunk and nobody knew it. and at the absurdity of the two of us among all the doctorlawyerteacher's there. I started thinking of us as the token fuck ups and because I was also nervous and excited I spent the rest of the introduction time trying not to laugh.

Now, it's time for the practice round and they explain that on real Jeopardy if you ring in before Alex finishes reading the question your buzzer is frozen for 10 seconds. The guy said some other stuff but I was still trying not to lose it. Especially when I realize that my new friend and I are going to be in the same group of three for mock jeopardy.

Let me tell you, playing for real instead of just on TV is really hard. Especially with two other people who you know are just as smart and probably smarter than you are. My group goes up to play and dog lady is clicking like crazy and arguing with the guy about not calling on her. I'm trying not to laugh. She answers a question "Texas" and he says "I'm sorry but..." and she says "It's texas. I know the answer is Texas. I was there last summer" and he says 'Remeber this is jeopardy.." she argues for another minute and finally he says 'it has to be in the form of a question." I knew I was out of it at this point and was fine with it. When the group before me came back from their turn, the lawyer had said "That was fun" but he didn't look like he meant it. I didn't think it was fun at all.

so, needless to say, I didn't make it on to Jeopardy which was fine. I know if I tried out again I could make it to the practice round again but the idea of being on TV and trying to keep my cool freaks me out. and I don't look good on camera. I think it was the knowing I was smart enough part that interested me, not the winning or TV part.

Busy Bee

How was your holiday everyone? The egghead has been up to all sorts of shenanigans in the past few weeks. School is on break. The kids go back on Jan. 5th but then we are leaving for Texas for two weeks on the 7th. I almost feel like January is over before it started.

I don't have much to say. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. and all that. I have made my new Year's Resolution. Last year's was to live a more inconvenient life. I think I was fairly successful in making some changes. I reduced my paper towel use to about 5% of what it once was. We began composting food. We doubled to tripled what we put in our recycling bin. I became more efficient in planning my daily trips to save gas. Overall I tried to be more thoughtful about how I do things. I'm going to give myself a solid B. Maybe a C+.

This year's resolution is to focus my meditation practice on the Buddhist principle of Right Speech. Right Speech means no lying, gossip or slander. It means not hurting people with your words. It also means your intent must be pure when you speak. I've read that Right Speech also means that your every word should be meaningful and help promote dharma so that even chitchat would be out but I'm not there yet.

There are a lot of reasons why I decided to focus on this. Some of it is that I find the news to be so relentlessly negative and depressing without any instruction to make the information they share useful. a man in california dressed up like Santa and killed 9 people. this is a tragedy to be sure but what benefit is it to those not living in his immediate vicinity to know about this. And the relentlessness of celebrity coverage has finally gotten to me. It adds nothing to the betterment of humanity. It's just a distraction. so I don't want to support that kind of speech anymore.

I will also work on my terrible habit of gossiping. I'm so bad. And again, do I really add anything to the people's lives that I gossip with. I would hate to know that people are talking about me. So why do i do it?

these are the changes I plan on making in the coming year.

I plan to be true to my values without trying to police the behavior of others. I want to be considerate of the effect of my words on my children, not just strangers.

I would like to stop using profanity. But I'm going to try and stop gossiping first.

Here's some follow up on things that I may or may not have followed up on:
Remember when i thought i was going deaf. Well it turns out I'm not. My hearing is borderline impaired. (Low enough to notice but good enough to not do anything about it). According to the audiologist my main problem is that I have four kids and live in a noisy environment.

That friend that I was mean to but then reunited with on facebook and I have a had a few very enjoyable lunches and may even go out to dinner with our fellas.Oh goodness it's 1 am and finn is up and that's why this post is so rambling. Well, I'll see you soon.

Facebook gripe again

A few students from Sudbury have friended me on facebook. They have recommended other friends to me but I choose to wait for students to friend me because I don't want to be weird mom trying to be in their little crew.

The problem is that now I have to monitor myself more closely because its like having kids around all the time. I've used profanity once or twice and today is my birthday and I posted a silly thing about having a drink to celebrate and now feel like it may not be appropriate since there are students from the school on my friends list. It's kind of annoying.

I also want to create a separate account to have my real friends on that list and then have an account for people that I want no more than sporadic contact with at best. Unfriending seems so dramatic.

Sorry I haven't been blogging much. I know the world is just a little bit paler, a little bit grayer without regular infusions of my wit and wisdom.

Fun Fact

Molotov Cocktails were not invented by Molotov or Russians for that matter. They were devised by the Finns during The Winter War and named for a Russian official who got the mess started in the first place.

Isn't that interesting?

My boyfriend's back

I had taken a break from Democracy in America. For starters, the library wouldn't let me renew Volume I again. So I got behind on my read along. Plus, fooling around on the internet takes up a lot of time that might be spent in nobler pursuits. Plus we were all sick.

Instead of trying to catch up I decided to just pick up where my group is and start reading again. We have moved on to Volume II. Here's an interesting tidbit-vol. I was better received in America than Europe but Vol. II (published about 7 years later) was more popular in Europe than America.

Volume II is more sociological in nature. It looks at the effect of equality on everyday life and relationships, not just politics. My guess as to why it was not as well received in America is that Chapter 3 probably rubbed people the wrong way. It's hilarious and feels like it was written after an exhausting party but I think that what he ascribes to American character is really the universal tendency of the boor to glom onto someone.

Vol I is written so admiringly of American political institutions but Vol II takes all sorts of little jabs at the american character. I think it's funny and still see a lot of truth to some of them but many of his comments must have stung. No time to share any of those. Facebook scrabble doesn't play itself you know.

more thoughts

I love analogies and metaphors and pretty much any way you can describe something as being like something else. Similes too. I love a good simile.

It was pointed out to me that my definition of curriculum was too narrow. I had already arrived at that conclusion but lacked the language to describe what a sudbury curriculum is. Here is a link that discusses the idea of curricula and learning experiences in a much more thorough, eloquent and better researched way than you will ever see on this site: The Moral Path of Curriculum: Fulfillment or Judgment

What I was really searching for was a way to crystallize the differences between a sudbury experience and one in a traditional school, especially the role of staff/teacher.

the first thought I had was "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." the Sudbury experience focuses on the leading part. They provide the conditions for all sorts of amazing things to happen and it's up to the students to participate or not. Traditional schools focus on the drinking. They don't have to lead the horses anywhere because of our compulsory education laws so they are free to get a big funnel and pour all sorts of stuff down their horse's throat.

I thought of the water as being the great big world and all the interesting stuff that is out there to see. Then I thought about rivers and how knowledge and experience are not static, they aren't this big puddle to drink from, one thing flows to another, so I was thinking how Sudbury schools are like this big whitewater rafting trip. The staff is on the boat and they know more about sailing the boat than the kids do but they can't control the direction or speed or forsee every rock any more than the kids can so they're sort of all in it together. The SS Sudbury. Ha!

I think it takes a special sort of person willing to cede that much control.

The staff is also really busy. They just have a ton of stuff to do so even if you had someone who had an agenda it would be hard to implement it because there isn't a lot of time.

I should not be up at 1 am blogging. This is ridiculous.

Rambling again

As a new sudbury parent you think you know what The Philosophy is all about and sure you have your reservations but you think you can handle it. Then, one day, you come to a realization about the staff.

They are not teachers. They are not there to teach your kids. They are not even going to try.

If your kids asks them a question, they'll answer it to the best of their ability. If your kid wants help, they'll help. But they really truly have no interest in teaching your kid anything.

Sudbury schools are not curriculum based. They have no great wisdom to impart. They do not make learning "fun". And most importantly this is not even their organizing principle.

When you get this, as a parent, it's a little scary. You might feel cheated, hoodwinked. Hey, you think, what the hell kind of school is this anyway?

It's exactly the kind of school that they said it was. The organizing principle of a sudbury school is to prepare children to be active engaged citizens in a democracy. To be responsibile adults. I think they throw in the life long learner crap because people can't handle the idea of a school that doesn't have the word "learn" in its manifesto somewhere. No, it's just that people have a very rigid idea of what learning means and "life long learner" fits that better.

The learning that happens at a Sudbury School is like a slow cooker. It's like aging a fine wine. Or letting a cheese ripen. You create the optimum conditions to get the desired product and then you just let it go. Check on it from time to time and wait for the magic to happen.

It isn't that simple, there is a lot of tinkering but the point is that it is a subtle and long process and you wonder if it is ever going to work and then one day it does.

Curriculum based education is like a vintner who keeps tasting his wine too early and every time he doesn't like the taste he adds something else. And keeps adding and adding and sometimes at the end he gets wine and sometimes vinegar and sometimes grape juice. And when you criticize him he says "my equipment sucks" or "I didn't have enough money to do it the way I wanted to" but he never questions his method in the first place.

This is an imperfect analogy but I'm sure you see what I'm getting at. Traditional schools suck and sudbury schools rock. Case closed!!

sick

we are sick, sick, sick here thus the dearth of posts.

we did have a great thanksgiving though, hope you did too!

words that I sort of know the meaning of but not well enough to use in a sentence

apostate
apotheosis
factotum (good book though, love the Buk)
praxis

word that I do know the meaning of but would feel pretentious using
amanuensis

words that I love that also start with the letter "l"
lethargy
logorithim
libretto
lothario
and of course.......list.

this would be even funnier if it was someone else

We're riding home from the bus stop and Amelia asks "Mom, what's sex?"
sigh, why is it always in the car?
"Well, it's how you make babies." I hear some whispering and i told you's and Amelia says "Des says that it's naked people rolling around hugging and kissing."
double sigh
"Well, that's part of it sometimes."
"Is that real?" Des asks, "Because we want to know the right answer. All the little kids want to know the right answer, Mom."
"do you have to do sex to make babies?" "yes"
Amelia then deduces that her cousin and his girlfriend who are expecting a baby "do sex"
"Why do you have to have your clothes off?"
"Well, sometimes it's more comfortable that way."
"You did it four times. I mean three because we're twins."
'Well, you don't have a baby every time you have sex."
"Oh we know that. so how many times did you do it?" Amelia hazards a guess "5, 6 times?"
Then Des asks "when you were making Finn, where was Cady? I mean, she wasn't just standing there right.'
I say "we found a private place and had some time to ourselves. Sex is a private thing and so mommy and daddy do that privately in privacy."
Amelia says "I bet we were all fast asleep."
I tell them that these are personal questions but I'm answering them so that they have the right information but they can't ask other people. I said that even adults don't discuss this with each other, it's that private.
Des asks "Do all animals do sex?"
"Yes."
"How do reindeer do it?"
I say "Honestly, Des, I have never seen that."
He says "Well they have those pointy things on their heads. Don't they hurt each other?"
"I really don't know."
Then he says "I heard people roll around all over the place." He looks at me and says "I know you didn't do that, mom."
It was the most exhausting conversation I've had with them in a while.

don't laugh

I was on the phone with someone and had to give them a phone number. They said "can you text it to me?"
I said "well, I'm on my house phone." which was true.
but also,
I don't know how

a quick note on sentences

The other day Des had a sentence in school for running in the halls-he had to do the Wedding March(walk very slowly) and wear a sign that said "Don't run in the halls". At first the sign bothered me because it seemed like a shaming sort of punishment but then the kids explained that it's to help them remember not to run. There are also little signs that say "I have a cleaning job today" because forgetting to do your cleaning job is quite common. As is just flat out not doing it.

The sentences generally fit the infraction. The kids say littering, running, rowdy or dangerous activity, not doing cleaning jobs and being noisy in the quiet area are the most common charges. The sentences are usually a cleaning job or an extra cleaning job for littering and being restricted from certain areas or restricted to certain areas for noisy or rowdy behavior. Not putting toys or art supplies away usually results in being decertified for those items. Most of the stuff is pretty basic: if you make a mess, clean it up. Don't want to clean it up? Then you don't get to use that stuff anymore.

Repeat offenders will have longer sentences and then eventually suspension. People have been suspended for not doing cleaning jobs. Mostly suspension/expulsion is for more serious, I would say, anti social infractions-fighting, bullying, stealing stuff like that. JC recommends suspension but school meeting has to vote on it. And if it is an indefinite suspension they have to vote to let you back in too. It's pretty intense. That doesn't happen very often though.

I love smart people.

I really do. Not everybody does, you know, but I do. I used to feel threatened by smart people, truly smart people, because I would always compare myself to them and get very edgy if I thought I was coming up short. A lot of that is because I did so well in school that I let my whole identity get wrapped up in being smart. It was the only thing I was good at. And if I did poorly on a test or got a bad grade on a paper I took that as a judgment on me as a human being. It never occurred to me that I could improve. I had a very rigid- you either get it or you don't method of learning and if I didn't get something the first time I assumed it was because I was stupid. Pretty twisted. Towards the end of high school, when I was really bottoming out, teachers just kept saying to me over and over again "but you're so smart, why aren't you ________(doing your work, studying, working up to your potential bla bla bla)." Sometimes smart just isn't enough. It helps but it doesn't always overcome a dysfunctional family or lack of direction or a bunch of other stuff that can hold people back. and it isn't even respected by your peers in many academic settings. so I've had a love/hate relationship with smarties for a while.

But now I love smart people and I feel like I'm coming across more of them than ever before. I feel challenged and intrigued and I have even come across some ideas that are so hard for me to understand that I actually feel my brain stretching around them, trying to comprehend. It's great to be a grown up and feel comfortable with who you are and your own talents and abilities so that you can also enjoy what other people have to offer. Huzzah!

More about Lying

"morality and ethical values are not mere decorative frills of personal opinion, not subjective superstructure, but intrinsic laws of the cosmos built into the heart of reality" Bhikkiu Bodhi

I take the sentiments of the above to heart when I talk to my kids about ethics. I understand the arguments of moral relativism but they seem instinctively wrong to me. From a practical standpoint a society built upon the idea of moral relativism is going to get into trouble. I think that there are some parents out there that consciously or not convey a sense of moral relativism to their children and parent in a morally relativistic way that I cannot go along with.

My approach with a lot of things has been to get the habit down first and then explore the reasons for it later. So I've explained what lying is and told them not to do it and punished them when they do. Then I tell them why it's wrong.

Yesterday when we were talking about JC with them I explained why I thought it was so bad to lie to JC. I explained that it's all about trust. The kids are entrusted with a tremendous amount of freedom and JC is the way to correct behavior that jeopardizes those freedoms. If the students cannot be trusted to be honest about their activities then the school couldn't function. This is the problem with lying in general. Trust and cooperation go hand in hand and lying jeopardizes those relationships.

They were ready for this discussion but Cady certainly isn't. Right now I'm just trying to teach Cady the difference between a lie and the truth.
oh I just had the most interesting thought!! so I was thinking how many parents worry about being "too authoritarian" so they give their kids these moral choices before the kids can handle them. Then there are those hyper commanding parents who have to be in control of every aspect of their child's behavior and brook no dissent. The problem isn't between being authoritarian or permissive, I think the problem is between being arbitrary or rational.

If parents aren't clear about their own ethical or moral reasons for living a certain way this confusion is going to be transmitted to their kids no matter how they parent. "Because I said so" and "what do you think is the answer" can both be useful or damaging depending on the follow up conversations.

Obstruction of Justice

The kids were talking about lying to JC tonight. Of course I'm such an idealist that the idea that they would try to subvert it was deeply offensive to me. Then I got a grip and remembered that they are 6. They had told me about times where other kids have lied to JC but this was the first time that they had admitted it to me. Amelia said that she has never lied but she has occasionally left out "the part that I did". Des said that he has tried lying but "they still catch me." There are rules that he breaks regularly even though he knows it's wrong. Running in the halls is one. He has having a really hard time with that one this year. It's crazy because he is usually Mr. Slowpoke. He eats slowly, walks slowly, takes twice as long as Amelia to do anything. So what is the big rush at Sudbury, I wonder?

The conversation started because they read the chapter "Veritas Serum" in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I said "Imagine if JC had truth serum." They went nuts. Des said "I bet I would be expelled." Amelia said "That would be horrible and great. At the same time." They also didn't want me to ever give them that potion because they have some huge secret that they are sure I would punish them for. My guess is they broke something and I haven't found it yet.

Another exercise in expressing your disapproval without losing their trust or turning them off from confiding in you.

Back to JC though. I've noticed that people don't take perjury or lying to authorities or lying in general that seriously. I strive to always be as honest as possible but occasionally I will slip one in and the kids will call me on it. Why is it so wrong? Why are people so inured to it?

Well, our leaders have shone themselves to be liars time and again and that filters down. Leaders set the tone. Even in a country that worships at the altar of individualism and free thinking like ours.

Why is lying wrong? Because it erodes trust. Because it can lead people into making the wrong decision if they don't get the correct facts to base it on. I'll have to finish this tomorrow. My eyes are burning with tiredness.

Nothing is ever easy.

Including today's post. am I running out of interesting stuff to say about my marvelous children?

No, we're just having a tough time with Des and we've found that right now he seems to be craving more one on one time and that is hard to do. Ray works full time plus and I've got the kids and Cady and Finn need a lot of minding. that's just how it is.

He is so happy though when it is just him and me. He asks question after question and is more relaxed and we can really talk about things and get to the level of detail that satisfies him. Especially if we're home and have more resources at our disposal. I don't know why, but my kids invariably ask me for a math lesson in the car and I can't explain that stuff without a pen and paper.
He will also get up early when Ray gets up with finn and hang out and talk to him. I know he's searching for something. The talk about activities, the way he talks about community service(loves it because he likes what he gets to do with it), the complaints of being bored at sudbury all let me know that he is struggling and I don't know how far to go in making suggestions without possibly compromising The Philosophy. I also wonder if he has time or inclination to explore these conversations at school too.
There is also the little educational devil whispering in my ear that hints at signing him up for some after school stuff. Which I don't think is a necessarily bad idea if I'm doing it for the right reasons(he'sinterested) rather than the wrong one(solving his problem for him.)

Struggles

Des was complaining about his most recent sentence for running in the halls. He has to do the Wedding March for two days and wear a sign that says don't run in the halls. While we talked about whether or not this particular sentence was "really stupid and mean" he said "How harsh a punishment would I get if I got suspended?" After 6 years with Des I have learned that the best way to answer this kind of question is with another question. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, they said that if I have any more write ups for dangerous behavior I'm going to get suspended and when I got restricted from the bus for just one day you gave me a really harsh punishment." (I disagree, I just refused to drive him to school and made it clear that if he were to be permanently restricted from the bus he would not go to that school anymore. Which looks very harsh when I read it now and does seem to violate our "let sudbury take care of sudbury" rule but it is just not fair to me Cady or Finn to have to spend an extra hour and a half in the car each day because he can't behave on the bus.) I asked him what kind of dangerous behavior he had been engaging in and he said "I don't know." I said "What do you mean you don't know?" he said "I don't remember."
Then came the flood of complaints that if there was more fun stuff and "activities" to do at school then he wouldn't be doing the dangerous behavior, which he can't remember what it is but he wouldn't do it if there was something else to do.

I guess this might be an example of a kid hitting the wall. It's hard to watch him struggle. I made some suggestions of things to try or people to talk to and he shot them down as being either too hard or too embarrassing. so what else can I do but let him work it our for himself. Which I know is the right thing but then he asks to homeschool and I know how much better he does one on one and I'm tempted to let him try it. I won't because it isn't practical for us right now and I know after a day he would want to go back to school. It's just hard. It's just hard to watch your kid struggle. and he's only 6. Yipes!

Wow

I've started and discarded many posts this past week because I was so consumed by the election. It still seems a bit unreal that Obama won. I think I just got used to evil triumphing all the time with the Bush administration.

I have so many feelings right now. I'm happy that the democrats won although I can't stand that Nancy Pelosi and am sure she's going to fuck things up for Obama. I'm happy for black people. I hope they feel more welcome in their own country now.

I want to be a citizen of the world. I don't need America to be number one all the time. I like the idea of us working with other countries instead of trying to shove our ideas down their throat. Plus, they might have some good ideas too.

I don't see how he's going to get out of Iraq in 16 months. Not without a civil war taking place. but please please close guantanamo and for heaven's sake let's make it clear-NO TORTURE!!!!! that includes waterboarding. Assholes.

Good luck with healthcare. I can't wait to see what kind of frankenstien monster you guys come up with. Please force the pharmaceutical companies to negotiate. My medicine is really really expensive. Even with generics.

Can we finally agree that our way of life is going to make life more and more difficult? I don't worry about saving the planet. The planet will swat us off like a horse swats a fly with the flick of its tail. save the humans!

Appoint the youngest, most left leaning judges you can find.

Encourage a "One Nation, One Book" month-my first pick: DIA, duh!

The guy is inheriting one big mess on top of another. I wish him a nice soft landing when the honeymoon is over and the media comes back down to earth.

A Paradox

All during the campaign, and for most of my life, I've heard a lot of talk about liberals and conservatives. I always considered myself a liberal but because of my alignment on certain issues. Pro-choice,pacifistic , green in thought if not in deed. I tended to disagree with conservatives on more things than not. But this year I tried to think a little more deeply. What did it really mean to be liberal? conservative?

Political liberalism strives for reform through laws and policies. Political conservatism prefers slow change and respect for tradition. Economic liberalism is market driven, there should be no or little government intervention. Liberalism got it's name in the first place that individual liberty is paramount. So, in this country we are really all liberals. But we are also all conservatives because our tradition is one that places high value on personal liberty. There was a bigger difference at the time of the revolution obviously. The liberals were the people who wanted self rule and the conservatives were the royalists.

In more recent history conservatives were supposed to be the people who wanted less government and as much individual freedom as a community could tolerate. Liberals were the people who stove to redress historical and economic inequites through government intervention. Now let's apply these ideas to Sudbury.
Individual freedom is paramount in a sudbury school (liberal) and the laws should be as few as possible(conservative). Rules change in response to situations and the needs of the students there at any one time but their purpose is to maintian a community where people are free to pursue their interests unmolested. The laws are not in place to improve the circumstances of any one group.

I don't know where I'm going with this. My original idea was to show that the Sudbury philosophy is more conservative in nature but seems to have been founded by a bunch of liberals but now I can't tell the difference. It's liberal in the fact that it's a radical departure from conventional forms of education but conservative in maintaining its own traditions.

The problem is differentiating between political and philosophical definitions of liberalism and conservatism. That is a job far beyond this little egghead.

guest blogger: Des

Since he is home from school today(the lesson is not being learned:he's having a great time) Des is expressing some opinions for your edification:

Des:I really want Sudbury to have a gym. I think it would be a way funner activity and I think the school should have some construction work done to it so it can be bigger and put more stuff in it to have more activities.

Mom:What do you mean by activities?

Des:Regular fun activities like going somewhere. do you know what I mean?

Mom: No I don't because if you want to go someplace you can just make a trip.

Des: some stuff fun activities means to me well playing freeze tag, you know, doing stuff

Mom: so do you want other ideas for things for you to do?

Des: no

Mom: but you want there to be more things to do? do you want someone to come to you and say hey Des, why don't you come and do this with me like making goop or doing projects?

Des: No I don't want somebody to ask that to me.

Mom: I don't think I know what it is that you want from the school.

I don't want anything to borrow.

Mom: I know that. I mean I don't know what you want the school to be like.

I think the tower in the playroom should be bigger and the tunnel should lead out of the playroom. the playroom should be bigger with a bigger tower thing to play on. A bigger playground, I want a better playground with a tunnel that goes outside of the building. I went the giant red thing to lead into the hallways and outdoors and you could look at everything really high. That would be so great.

Mom: So that's the kind of activity that you want?

Yup! But I don't think it's gonna happen.

someone's in trouble

Des berated me for a full 40 minutes today about the deficiencies in his halloween costume. His tirade came to an abrupt halt. He said in a subdued voice, "Oh yeah, I'm restricted from riding the bus for one day."

I'm keeping him home tomorrow. This was a controversial decision with many no votes from Des and one parent abstaining. However, if he keeps it up that means I'm stuck driving him again because he can't control himself on the bus. He says nobody asked him to be quiet or gave him a warning. We're going to check with the bus driver so that he knows we listen to his side and take him seriously but there has also been many a time when I have asked him something repeatedly and he'll say he didn't hear me.

the time machine

The kids had a friend over the other day and after dinner they decided to build a time machine. After about an hour they had rigged something up with two lamps, a broom and dustpan, a pirate flag, some cardboard, some toilet paper rolls, these vinyl wall coverings from Amelia's room and a lot of scotch tape. When it didn't work in the living room they decided to bring it to the kitchen. They started to discuss which time they would travel to first and I said "if it works" and Ray snickered. Des went off! "Oh it WILL work. It WON'T work for you because you don't believe in it. People who don't believe in magic can't do magic. People who do believe in magic, DO MAGIC!"

He stormed back over to the time machine and turned to us and shouted "And you ARE NOT taking this down when I go to bed tonight." We found ourselves in that terrible position of wanting to laugh but knowing it would set him off again.

The funny thing is that part of me really agrees with him. I often get choked up at the end of the Polar Express. Because I still hope for Christmas miracles or strange doings on Halloween. I know we benefit from living in the age of science and rationality but I miss the hope and promise of magic.

Rambling(started the post with one thing in mind and ended up somewhere else altogether)

I was at school a lot last week doing prep for the fair and one thing I noticed is that periodically a kid would come through saying "Freeze tag, freeze tag" or "Capture the flag, we're playing Capture the Flag" to get a game going. amelia told me that Freeze Tag is usually boys vs. girls "but I don't like that so sometimes I just tell them what side I'm going to play on and that's that."
I asked Des to explain Capture the Flag to me and this was his response "It is so fun but it's really hard to explain and to learn. You just have to play it and get the rules while you play. there are these different people and they have to run to the sides and they can be prisoners but I think you can get rescued and then if you don't get caught you have to take this thing from the guards and get it back to your side." I said "That sounds pretty hard Des." He said, pretty cheerfully, "Oh it is. I've lost every single time I played."

Anyway, I watched a big game of Capture the Flag play out and later on I saw a two boys, a six year old and a 16 or 17 year old pass each other in the hall. The teenager said "Hey,good game, man" as he reached down and tousled the younger boy's hair. It was just so nice. And so unexpected. Especially because this teenager is taller than I am, has a couple of piercings and a beard that makes him look like he's 26.

And speaking of expectations, I was talking to another girl and she just blew my mind. I've chatted with this girl a couple of times and she seems really nice and I know my kids like her so I asked her about her other school experiences besides Sudbury. She told me how she had a lot of problems in other schools and was getting kicked out of class because of her attitude and that she was considered a trouble maker. It was so hard for me to reconcile that image with the interesting friendly intelligent young woman that I was talking to. I don't share this as a testamonial to the idea that sudbury cured her or fixed her in some way, I say it as evidence that traditional schools fail to adapt their methods or respond positively to a student that challenges them. so that student finds a way out; they follow this girl's route and get themselves kicked out or they check out which is what I did(I'll have to devote a post to my legendary truancy some day). Or find another way to endure the endless hours of the school day. What a waste.

Halloween Fair

We had a great time but I am wiped out. Attendance was poor and we didn't cover our expenses but everyone who did come had an awesome time.

so what did I learn? Next time I will delegate even more work than I did this time. I didn't have enough time to work on things that I would have enjoyed because I was doing stuff that I wasn't good at and didn't like.

Better advertising. Paid advertising. Actually I should have asked for more money in the first place. the people who did come spent money so I think it could be profitable.

I'll ask for more donations from the community. I'll get started earlier. We'll also have pictures from this year so maybe we can do a press release. I'm thinking aloud hear.

I know that it was successful in the sense of being a pretty fun party but I'm really really disappointed that I didn't get more people in. At one point it really was like my worst fear came to life when we just sort of standing around looking at each other. Oh well. this was the first year, I think it's worth doing again.

Making goop

I had the idea of making goop for the fair. We'll stick it in a cauldron and call it goblin's blood and let kids stick their hands in it and then we would give them a little easter egg of the stuff as a souvenir. I thought this would be a fun in school activity and it was, just not the way I expected it to be.

For starters,goop is best made in small batches, especially if you are using borax which needs to dissolve before you mix it with white glue. I tried to quintuple the recipe. Also, glue is messy and if you decide to be fair and let each child present pour a container of glue into a mixing bowl and you have more than three kids participating, well, there's going to be a mess. Oh yeah, putting a gigantic mixing bowl filled with 40 ounces of glue and 5 cups of water in front of 8 kids and then telling them not to touch it. That doesn't work. Luckily though Cady had been messing around with the borax water and then she plunged her hand into the glue mixture and came up with a hand covered in goop so we realized that the amounts didn't have to be exact. thanks Cady! From there two staff members and I mixed it and the kids played with it. At one point Cady had no shirt on, finn was fooling around with a broom, the kids at the table were slapping goop around and I was measuring out borax as fast as I could while talking to Amelia, or somebody. A staff turned to me and said "This is pretty much what your house is like all the time isn't it?"

After a while I noticed that a few of the little kids had been replaced by some bigger kids. they hung out and played with the goop for a good 20 minutes. again, you've actually got to resist those teachable moments because you know what most of the time it sounds so artificail and pedantic. It was so tempting to get into the chemistry of making goop but I kept my mouth shut. You know why? Because nobody asked me, that's why.

Speaking of ask, a girl asked me to be on her thesis committee. I was very surprised because I don't know this girl very well. But I said yes. I was so surprised and yes, flattered, that every time I ran into her the rest of the day I kept giving her this big smile. Like she had asked me to the prom. Ha! I'm such a geek.

What do they really need to know?

There was a philosophy discussion on saturday and we started to talk about how what the schools teach is always behind the times. Actually we started to talk about learning to tell time and was it necessary to learn on an analog clock since most clocks are digital anyway. This led to the discussion of how fast our world changes and that what we think is important to know today probably won't apply in 20 years. I, of course, still think kids should learn how to tell time on an analog clock because even though there are many digital clocks there are also still many analogs. We have one. Analog wristwatches still sell. I'm straying from the point, sorry. someone said something along the lines of "What gives me the right to say what is important to know?", something like that. But I think that there are core skills that are useful even if we use a more sophisticated technology now.

For me the deifning criteria of a core skill is probably something that can be done without electicity. Here are my set of core skills: reading and writing, basic mathematical operations plus fractions and percentages, public speaking, basic navigation(left from right, compass points),and the scientific method. a smattering of logic would help too. since analog clocks theoretically don't require a battery I'll say learning how to tell time is also important, better yet-learning how to approzimate the time based on the position of the sun. All this stuff can be taught by anybody to anybody. I would tack on hygiene, etiquette and a moral code but that should come from the family first and foremost and then be supported by school. I think if you have this stuff down you can probably make it through any situation. I'm thinking about what can get you through a trip to the grocery store.

I'm not saying that there aren't other topics that aren't also valuable to know but not knowing them doesn't make you a less successful human being. If the schools focused on the core skills and then let the students study more advanced subjects at their leisure everyone would probably be a lot happier. And I don't think Sudbury schools would be worse off if they agreed that there is a minimum skill set they want their students to learn.

The problem is that once you start making a list people want to add, subtract, and usually expand to the point that it becomes unwieldy, incomprehensible or impossible to achieve.

how far do you take it?

I've been spending a lot of time at school these past few weeks, working on stuff for the Halloween fair. I noticed a sign in the Art Room that they have "Sewing Machine" on their wish list. I have a half decent sewing machine gathering dust in my basement because I cannot do any sewing with Cady and Finn around right now. I've been thinking about letting them use it for a year but have hesitated because when you loan something you run the risk of it being damaged. It just seems selfish to keep it to myself when I have no idea when, if ever, I'm going to use it.

I was talking to a staff about it and she said that if they wanted it they needed to do more than just put it on a wish list. Even if they just sent an email out asking if anyone had a sewing machine. This is when I mentioned that I did have one. we talked about if it was a good idea for me to even loan it and she said she was going to encourage them to send an email out now, knowing there was a machine out there.

I thought about it. If this wasn't Sudbury and I knew that some people were looking for a sewing machine and I had one to loan I would just give it to them. But I've got The Philosophy in the back of my mind and I've been thinking that I'll wait for them to ask before I offer. It feels artificial though. Like I'm making it harder for them than it needs to be and not giving them an experience closer to real life, where serendipity often plays a role. I wonder, will they be more or less likely to use the machine if the step of asking for it is eliminated. In a way they did ask. they asked the universe, they put it on a piece of paper and in a very limited way put it out there. What is the crucial step to appreciate the relationship between effort and success? Would the appreciate the dumb luck that I just happenned to notice that they wanted a sewing machine? Is the fact that I'm even considering this to be a lesson a violation of The Philosophy? am I overthinking again? I think so!

On another note, there were some kids in the office getting prices on chemicals, I think for developing film. One of them noticed me walking by and said "We're building a bomb." I started to say "Well, as long as you're learning something" but checked myself and said "Well at least you're keeping busy." A girl said "At least we're learning something!" and we all laughed.

ethical dilemma

There was an article in the paper about HVSS and it was really positive. It was wonderful. My problem is that there are a couple of quotes from me but I didn't really say them. This makes me feel so uncomfortable. One of them was on the front page of the paper as a "Quote of the Week". Am I being naiive? Is this something that is just standard practice with newspapers? I wouldn't mind being misquoted but straight up fabrication just feels so wrong. and I never actually spoke to the person with the byline. why don't they give the guy who did the interview a little credit? I feel like I'm part of a hoax. Maybe I'm making too big a deal of it but I guess I think that newspapers have a responsibility to be truthful. The phrase public trust keeps coming to mind. Now I don't feel like I can trust anything I read in that paper.

I considered writing a note thanking them for the article but objecting to the quotes. I don't really know what I want them to do though- print a correction? Never write about the school again? I think it's just best that I not be involved in this sort of thing in the future. Being dishonest, even passively, for the benefit of the school does not sit well with me.

Is it OK to do the right thing for the wrong reason or to do the wrong thing for the right reason? (If this was an episode of Sex and the city there would now be a scene that involved me discussing this while buying shoes) (I have shoes on the brain because I just had to get rid of 7 or 8 pairs of some really cute ones because my foot is suddenly a 1/2 size bigger than it used to be-another side effect of having kids!) (but I digress)

I just explained my feelings to Ray and he said no one would believe me. Now I'm thinking about all the trash mags I read and he's right, even when you know something is preposterous, seeing it in print does give it this mystical air of veracity(there's an awkward phrase). Well, there's nothing mystical about it, there's an assumption that the person writing the article has taken the time to make sure that what they are saying is true, but why do we assume that anymore? How frustrating it must be for people to read distorted or untrue accounts of events involving them.

the bottom line is that I'm going to let it go, it's not that big a deal(even though it really is!) and hopefully more merit will be generated by generating more interest and hopefully more students for our wonderful school than damage will be done by letting people get away with sloppy reporting. But don't quote me on that.

Busy little bees

The art room is the new hot spot at the school. They changed the way you can be certified for things so that now there are three levels of certification. apparently level two has some really cool stuff because even Des got certified for it.

amelia has brought home lots of paintings and creations with a bunch of buttons glued to them. She is also in love with Mod Podge. Des makes "turretts". They are clothespins and other bits of wood glued together and painted and they are some kind of weapon. At home the kids are into making books. We have tons and tons of scrap paper so they sit and draw for hours and then punch holes in the drawings and tie them altogether with string.

I'm going in this friday to make stuff for the halloween fair. I know it would be easier to do it myself but I like kids and I like working with them so I don't mind the inconvenience of having a few helpers.

Talking to the press is not my strong suit

So I had emailed a local reporter about the school and suggested that they do a story on HVSS. Actually I was trying to get a calender listing about the Halloween fair but figured I might as well ask for a story about the school too.

So last week, I was taking a nap while Finn slept when the phone rang and it was someone from the paper who wanted to talk to me about the school. I was a little groggy and should have asked them to call back but I wasn't thinking. I don't think I said anything dumb but after I got off the phone with him I thought of a few more points and started replaying whatever it was I had said and wished I had just given him the number of another parent to talk to.

The story will be in this week's edition of the paper and I'm dreading it. Irrational fear? Maybe. But I think I like being behind the scenes better. I think I'm an extroverted introvert. Like, I know there are people reading this blog but when they have told me they read it I get so embarrassed, like they've seen me in my unmentionables. And I'm not really confessing any deep dark secrets here. And yet I do like to share my opinion. I mean it can't bother me that much because I do still have a blog.

I don't know. I just don't want to sound like an idiot or make the school look bad.

In other news, I have been sick and in quite a bit of pain thus the drop of in posts. Still plugging away at DIA. Tomorrow I'm going to enter this great passage about the election of the president. Can you stand the suspense? :)

Lastly, today is my 13th anniversary. we were married on a friday the 13th and it has worked out quite well for us. People kept saying "Oh you musn't be superstitious if you picked that date" but I'm actually really superstitious. I have all kinds of "lucky" objects and weird little rituals. You know why? Because it makes life that much more fun! But this is a topic for another post.

I'm not gonna lie

It's been a tough week here at Casa de Yaya.

But we made it through and now we're on to bigger and better things. The playground co op is selling Apple Crisps tomorrow. Amelia is very excited to bring our apple slicer to school tomorrow.
It's nice to have a sense of purpose. Des is really struggling with this right now. He has been since the second week of school. I don't know how to help him. In a meaningful way. I guess it's all in the listening. I try to let him talk about what's going on hoping that he will come to his own conclusion but quite often he just goes around in circles. He basically has two problems 1) figuring out what he would like to do and 2) separating from his friends when he wants to do something that they aren't interested in.

He also said he would like to go to school meeting more often but he doesn't always understand what they are talking about. I suggested that he have someone that he already feels comfortable with explain it to him. I got his usual response "But that's so embarrassing!" The Sudbury Road is a long and windy one.

Losing my touch

I've always loved kids and spending time with them. I never found it hard to find something to talk about. Since I actually had kids though I guess I look at them differently. I don't know. I feel so artificial when I talk to kids sometimes. Two recent experiences made me think about this.

I'm going to HVSS on friday mornings for Halloween Committee meetings. At the first meeting a couple of students strolled in and sat down. Of course I was delighted, especially because they were older kids and I was hoping some of them would get into this so in my enthusiasm I totally put one of them on the spot asking him if he had any ideas. Not the social crime of the century, I know, but at the same time I should have been happy that someone even wanted to see what was going on.

The next week I decided to play it cool. One girl came in and started talking and wanted to share ideas but I got kind of distracted and ended up practically ignoring her. Oof! In my own defense she did ramble on a bit.

Really, I think I just need to brush up on my social skills in general. It's so tempting to look for those "teachable moments" but then I think about my cousin who always had a piece of advice. If you said you liked to read she told you to major in English and become a teacher. She never asked what you liked to read. Ray and I were talking about this, how hard it is to just listen. And to respond in a way that keeps the conversation going.

Thoughts on the Bailout

This is another example of how messy democracy can be. There has been a lot of yammering about the failure of leadership because the bailout bill didn't pass in the house on Monday. First of all I say good because it was crap law that was going to saddle us with a lot of debt and may not even help. Maybe this country needs a credit crunch. If you have to borrow money to pay for anything besides a house or college, well, maybe you can't afford it!

Anyway, I don't think it was a failure of leadership on the part of the House becaue a lot of those who voted no were listening to their constituents which is what they are supposed to do!

We live in a representative republic and if the people you represent don't want something maybe you should listen to them. Maybe those of us who didn't think the bill should pass were wrong and if we were then congress should do a better job of explaining why it's right. Actually the Paulson should explain why he should be allowed to violate the constitution and all the principles of an honest, transparent govt. with the taxpayers money.

I'm glad it happened. It's like the American people are finally waking up and taking control of their government again.

PS I can't believe I am on the same side of an issue as Rush Limbaugh. That is some freaky shit.

Are you sick of deTocqueville yet? I'm not!

I love the Judicial Committee(JC). I've said before that I didn't think the school could work without it and last week I read chap. 6, Judicial Power in the US and Its influence on American Society. I've decided to apply some of his thoughts to JC and see if holds up as a legitimate judicial power.

First he describes three characteristics of of the ordinary functions of judicial power:
1)Arbitration
2)It pronounces on special cases and not upon general principles
3)It can act only when it is called upon

So let's look at how JC functions.
Arbitration-definitely and I think effectively JC is really both a criminal and a civil court rolled up into one. I mean technically people are written up for violating a rule but some of the rules are written in a way to find a neutral way to tell someone that they are making you unhappy. Bullying behavior for example. If a third party observes bullying and writes it up then it feels more like a criminal charge with guilt or innocence to be determined but if a kid writes up another kid for bullying then JC is definitely the arbitrator between the two parties.

It pronounces on special cases and not upon general principles.- This is also true for JC. DeT also talks about how if a judge happens to make a decision that involve ruling on a general principle as a result he is still within his powers. I don't know if that happens in JC. I'm going to have to ask a staff if JC has ever recommended that a law be changed based on a case that they encountered. However, I'm pretty sure nobody has ever written up a law and asked JC to rule whether or not it is valid.

It can act only when called upon to do so.-Des will complain about people and I suggest writing them up which he doesn't do and I explain that if you can't solve it yourself JC is there to help you but they can't help you if they don't know about it. (It's funny,Amelia has had to learn moderation in the opposite direction, she was like the sheriff for a while. ) So JC can not go looking for problems to solve and even the people serving on it cannot sentence someone or refer something to school meeting just because they know it has occurred, they would still have to formally write it up.

So I think JC passes. The only thing that would make it more European(of the 1830's anyway) than American depends on whether or not it has the power to declare a rule invalid based on a larger law(American Judges hold everything up to the constitiution as the first law of the land, if a law contradicts the constitution it is invalid). I think the political power of JC is more European, it's scope is more limited.

But what's the point of all this?

So re-reading my last post I wondered, will people get how this is beneficial to a student? In a set up like Sudbury nothing is handed to you. You have to work to get it-you have to work with people, you have to work within a certain framework and you need to understand the mechanics of that framework. You have to prioritize, not just to accomplish your goal but the goals themselves. You have to be able to speak up and sometimes you have to be able to sit still. this can't be taught with a textbook or as an abstract what-if situation. It has to be a habit.

How do you learn to be a self starter when your whole day is mapped out for you, year after year? I hate to harp on the inadequacies of traditional schools(not true! I love to harp on them!) but while they may pay a lot of lip service to encouraging students to be self motivated and learning critical thinking, the habits they teach are quite the opposite. The lack of freedom and autonomy(even down to the control of bodily functions like eating and using the bathroom) become so ingrained that they start to look to others to always tell them what to do. And when you do that you never have to take ownership of your failures and may feel insecure about the validity of your successes.

boring but necessary

We had our first Halloween Fair Planning Committee meeting today. I believe it may be a sub-committee of the Fund Raising Committee which falls under the authority of the Assembly. As we talked about what needed to be done one of the things on the to-do list was to have a motion made for parents to come in during school hours to work on the fair. There was also discussion once again about the co ops working the fair but apparently they are a little dysfunctional right now.

At the end of the meeting talk turned to re writing the by laws of the committee and what, if any authority it should have over fund raising activities held by other groups. I guess there was discussion, at a meeting that I did not attend, about the possibility of all fund raising activities having to go through the fund raising committee, whether they were open to the public or not.

What the discussion was really about, and I had to be clued into this, was power. Yes, it would be nice if there was a coordinated effort among everyone so activities aren't duplicated etc. but how do you decide which group gets to veto another's ideas. One word or two in the by laws would make a world of difference, in this case the difference is between using the word notification vs. permission. It's the difference between being informed and being in control.

the whole point of the school is to empower the students as much as possible so making the co ops go to fund raising to get permission to have an event when the committee often has to go to school meeting for permission and the co ops are formed exclusively by school meeting members doesn't make a lot of sense. After a few minutes of this I said I wanted to be a dictator, one of the staff members turned to me and said "We talk about this stuff every day. This is all we do."
Another staff said that the way the school functions is a testament to the messiness of democracy. It is messy. It's messy and it's hard, really hard to get things accomplished when everyone can have a say.

The limits of freedom

From DIA:
"It was never assumed in the United States that the citizen of a free country has a right to do whatever he pleases; on the contrary, more social obligations were there imposed upon him than anywhere else."

It is a common misconception about Sudbury schools that the children simply run wild, Lord of the Flies like, without any attempt to curb or guide their behavior. One visit to the school should dispel this notion immediately. It is hard not to notice the sheets of paper up everywhere defining what can and cannot be done and who can and cannot do it. There are a number of lists of privileges and who has been granted them- how far out in the woods a student can go, the criteria for being allowed to use the pool table, which student can use which art supplies, who is allowed to use certain toys. There are also public agreements about snow ball or water fights and only people who have signed their name to this are allowed to participate.

When I try to explain this some people say "well, that seems a bit excessive. They're only kids." And yet they wonder how I can send my kids off to a school where they spend most of their day unsupervised and around much older kids. "Aren't you worried about safety?" I probably don't explain it well enough because these very explicit rules and regulations are what makes it possible for a school to run with 70 kids who can be in charge of themselves. There isn't the level of supervision at sudbury schools that you find in traditional school settings because there doesn't need to be. The expectations are so clear and there is also a clear cut way of dealing with rule-breakers(see my other post about the Judicial Committee).

Reading DeT's quote at the top of the page immediately brought HVSS to mind and now I'm realizing that at it's inception America must have appeared to be one gigantic Sudbury School. The idea that regular people could govern themselves from the bottom up without some prefect or other mandarin standing over them all the time making sure they didn't step out of line was an incredible concept to Europeans of the 19th century.

What is a co op?

First of all, am I supposed to hyphenate it? Probably or people will think I'm talking about coops, and by people I mean you, Jen.

At Sudbury Valley they are called corporations. Basically they are organizations of staff and students based on a similar interest or goal. They make the rules and certification procedures for areas under their purview, they maintain and purchase supplies/areas and they fundraise to buy stuff that they want or need.

Here are the co ops that I know of at HVSS:
Computer
Library
Playroom
Playground
Sports
Art
Kitchen
Photography/Multi Media

There may be others. Co ops arise when there is a need or desire and disband when either the need is met and doesn't need to be maintained or the interest has waned. I'll give you the story of two as an example.

The Playroom co op was formed last year because the playroom was constantly being trashed and sometimes it would be closed for days because nobody would clean up their mess or help with anyone else's. It was also getting junked up with all the generous but perhaps superfluous donations of toys from families. So the co op was formed, officers were elected, certification procedures were put in place as well as a mechanism for periodically weeding through the stuff. Now the playroom is much neater and I think it is because there is that next level of accountability, beyond "put it away when you're done with it". Writing about this has just given me the idea to do a post on the merits of certification. Yeh!

The Playground co op(I think its a co op, it may be a committee formed within the playroom co op-you can go crazy trying to keep up with this stuff) was formed because some of the younger kids wanted a sandbox and a playground. They began to fundraise and a sandbox was actually built this past weekend. I'm not sure if the co op will stay in existence after the playground is built because I think its maintenance would fall under the auspice of the physical plant clerk.
The clerkships are a whole other story too. I guess I'll be busy this week.

Opportunity knocks

Went to a fundraising committee meeting today. Somehow I was able to squelch my volunteer urge and made it out without becoming an officer. The issue came up of setting aside certain areas of fundraising events for the coops and this guy, well the founder of HVSS actually, said he had an issue with things being just given to the coops. I'm telling the story backwards.

The co ops are responsible for raising their own funds and the fundraising committee will match them. They do different things, the playground co op let people make stepping stones, the art co op sold milk shakes, etc. So the question came up about letting the art co op have the proceeds from the penny social at the craft fair or run it or something like that. This is when the discussion began about why they should get anything special just because there would be a bunch of art there. He brought up the point, why aren't they here and why don't we offer something to every co op. What was suggested by another staff member was that an announcement would be made that the co ops could run their own fundraising activities with ours but they would have to come and present it to us and be a part of the process. It is such a good idea. There's incentive without coercion. There is a view on the outside world and an introduction to the larger processes involved in planning an event or capital campaign or what have you. And it's totally voluntary.

That's so sudbury. Provide the opportunity and let them run with it. I wonder if it gets frustrating when they don't. I would imagine that staff is better at not romanticizing or getting too invested in plans that don't come to fruition. I know, in my own evolution as a parent, this is something that I've had to learn. Or unlearn.

My last list:
Dream Jobs:

1. Writer
2. Sociologist(field work)
3. Pilot(dream hobby really)
4. Campaign Strategist
5. Interpreter/Translator
6. Own an Art Gallery
7. Corporate Subverter(I go in and tell management why their policies are stupid and how their employees are going to get around them)
   

No More Playday

The enrollment committee met on wednesday and voted to cancel playday. Tuesday was a little nutty but I didn't realize how stressful it was for staff to keep playday going. I'm glad that I happened to be planning my own exit strategy for other reasons because if I hadn't I would have been pissed. I came home wed night to a message that basically said playday is cancelled and I hope you get over it. It didn't bother me at first but then I thought about it and realised that it was not the way to handle things. I suppose I'm not handling it well by posting it on my blog but nobody really reads this so no harm no foul. Anyway I talked to staff and it was brought up that a staff had to play an authoritarian role because Playday is not democratic. Which is true because preschoolers are not ready for that. It was an interesting way of looking at it that I hadn't thought of. I was under the impression that one of the goals of playday, in addition to introducing new families to the school, was to get younger siblings of students accustomed to sudbury. I don't know how the democratic aspect could be introduced. I mean Cady would happily vote on stuff, as long as what she voted for always won! Ha. I tried to think of a happy medium. Maybe a group that met once a month or something like that but really, I should be grateful that I was able to take advantage of it last year and now we will move on to other things. I haven't told Cady and I'm not going to. She will be disappointed but I don't want other people to be unhappy to indulge her. I'm just going to try and fill up our tuesdays until she forgets about it. There are some pluses to having a three year old!


Today's list:
Occupations that Fascinate Me

1. sandhogs
2. demolition experts
3. forensic accountants
4. composers
5. lighting

oops I forgot the list

Places I Would Love To Visit But Probably Never Will:

1. Petra(the city carved in rock that is in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
2. India
3. Jerusalem
4. Lake Victoria
5. Tuva
6. Lhasa
7. Nepal
8. Angor Wat
9. Galapagos
10. Mt. Rushmore/Crazy Horse
    

More DIA

Here are some more thoughts from Tocqueville-

On the spirit of religion and the spirit of liberty:
"Religion perceives that civil liberty affords a noble exercise to the faculties of man and that the political world is a field prepared by the creator for the efforts of mind. Free and powerful in its own sphere, satisfied with the place reserved for it, religion never more surely establishes its empire than when it reigns in the hearts of men unsupported by aught beside its native strength.
Liberty regards religion as its companion in all its battles and its triumphs, as the cradle of its infancy and the divine source of its claims. It considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom."
O that we would heed these words today!

An interesting observation about the remnants of laws and customs from the old country:
"The picture of American society has, if I may so speak, a surface covering of democracy, beneath which the old aristocratic colors sometimes peep out."

Something I had never thought about before:
"But the law of inheritance was the last step to equality. I am surprised that ancient and modern jurists have not attributed to this law a greater influence on human affairs. It is true that these laws belong to civil affairs; but they ought, nevertheless, to be placed at the head of all political institutions; for they exercise an incredible influence upon the social state of a people"

On the mediocrity of our intellectual pursuits:
"In America most of the rich men were formerly poor; most of those who now enjoy leisure were absorbed in business during their youth; the consequence of this is that when they moght have had a taste for study, they had no taste for it, and when the time is at their disposal, they have no longer the inclination.
There is no class then in America, in which the taste for intellectual pleasures is transmitted with hereditary fortune and leisure and by which the labors of the intellect are held in honor. Accordingly, there is an equal want of the desire and the power of application to these objects."

Plus the guy could wield a semicolon!

Crackdown!

JC is cracking down this year. I know I've mentioned this before but it bears repeating. I don't know what she did but Amelia is restricted from going outside for 5 days. Two kids have been suspended and were restricted to different rooms for 3 and 4 days respectively.

Maybe they felt like they just had to be tough from the get go to decrease recidivism. I wonder how the indefinite suspension/expulsion sentences will play. I thought it was ridiculous myself when I found out that someone could come back in the same school year after being expelled. That just seemed like a long term suspension to me. I wonder if that rule will be amended.

Amelia is serving on JC now but there hasn't been anything too juicy or she is just getting better at resisting my interrogation. :)

Here's my list for today:
Religions You May or May Not Have Heard Of

1. Tenrikyo
2. Ahmadi
3. Vodoun
4. The Cult of Scarro
5. Jainism
6. Juche
7. Cao Dai
8. Rastafarianism (Rastas!)
9. Yoruba
10. Candomble
    

the real difference between us and animals

We make lists.

I love to make lists. I have a list of lists I intend to make someday. I have 3 or 4 different types of to-do lists. Lists make me feel like I have things under control. Lists can classify, they can bring order, they can help you focus on your true objective in any undertaking. Lists are great.

I don't like popularity contest type of lists like "top fives" or "all-time best..." They are too subjective.

I also don't like the term "bucket list". Lame to begin with, made worse by the movie.

I don't usually do themes but I think this week I will end each post with a list. If I remember.

For today:
Some Famous Men I Have Encountered And It Had No Discernible Impact On My Life Or Theirs

1. Richard Nixon
2. Bill Cosby
3. Larry Hankin(maybe I'll save him for the sort of famous list)
4. Kevin Bacon
5. Mike Meyers
6. Some people at a Soap Opera softball game(again, may be better on the sort of famous list)
7. Stanley Tucci
8. Arthur Ashe
9. Robert Urich
10. Mark Messier
    

The Wall

Des called me from school today because he was having "a bad day." His friends weren't there and he was a bit at odds. "Nothing here is fun."

"Hitting the wall" is a phrase that is used when a kid is bored or is struggling to find out what it is that interests them. Staff members can probably recognize the condition faster than I can but take a hands off approach as a student works through it. This is another aspect of the school where the value of the process is not readily discernible or easily explained.

When our kids seem unhappy our first instinct is to help them. It's natural but at times wrongheaded. Boredom is a challenge not a problem. We all need to struggle to find our way because when we struggle with boredom or dissatisfaction we are also thinking about what is important to us, what we want, what we need to do to change the situation. If a kid complains about being bored a staff member might make a suggestion but they are not going to direct the student. It is a subtle but important distinction. Saying "have you been to the art room today?" is different from plopping them down with paper, supplies and a model for a project to complete. The first is a suggestion, a bit of advice, the second is a distraction from the real problem. Yes, the child now has something to do but it hasn't addressed the real problem of figuring out what it was they wanted to do in the first place.

I'm just a mom again

School Meeting decided that a staff member should be in charge of playday. Yeh! The system works! Well, it worked for me, not the staff member that may have been trying to get out of playday. I did have a twinge for a moment,you know, thinking, maybe it isn't that they don't want an outsider they just don't want me. But you know what? That's ok too. And I have a confession to make. I'm feeling very overwhelmed by the Hallowween fair enterprise and that motion is going to be discussed tomorrow. There is a small part of me that hopes I get a phone call saying school meeting doesn't want a Hallowween fair either. I know it could be really fun I just keep making lists of things I need to do or buy or make and they just keep getting longer and longer and longer...

I think there should have been a motion put before SM in the first place about whether or not to hold one although I can't imagine why they wouldn't. SM is a strange and mysterious entity to me. It's both a people and a place in my mind. Right now in Democracy in America I'm reading about the first New England Towns and Town Meetings and also came across a very interesting quote about religion and liberty which I will have to share with you at another point because the book is out of reach at the moment. anyway, School Meeting is based on the idea of governance through a Town meeting.

There is also a movie called Dogville that features a town meeting but in a very ugly way. The power of the meeting is abused to the point of absurdity. (somehow a character played by Nicole Kidman ends up wearing this odd iron collar attached to a an anvil that she has to drag around) The town is destroyed by violent criminals(in every endeavor people would do well to remember that there is always a bigger fish) and then during the credits there is just image after image of all sorts of nasty stuff that has happened in our country. I think the director, Lars Von Trier, was trying to say, you think this is a fable but look at the violence you yourself are capable of. He could have taken images from around the world and all of history to highlight that aspect of man's nature but he specifically chose to use only american images. I'm not sure why. I think europeans think we're deluded. I have veered way off topic here. Sorry. From sudbury to dogville. See if you can find those two in the same sentence anywhere else on the internet. :)

I'm not an applicant...I'm a candidate!

I have to be elected to the Playday position. So a motion is in for hmm I don't know how they worded it. I guess a motion is in to hold an election to approve of me as director of playday. You can get bogged down in the procedural shit at this school. I understand that it is necessary but its tricky. I had three phone calls about how to word a motion so I can be at school when I need to be to plan for the Halloween fair.

Oh yes! Did I forget to mention that I had the fantastic idea to hold a Halloween fair and now I'm in charge of it. I must have been on crack when I opened my mouth. No, I kid. It's going to be fun.

In other news, JC is cracking the whip this year! Desmond has already had a tough sentence for being rowdy. He said "It's hard to get used to all these rules again after being away the whole summer." I said "You should bring that up in JC." He looked at me, rolled his eyes and said "But that's so embarrassing!" Two of his friends were written up for being rowdy...while they were in JC on a charge! I thought it was a first but my friend, who used to be on staff and coincidentally is their mom, said it happens more often than you would think.

Director of Playday

I've volunteered for this position. A promotion from Asst. or was it Backup Playday Director. there isn't a lot to it. Some paperwork and bringing a snack. Getting there on time. Playing.

The staffing committee is going to meet tomorrow to discuss it. I brought it up at dinner tonight, thinking the kids would be ok with it-I come to playday with Cady and Finn almost every week as it is. The kids said "So you're going to be a staff?" and they did not look happy about it. They asked if I could write people up and I said I didn't think so. I started to get nervous. Not so much about me being in charge of playday but what if they didn't like playday at all. So Amelia asked if there was anyone else who could do it. I said I didn't think so. I told them if they really didn't want me there they could go to the staffing committee and say so. I was very very tempted to tack on a lot of passive-aggressive manipulative comments to keep them from doing that but I didn't. I said to myself this is their school and their deal, let them have it. I did remind them how important playday is to Cady and asked that they not do anything to end it for her.

Of course Amelia forgot to say anything the next day. I wasn't going to remind her. I haven't heard anything. Maybe there is someone else who wants to do it. I don't care, as long as they have it. Cady loves going to sudbury.

Discussion

So why did I put these two quotes up last night?

For inspiration.

The first is to keep the deep purpose of a sudbury style education in mind-raising responsible effective adults in a democratic society. JC- "to purify its morals" school meeting- "to substitute a knowledge of statecraft for inexperience" the freedom to learn-"an awareness of its true interest for its blind instincts"

The second is to never despair when it seems like corporations have taken over everything. I think that's why this election is so important. It's like the electorate is waking up to what they really want from their country. It's terrible to think of democracy, "the vanquisher of kings", being subverted by a bunch of empty suits.

Two Quotes

Which quote is from Democracy in America?

"The first of the duties that are this time imposed upon those who direct our affairs is to educate democracy, to reawaken, if possible, its religious beliefs; to purify its morals; to mold its actions; to substitute a knowledge of statecraft for its inexperience, and an awareness of its true instincts for its blind instincts, to adapt its government to time and place, and to modify it according to men and to conditions. A new science of politics is needed for a new world."

"Can it be believed that the democracy which has overthrown the feudal system and vanquished kings will retreat before tradesmen and capitalists?"

No peeking.


They both are.

freakin' out

so now I'm completely paranoid and self conscious about my ears and my hearing. One-I've convinced myself that they feel different, like they feel plugged or something and I'm wondering if that's a symptom. So now I'm constantly touching them and you know, fiddling is the right word I guess. Two-It has made me more subdued. that might be a good thing. Normally I'm very outgoing but I was at a birthday party tonight and there was a person there that I didn't know and there was a moment where conversation would have been appropriate but I didn't initiate one because he was sitting a little far away and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to hear him and I would have to keep asking him to repeat himself. Three-I'm constantly monitoring my hearing now and wondering what everything "really" sounds like.

I think this is a bit of an excessive reaction/adjustment because itisn't like I'm stone deaf. I did have to have this confirmed. I just have an overactive imagination.

I knew it was coming

It has been, not a joke, but a running discussion between me and Ray that my hearing is not fantastic. For a couple of years now. In the past few months though I did find myself turning up the TV and,according to witnesses, talk more loudly when I was on the phone.

so I finally got around to seeing my doctor about it today. She didn't even look at my ears, just took me into a room to do a hearing test. I think to placate me. As we're doing the test and I have those funky headphones on I'm sneaking peeks at the dials she's spinning and see that she is making a series of x's on a card. They are all next to each other so I think "Well, OK this can't be too bad, they're all on the same row."

We finish the test and the first thing she says is "Your hearing is atrocious. Really bad." And she kind of looked surprised to be saying it. She points to the neat little line of X's at the bottom of the card and then points to the top of the card and says "This is normal. I think you might be a candidate for a hearing aid." I wasn't surprised but I was surprised. At my age health care stuff is rarely as bad as or worse than you think it's going to be and she was so blunt but wasn't telling me anything I didn't already know. It was a really odd feeling. I have to see an audiologist now. It might not be that bad, I had finn on my lap and I may not always have been clicking as soon as I heard the sound. Oh who am I kidding? It's bad.

I was thinking about it, of course, and one funny thought I had was that I owe apologies to many people who I have been annoyed with for not, in my opinion, speaking clearly enough or projecting enough for me to understand them. HA! Turns out it really isn't you, it's me.

I also mentioned a problem with my toes and she recommended orthotics. a hearing aid and orthotics. Damn. I'm surprised she didn't send me out with a coupon for an Early Bird Dinner too. :)

Bossiness

A recurring complaint from Des is that his two best friends always want to play with him but sometimes he wants to play with the girls "and do activities". I guess his friends, according to Des, follow him everywhere and won't let him play with anyone else. Today Amelia complained about a new girl being bossy. I tell them how I think they should handle it or try and strategize with them and get to the heart of the problem. I recommend speaking honestly but kindly or writing them up if need be. Sometimes, though, I get sick of hearing about it and just want to intervene and solve the problem myself.

However, these are the things that they have to work out. And they really need to do it for themselves. We talk all the time about doing what's right and how hard it can be. I feel like if they get into the habit of standing up for themselves maybe when the time comes they won't feel the pressure to follow along into negative behaviors.

On another note Des said that he was feeling sad because he had no time to talk to me today. That was nice. Des isn't usually open like that.

Mommy messes up

So the kids got on the bus today. Des had a lot of anxiety about the bus and most of it was my fault. Earlier in the summer we had talked about taking the bus and Des was quite resistant and had said something to the effect that he would just miss the bus everyday so i would have to drive him. I thought he meant he would miss the bus on purpose so I said if you miss the bus everyday, you aren't going to be going to that school. Sigh. Mommy's are not perfect. I am not perfect. We know we shouldn't threaten.

So this morning, Des is very anxious and upset about missing the bus on the way home. With tears in his eyes he says "If I miss the bus you're going to make me go to regular school." Boy did I feel like a jerk.

I was surprised by how much I missed them today. I called school twice to try and chat but they were too busy. I remember last year at the beginning Amelia would call 5 or 6 times a day. Even at the end of the year she would call a couple of times a week. I don't think that will happen this year. And that's fine. It just makes me wistful I guess. When she got off the bus she seemed like a new kid. Older. Well, I still have Finn to baby.

I think I'm in love

the only problem is that he's been dead for 130 years. My RAL of Democracy in America finally started and I've only read the 100 page introduction and chapter 1 and I'm blown away. The scope of Toqueville's accomplishment cannot be overstated. Even the stuff he got wrong is fascinating because he should have gotten it right. Plus it makes me feel smart. Let me explain:

As my dedicated reader's know I think JC is why the Sudbury schools work so well. Read my other posts, I don't have time to get into it right now.

Well, Mssr. DeTocqueville called civil juries "the most energetic means of making the people rule, the most efficacious means of teaching it to rule well". Brilliant. God I wish I was that eloquent.

I wonder if he would mind if I called him Alexis?

Attendance

So last year there was no attendance requirement for Des and Amelia because they were 5 and NYS doesn't require children to be in school until age 6. I bet you 75% of parents don't know this.

This year they have to be in school for a minimum of 5 hours a day and can only have 10 absences for the year.

However, if we want to go to the city for the day or if they want to visit their grandmother they can make a motion for the activity to count towards their attendance. This is because Sudbury recognizes that life is a learning experience and that learning often takes place outside of school.

Students age 16 or over can make a motion to be excused from the attendance requirement? Huh? How can that be? They don't just make a motion I think they have to go through a committee or something and explain why. The reason why they can do this is because this is seen as a transition period where they learn to become responsible for themselves and their time and presumably their activities start taking them more and more into the outside world. It's quite brilliant.

Compare this to the typical high school experience where they go from the control of school and parents often to the total freedom of college. No more bells, no more asking permission to go to the bathroom, specific times for meals, no more parents. No wonder so many kids (myself included) go bananas at college.

The kids will also be taking a school bus (the holy grail for homeschooled children. One mom I know when asked what she couldn't provide for her kids said "They all want to take the bus").
This will pose a challenge for us in the morning. One of the attractions of sudbury is the flexibility in when you spend those five hours there. We could take our time and get in a little later if need be. Now they are going to have to be at the bus stop at a certain time and that's that. It sort of goes against the philosophy but the district doesn't have to support the quirks of my family, it just has to provide transportation.

Vacation

I was off to the beach for a few days but will be back with my trenchant insights in the coming week.

Summertime

The cicada's are singing in the trees almost constantly. At night, we have a veritable symphony of crickets and peepers. I spent yesterday afternoon at a backyard birthday party, sunny but neither hot nor breezy. Summer's colors are grass green, sky blue and cloud white. Those would be great colors for a flag. I would emigrate to a country who identified with summer colors.

This has been a well paced summer for me. It isn't whizzing by but I don't feel stuck either, I am studiously avoiding all of those obnoxious back to school reminders. I refuse to let the market spoil my fun just to sell me stuff!

This year I am striving for a more gradual transition. Step one is to be more conscientious about bedtime because there will be a bus this year so they will have to get up earlier. Hey I just thought of another great thing about sudbury. Going back to school there isn't a huge change because they aren't exactly going to be corralled behind desks!

amelia in the water

It is so lovely to watch Amelia in the water. Des and his friends flop and splash, they aren't totally confident in their ability to stay afloat. They always seem to be gasping and sputtering but having a great time.

Amelia, even when she doesn't know what she is doing, looks like she is in her element. She tries to swim the crawl and it isn't exactly graceful but when she tires she just turns onto her back and floats. The sun catches her and she closes her eyes and seems to be completely at peace.

When she plays she is like an otter. Diving under and popping up again, hair sleek at her head. She can spend hours by herself or she'll do crazy jumps off the dock with Des.

I love summer.

What's the difference?

Sometimes I talk to people about Sudbury schools and they ask "Oh, are the local schools bad by you?" I honestly don't know. The schools in our old town were considered to be excellent but I still wouldn't have sent my kids to them. There is also an expensive private school(9000 a year) two miles from my house but my choice not to use it has nothing to do with the money(well maybe something).

To compare good and bad public schools or to compare public schools to most private schools is like comparing a Ford to a Mercedes. One is really expensive and carries a lot of cache but at the end of the day is still a car. Still has four tires and a steering wheel, still primarily used to get you from point A to Point B in exactly the same manner as a Ford.

I don't want a car for my kids. I want them to have a jetpack that takes off with groovy little rocket fired roller skates and maybe has some sort of propeller system for hovering. I want them in a TARDIS.

I think our current methods of education are so deeply flawed that I look at any form of traditional schooling as just being a variation on a theme. If it involves insisting on teaching a discrete set of facts to the exclusion of others, if it is about one set of people(usually teachers) controlling the entire day of another set(the students), or about creating artificial social settings that have very little to do with real life, I don't want any part of it.

More on proximal learning and constructivist theory...No yawning!

So I've taken the time to read up on this a bit more, thank you wikipedia.

Here are some new terms that I have learned:
metacognition-awareness of one's cognitive processes and use of this knowledge to self-regulate one's cognitive processes or knowing how you know stuff or knowing how you learn stuff

zone of proximal development or in academic circles, ZDP- Lev Vygotsky came up with this as an argument against standardized testing He thought that learners should be tested on how they solved problems not on what they knew. The zone of proximal development is the area of knowledge that is just beyond the learners stage of development or level of mastery. It is the difference between actual developmental level and potential developmental level. He thought that material should be introduced ahead of a developmental stage because it would rouse a set of skills as they were maturing and help them to fully develop. OK, I can get on board with that.

Constuctivist theory- good old Piaget thought that knowledge was not so much acquired as it was constructed by assimilating knew information into an existing framework. It is a way to describe how humans learn not a prescription.

Social constructivism is a way to apply constructivist theories to learning.

I also found some abstracts of different studies about zones of proximal development and proximal learning applied to study skills and I noticed some recurring themes:

People will learn things more quickly and more thoroughly if it is their own idea to learn it in the first place.

Learning should be a collaborative process between people with different levels of mastery.

Knowledge is part of a whole and shouldn't necessarily be split up into different topics.

Hmmm,could there be a school set up that actually encourages this type of learning?