confidence - humility = arrogance

I'm all about humility lately. Maybe because becoming a small business owner is very very humbling.

I never did get around to finish my philosophy discussion recap. and I've forgotten most of the details to make it meaningful anyway.

I do recall there being a lot of talk about confidence and how kids need to develop it. In the sudbury process not a lot will happen until kids are confident enough to try things. Public or traditional schooling can be confidence sapping because you are constantly being judged. I love when I go to elementary schools and you see all sorts of art projects on the walls and there is a ridiculous sameness to it. why does every snowman have to wear his hat? why can't some of them toss it into the air a la Mary Tyler Moore? I can remember what it was like as a kid to be told that my drawing or coloring was wrong. I remember my first grade teacher used to stamp our work satisfactory or excellent. there may have been a poor stamp too but I never got one. I craved an excellent stamp in the worst way but I would color outside of the lines or miss a spot or whatever, I just never got one. I finally worked my ass off to color a unicorn. I only used blue. I worked on it forever, especially the horn, the tricky narrow horn. When the papers came back I waited for my excellent stamp and was pissed when I only got a satisfactory. I don't actually remember being pissed but I must have been because I was upset enough to ask why I didn't get an excellent. She told me that it was because it was blue and horse are brown or black. I said "But it's a unicorn. It's imaginary!" I kind of wish I would come across her and tell her that I think she was an idiot.

My long winded point is that I still remember it 30 years later. That feeling of wrongness. And it was all about coloring. Really, the wrongness I should be feeling is about how the kids used to tease this kid Christopher because he had wet his pants through most of kindergarten but we were in first grade now and he had gotten it under control. That's what she should have been giving poor and excellent and satisfactory stamps about. right on our snotty little foreheads. Hmm, I've gotten off track here.

Confidence and encouragement are important but I think there has to be a certain amount of humility. It's fine to want to accomplish things on your own but at some point you need to be able to accept help, even if you don't want to. People who are sure that they know everything, that they don't need to listen or won't even entertain the possibility that their thinking might be flawed are arrogant. Arrogance is not only unattractive and off-putting, it can be dangerous. Arrogant people tend to be dismissive and poor listeners. I remember complaining about a creactive writing teacher who was an awful writer. We went to one of his plays and it was soooo bad. I wanted to drop the class and I certainly didn't want to listen to a thing he had to say but someone I knew and respected warned me off from this thinking. She said lack of talent doesn't mean lack of expertise.

Talk Talk

Remember that band? and song? And maybe even album? I would see the video on MTV and that little scrap of info that they gave at the end, in the lower left hand corner, would say nothing but Talk Talk. It was the video with all the animals. This will probably only make sense to people born in the 70's or earlier. I should just end here and count my gray hairs.

Anyhoo, I was thinking of them because we had a great philosophy discussion on saturday and did lots of talk talking.

As I had said in earlier posts I had been having my doubts and Ray, who has never fully been on board with this, was expressing his more vocally. I had conversations with a staff member and other parents and was definitely feeling anxious about the school year. Since the year started there is a different vibe around the school. Hashing things out at the philosophy discussion was starting to seem anticlimactic. I know I've gone before and wanted to talk about something but the staff is so eloquent that I feel silly for ever having worried in the first place so I don't say anything.

That started to happen but then I said to myself no, even if I'm not feeling this way right now I'm going to express the fears that I've had because I know that I'll just go home and the warm fuzzies will fade away and I'll start worrying again. Well, I don't worry that much, but I know I won't feel like I've had my concerns addressed because I never expressed them.

Actually, what I really did was pretend that I was Ray and said what I thought he would be thinking about all of it. He, of course, did not attend, which is probably for the better because there is a good chance he would just give up on the whole thing and want to pull them out. It's much better to have me as a filter.

I felt like the staff was listening to what people had to say, that they were countering respectfully, that they still felt committed to the core aspects of the Sudbury philosophy but acknowledged that the school could use some "tweaks". What it comes down to for them, and hopefully someday for me, is that we can trust the kids to figure it out. That if they have the confidence in themselves they can get themselves to where they need to be. Academically or otherwise. I got there late but I think there was some talk at the beginning about remembering that the goal is to produce an effective adult. If I had been there for that I probably would have phrased some of my comments differently. There was some talk about respecting the changing priorities and not being able to know what any one person's priorities would be from one day to the next and therefore not judging. There was also discussion about having the confidence to say "I don't know" and being ok with that. One of the students was there and he talked about his experience with the process and he was quite eloquent on the topic even if I didn't agree with him. There was another guy there and the two of us did not communicate well but I'll get to him later.

I listened and thought about what people were saying before I spoke. Sometimes I am guilty of looking like I'm listening but I'm really just rehearsing my comments. But this time I was actually listening.

I said that I was afraid of raising confident ignoramuses who were perfectly happy with not knowing anything and with no interest in finding anything out. I said that it was probably good that my kids had the space at Sudbury to freely change their priorities because I had no problem judging them and telling them when I thought they were headed in the wrong direction. I said I would have a huge problem if my kid's priority was to live on the street and do nothing with their life. I recognize the absurdity of my statements but I had to let them out. what else did I say? Oh yeah, that I felt concerned about what kind of place the school would be if everybody was in the doldrums. That I don't think that the Sudbury philosophy fosters a work ethic. That you need to be able to push through when the passion isn't there.

I especially disagreed with the whole "it's ok if you give yourself permission to not finish something, changing priorities argument" because I think finishing what you start is a really important quality. I made it my New Year's Resolution a few years ago. I decided to become a person who would finish what they started. And the first thing I learned to do was not start so much in the first place. But I digress.

What I lost sight of during much of this but remembered afterwards is that this process is not happening in a vacuum. There is still JC and school meeting and my kids are not just zooming around the school by themselves. This discussion was focused on academics, sort of, but I had to remember to look at it all in the context of the school as a whole.

More tomorrow.

Beverly Cleary solves all problems

Amelia has not been happy with her siblings lately. Des is "ANNOYING" and Cady "does nothing but BE MEAN to me" and Finn "RUINS all my stuff". She's been feeling quite put upon and I can sympathize. I'm the oldest and I know how it feels to have pesky siblings who trash every thing and activity that you have going on in your life. She has been especially hard on Cady. She yells at her, teases her, punishes her if Des shows favoritism. I often intervene. I know some parents don't and maybe it works well for their families but just because there is no violence involved doesn't mean that the behavior isn't damaging.

Then one day Cady turned up at bedtime with Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary. I've never read chapter books with Cady and we started off cautiously. If there is one criticism I have of Mrs. Cleary it's that her chapters are insanely long. So we started off reading a few pages a night. When we were midway through chapter two Amelia asked if she could listen. It was great. We would laugh and shake our heads at how naughty, yet creative, Ramona could be. Amelia would absolutely howl with laughter at times. There were some passages that explored Beezus' feelings about Ramona. How hard it was to have a little sister and how even when Ramona didn't get her way, she still seemed to get her way. I saw Amelia nod in agreement at one point. The last chapter involves the girls' mother and aunt recounting how they didn't get along when they were younger but were now great friends as grownups. We finished the book and talked about our favorite parts and how good we thought it was and then Amelia said "Come on Cady, let's go to bed and you can sleep with me tonight." We looked in on them and they were cuddled together.

Ray is not happy

and I've finally figured out why. He doesn't get the Sudbury timeline. I think he thought they would be achieving the same things that kids in public school do but just arriving at it through a different route. Since second graders know how to read Ray wants to know why Des and Amelia aren't reading. He's concerned that we're raising happy idiots. People with great self esteem and no useful skills.

We're mulling over the idea of sending Cady and Finn to regular skill for kindergarten and maybe first or second grade. It would make him feel better knowing that they are at Sudbury with some skills. I don't want to deal with public school bullshit. Dumb assignments and stuff like that. PTA. Because there is no way that I could send my kids to public school and not get involved with the PTA. And promptly become a thorn in everyone's side.

Am I ok with the Sudbury timeline? I think so. For me it's not just about developing discrete skills. I know I need to step it up and be more involved in what's important to them. It's engagement with the process that concerns me. You don't feel like reading? fine. But I want to see them feel something. Which I do. I definitely do. I can't do these late night blog posts. I just go around in circles.

My job is so great

And here's why:

These are all the things I talked about and contemplated today-
world religions
medieval literature
copyright law
Catch 22
Byron
Robert Browning
The Velveteen Rabbit
Mark Twain
Philip K. Dick
magic/magick
lovely fall weather
Isabel Allende
Meryl Streep
food writing
dictionaries and the art of translation
Jack London
Edith Wharton

Not a bad gig.

How was your day dear?

Amelia handed me a piece of paper with a list of words with checks next to them and "100%" at the top. On the back she had written a short description of her day. She and her friends have been doing "real learning stuff".

Des spent $8 on soda and then smashed 5 of the cans with his friends to see what would happen.

The day before we had a big blowout here because Amelia had signed up for yet another webkinz type game and when I started to say something she yelled "Des watched the Matrix again!" (Amelia has always been a total tattle tale. I love it!) I don't know why I blew up at that moment. Well I know why, because I had been paying bills at work. Money is really tight since I bought the store and bill paying time always brings that home to me. So I after spending an hour writing check after check, the thought of spending thousands of dollars for them to sit in front of a screen just made me a little nutty.

More drama!

Oh it never ends with me. This is Sudbury drama now.

The school is facing a serious shortfall. Unbelievable amount. Some kids they expected to come back didn't, sliding scale figures were lower than expected (ours definitely were) and they used money from this year to pay for stuff last year. They are also owed about 40,000 in uncollected tuition. Jeepers, that's a lot of money. It's a problem and I don't know how it's going to work out.

There has a been a good discussion on the Assembly list. It started with a heartfelt invitation from one of the staff to encourage people to come to the next philosophy discussion. He talked about the purpose of the school being to help kids become effective. I asked what people thought effective meant. It's a pretty abstract goal and I knew there would be different thoughts about it. I'm not sure what an effective adult is. My idea was much more concrete. Someone who can support themselves. There was a lot of discussion about the philosophy in theory but I felt that it should have been more about the philosophy in practice.

I ruffled some feathers with the phrase "underlying hostility towards formal education". The staff members thought I meant them but really I meant the culture of the school. I can't wait til the real life philosophy discussion. Egghead loves to tussle!

Drama!

Short story:
Amelia fell at the playground and had to go by helicopter to a pediatric trauma unit!

Long story:
Amelia was trying to copy something she had seen an older (and taller) kid do and whacked her head but good on a metal bar. She had a nasty looking bump behind her ear so we called 911. We asked if she had lost consciousness and all the kids said no.

The initial responders (police and local volunteers) did an initial assessment and called for the pros. The paramedics came, and in talking to one of the older kids decided that she may have had 'altered consciousness' and therefore needed to be seen at a pediatric trauma unit. Which we don't have in Ulster County. So they called the medevac in. A freaking helicopter landed on the front lawn of the elementary school and off we went to Albany. Part of me thought it was over the top but the other part of me couldn't help but think "Natasha Richardson" so we went along with this.

When Amelia broke her arm, the first time, Ray went in the ambulance with her while I got the other kids settled. I got to the hospital and she asked why I didn't come. I said "honey you were ok with Daddy" and she said "But you're...my mother!" So I know if I don't get on the freaking helicopter I will officially be World's Worst Mom. I have been on airplanes many many times. Small planes too. But since I had the kids I have developed a mild fear of flying. It doesn't stop me but I worry more than I ever did.

I had to sit in the very front and it's floor to ceiling glass. It made me feel very vulnerable. Like it was easier to fall out somehow. The helicopter took off and I pretty much stopped worrying about Amelia and started worrying that we were all going to die. You know what flying in a helicopter feels like? Rickety. Like you're riding in a rickety piece of crap that is going to fall apart at any minute. It doesn't help that my brain is now retrieving all bits of knowledge about helicopters that it has acquired over the years. The one that it keeps repeating is "In essence, a helicopter is constantly falling." NOT reassuring, brain!

There were a few moments where I wasn't worried about dying and here is what I thought:
1.That the view was spectacular and I feel lucky to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world.
2.That when you look down and see all the teeny tiny cars and monopoly houses and thimble size swimming pools from an airplane you laugh and think "My how small everything looks." But when you are in a tiny glass fronted space high in the sky it also gives you the perspective of how very small we are. We are miniscule. We are atoms in the universe.
3.I found myself reflecting on the nature of faith. In between mentally going for refuge by reciting the same buddhist prayer over and over again, I thought where am I really placing my faith? In the laws of karma, hoping that I have enough merit stored up at that moment so i don't die in a helicopter crash but trying to maintain equanimity so that if I do I will generate a good burst of energy a I go hurtling into my next life? In god? Because I definitely threw a few prayers that way, just to be safe. Or in the secular god, science? I had to have some faith in the capabilities of human engineering, and the diligence of maintenance crews to get in the thing in the first place. Right?

After a very long half hour, we finally landed at Albany med- on the goddam roof no less, one final spectacular burst of anxiety for me. The triage nurse sees us and then we more or less sat around for two hours and a CT scan of her head to find out that she was just fine. I am very, very grateful for that at least. :)

Coda to all this: It takes an hur to get to Albany from where we were. It took the helicopter 12 minutes to get to us, 6 or 7 minutes for us to get on and take off, the trip was 30 minutes. So all of that rigamarole to save 15 minutes tops in a non critical situation.

An interesting link

This is from a friend. Not the friend whose son actually attended this school but somebody else. It's a small sudbury world.

http://www.mountainlaurelsudbury.org/classes.asp

(I wish I knew how to do that thing where people just click on a word. It's so much more attractive.)

I'm goign to try and explain learning this way to Des because he has a tremendous amount of hostility to anything as soon as you say the word class. Maybe I went too far with my brainwashing against traditional schooling. I think some of it has also come from school itself. Amelia wants some kind of gathering but she doesn't want to do it herself and says that people at school aren't into it. She only knows of two kids who have even tried it and both times it didn't work out that well. For someone reason she wants someone to co-sponsor the motion with her because she is afraid of how much work it will be to set up. Plus she doesn't know exactly what topic it is she's interested in.

My friend and I thought the last paragraph was interesting. I had gotten the sense that any topic offered was supposed to be generated by the students. But here is a founder, not just any old founder, but the big guy himself, Dan Greenberg, saying that sometimes he just tries to whip up interest in something. I am so ok with this because I know Sudbury and attendance is not mandatory and I like the idea of putting it out there. I wonder how this came about. Maybe they had times where their school was in a lull and this was an acceptable compromise to spark things up a bit. Or maybe I am confused about the philosophy itself. I'll have to do a little more digging and return to this another time.

I know that anytime something like this is suggested in our school the stock response seems to be that if you offer something then you give it more weight and importance and automatically exclude other things. Or that the mere offer puts pressure on students to participate. I think that's crap. I think that if you are really cultivating freedom and openess then these kids will feel secure enough to opt in or opt out. Right now, and I could be totally totally wrong here, I feel like there is a reverse pressure against participation. I get the sense that organized activity is deemed unsuitable somehow.

Great Expectations

Oh, hello again.

I haven't posted this summer for the usual reasons (bookstore, exhaustion, not a lot to say) and a not so usual reason. I had some negative feelings about the school and didn't want to air them publicly because they might have given my millions of readers the wrong idea.

But the school year is beginning and I'm trying to approach it with both an open mind and a watchful eye. I was preoccupied last year and complacent. Over the summer I gave some serious consideration to taking the kids out. What stopped me was the reality that home schooling is not an option right now and traditional schooling is not looking more attractive just because Sudbury is looking less attractive.

I also had to think- why was I unhappy? I realized that I still support the main tenets of the philosophy that I have always supported and continue to question the things that I have always questioned. My problem was that this particular school felt dysfunctional. I don't know if it was a combination of staffing issues, student mix, slavish adherence to dogma or what but it didn't feel right. Now I see that I wasn't alone because a bunch of kids have left. Some graduated, some because of money and more than I would have expected because they either don't support the philosophy or don't think it's working in this school. So I hope there's going to be some soul searching this year.

I also realized that I had become too passive as a parent. Even when I saw stuff I didn't like, I didn't discuss it with Des and Amelia as much as I ought. I also had to get straight in my head about what I wanted from them. Two friends of Amelia's are talking about going to more traditional schools next year and they need to get themselves caught up this year. So now Amelia is talking about "learning" but she isn't sure how she is going to do it. I had told them both that we expected them to accomplish three things this year. It couldn't involve a screen and it had to be something that they made a motion to school meeting to accomplish. I laid it out for them "Mommy and Daddy are paying thousands of dollars for you to go to this school and we can't afford to pay this money for you to be on a computer all day. We need to see you doing something more."

As Amelia and I were discussing learning she said 'the reason I like Sudbury and not regular school is that I want to learn things that I want to when I want to. I don't want to do math this year." That's when things clarified for me and I was to able to clarify it for them both. I said "honey, I'm not worried about you learning specific things. I'm not looking to test you. Daddy and I are giving you a tremendous opportunity and freedom to choose what you learn. What we want to see is you going through the process. I want to see you set goals and work towards them." She started getting frustrated and said "Well I'm not sure what I want. I want to read but I don't want to do that at school. I want you to teach me. I want to have a sleepover on a battleship." I said "I'm happy that we're having this conversation now. I want to see you thinking more about how you'll spend your time there. Not just showing up and seeing what happens." Even though I expect, and think it's totally appropriate for lots of that to happen. What I realized tonight is that I want to see them engaging more actively in the Sudbury process. It's not an all or nothing proposition. They are still 7. But I do think after two years of running amok it's OK to ask them to be more thoughtful in their pursuits.

We'll see.

Elections

Staff elections were this week and ended today. This was a rocky one. Trust the process, I keep saying to myself, trust the process. Because I went back to work I just couldn't be a part of things the way I used to be. So I didn't go to the annual assembly meeting, the special assembly meeting, no more fundraising committee,or the last philosophy discussion. It sucks. I miss it. First of all, I genuinely like all the people that I see at these things and you just sort of hear about what's going on.

Anyway, back to the elections. I don't know why two current staff members ended up not making it onto the final slate and there is a brand new staff member that I have serious reservations about. The worst part for the kids was that on the final two slates they had to pick between two current staff members. Amelia was upset because she felt like she lost two people that she liked and wound up with someone she didn't like. Des hated having to choose. He wanted both people on staff. I think for the final slate vote they were thoughtful. They took it seriously.

I was surprised and not surprised by the outcome. I think this may be the first time that current staff members were voted off. I know it came close to happening last year.

Next year is going to be a test for us. This will be year three for Des and Amelia. I saw some changes in them this year that I wasn't happy about but I'm not sure if it's them or the school. really, I should say Amelia. And I have concerns about the culture of the school and now I have concerns about the staff. The year after next would be when Cady starts. She'll have Des and Amelia there but I won't be around as much and I don't know if there will be as many little kids coming in like there were when Des and Amelia started so I don't know. I'm not feeling good about this.

My head is overwhelmed

It is so stuffed with ideas, to do lists, details, reminders and responsibilities that I pretty much feel like if one more person asks me to do one more thing or make another decision and it will explode. I'm becoming very efficient because if I get a chance to do something I just do it so I don't have to think about it anymore. I just want to get it out of my head.

Yes, my head is very full right now. And there is so much work to do. Books to shelve, books to sort, books to trash, books to donate, books to read, books to list online, books to mail out, books to order. Then there are people to call, publishers, magazine distributors, local groups to partner with, my accountant, the landlord to get the lease, my sister to keep her moving along on the logo,a literacy group, some booksellers I have met, a few artists that I would like to set up for a show, the papers, web designers, a carpet cleaner, the window washer.

Then there is laundry, food shopping, Cady was sick and I spent an hour-a precious hour!-in the doctor's office, we need stamps, there is some play doh and play doh accoutrements that have been languishing on my deck for weeks, I haven't put away the easter eggs yet, my knitting, the bills, winter and summer clothes are all over the place. Every single person in my house needs their finger and toenails trimmed.

Yep. got a lot on my plate right now.

A full month without me? How have you survived?!

Weep no more, my dears. The egghead is back!

I decided to completely redefine the concept of "busy" as it applies to me by buying a used bookstore. My life is either The Kids or The Store. I have to pretty much warp the space-time continuum to make room for anything else.

It is a huge project. HUGE. Sorting, shelving and pricing almost 15,000 books-and that's just upstairs! Being surrounded by books makes me so happy. Even though I'm making no money(quite the opposite). I'm having interesting conversations with my customers. I get to make all the decisions (for better or worse) and I get to run around and buy great books and not feel guilty about never reading them. It's wonderful. And it has nothing to do with my kids. Being a mom is just a fact about me when I'm there but nobody is really interested in them or in talking about parenting. Sometimes I feel like a secret agent. I'm spying on the world that does not revolve around children.

All I have to do is figure out a way to make the store pay for itself and I'll be set.

Lots of stuff going down at Sudbury but I'll have to talk about that another time.

Parental Pressure

Our school is going to become a registered high school. What this means is that students can sit for some stupid new york state test and get a high school diploma. There was a discussion about this on our google group and one person mentioned that a potential downside was that parental pressure would be exerted upon a student to take the test.

My initial reaction was a defensive one. Why? Well I thought this person was making an argument against doing it because of possible parental pressure. It doesn't make sense to me to not do something because of a purely hypothetical reaction. And a hypothetical reaction that takes place out of school at that. I don't think it is staff or school meetings business to worry about how people parent their children. It does happen naturally of course. I mean you get to know people and you can guess how they will react to certain situations but ultimately, unless it's a case of abuse, it really is out of their control. I feel the debate about what is and isn't offered at school should focus solely on the opportunities it presents to the students and the school. As parents we know that we give up a great deal of control over our kids when we send them to this school but the school should, and I think is, be respectful of the fact that it's official influence ends when the kids go home. To make a decision in an attempt to influence or subvert a parents wish for their child does not sit well with me. Not that that's what was going on here.

I heard another argument against offering things at school that weren't generated by the students as wrong because 'kids might feel bad if they don't sign up". I hope that I misunderstood this because these sorts of worries lead to decisions based on fear. And they are fears about things that cannot ever be controlled- a person's emotional reaction to something.

But back to parental pressure. Is it a bad thing? No, not at all. And it is often very subtle or even unconscious. I don't think it's wrong to give your opinion about something or tell your kid what you think they should do. It's definitely a fine line. To convince but not coerce. (I love alliterative phrases!) I think it's unrealistic to expect parents to instruct and socialize their children but have some sort of off switch when it comes to what they learn or what path they follow.

Comparisons and competition

I went to an information session to give the parent's perspective for some folks interested in the school. I almost immediately got into a contentious discussion with a woman who clearly was not buying what we were selling. Somebody else asked me what differences I saw between my kids and kids in more traditional schools. The first thing that came to mind was that my kids were more relaxed. They don't worry about school. More importantly, they don't worry about failure and they don't worry about how they measure up. They aren't afraid to try things because they aren't afraid of failing.

There are a lot of kids out there who get good grades, not because their work is so exceptional but because they know how to get good grades. Ultimately, if your goal is a good grade, not the acquisition of a skill or knowledge, and you have a winning formula where is the impetus to try something new, to go beyond what's asked of you. Failure is not the worst thing in the world, it's not without consequences but it's not irredeemable. I think that the grading system blows the importance of the end results out of proportion and it takes it's toll on kids year after year.

I think that age mixing actually reduces some anxiety also. When you have 20 six year olds to compare yourself to every day, it's easy to start developing skewed ideas of what normal is and how you fit into that. When you are hanging out with kids of all different ages, differences can be ascribed to age rather than some inherent rightness or wrongness about yourself. It's a gentler rating system.

I've noticed that many of the Sudbury kids are generous with their praise of one another. Again, without these constant comparisons and measurements, there is a lot of room for generosity and encouragement. I'm not saying there isn't competition but it's an aspect of what goes on at school not the main, I'm at a loss for words here, factor.

Dither, Deliberate, Dither , Deliberate

What's the difference between dithering and deliberating? How well you like the person engaged in it!

I've probably said this before but a huge drawback of democracies is that everybody gets their say and it can be hard to get things accomplished. When you have to discuss and vote on every little thing you can get bogged down in the details.

The plus to this is that with a good deal of discussion some very creative solutions present themselves. At my pre-kid job we had this meeting every morning that was a monster. It was supposed to be about the patient rounds but it would go on for hours. Now I see that it's because the person running the meeting wanted to solve every problem indicated by the reports right then. That's impossible!

Sometimes democracy feels like an endless series of meetings. We're about to have our annual assembly meeting. This is an important part of a Sudbury school. For one, the budget gets voted on line by line and you know people get nutty when it's time to talk about money. I think, this will only be my second so I'm not sure, that it's also a way to look at the direction the school is taking and gives parents a voice.

I thought more aobut the fact that one of the founders is not running for re-election. It did worry me but then I thought, I'm sending my kids to a school not a cult and if the school can't survive the departure of one person then there's a big problem with the school.

As usual I'm very very tired. And tired of being tired. but not tired of talking about how tired I am.

I have never been so happy to see my kids

go back to school.

I feel horribly guilty about it but Des and Amelia fight all the time. They pick on Cady and snipe at me. And complain that being home sucks.

All Cady, All Finn, all the time is a bit much.

I need some space, people!

Still thinking

What do I want from my kids school? If you send your kids to a sudbury school the real question is "what kind of people to I want my kids to be?" because the point of the school is to produce a successful adult. but how do you define that? can it be quantified? so here's my list in progress of things that I think are important:

A high standard of ethical behavior. They simply must be able to identify right from wrong and be willing to do what they think is right even if it isn't convenient or popular or doesn't benefit them financially.

I want them to have the tools of logic at their disposal because there is a lot of bullshit out there and they need to be able to evaluate arguments rationally.

They should know how to recognize and avoid trouble. This is especially important for my girls. They need to be able to notice a creep. They need to be vigilant about their safety.

I hope I can instill a strong work ethic in them. Sometimes you get lucky but most things come about from perseverance and hard work. Being smart helps but it isn't enough.

I want them to be in the habit of looking beyond their life, or their circle and actively seek out ways to be helpful.

Manners are important. Empathy is important. Honesty is important.

I'll think of more stuff I'm sure. :)

Veering

So I know my past few posts contradict each other. I will once again think and type simultaneously and see if I can come up with an answer.

I don't want my kids sitting at a desk all day. I don't want their day micromanaged. That's not what I'm looking for. On the other hand I worry that the freedom they enjoy is fostering indolence. Or that the culture of the school becomes, ha we aren't going to do shit because you can't make us.

Sometimes I worry, because my kids are so young, that the "if they want it bad enough, they'll make it happen" rule is asking too much. When there is something go on, some project they can get in on, they come home so happy and excited to talk about it.

So what is it that I want from and/or for my children? I'm going to think about that for a bit.

Working through the tough stuff

I don't know exactly what's going on but I get the sense that it isn't just my kids who have hit a wall but it feels like the whole school has. Right now there is a budget shortfall so they asked families to donate some extra money per kid. Less than half did. I understand that things are tight for people, I'm not unsympathetic, but nothing? Not even $20 to just help out a little bit?

I feel like the staff is overworked and can't be the kind of models that they want to be. One of the founding staff members is leaving at the end of this year and that makes me feel very nervous.

I'm hitting my own wall as a parent because I feel like I'm seeing and hearing about a whole lot of nothing. Des doesn't talk about anything but the computer. The few times that I have picked them up they are almost always on the computer. Amelia talked about more plans and ideas last year and this year, nothing. I know she was spending a lot of time in the art room for a while but that kind of petered out.

Hmm, let me take a step back and think about this. For a while she was into the art room, bringing home all sorts of projects. She is also reading. Not sitting down and reading a book but she tells me what things say so I know she's getting there. She can sort of add and subtract. She definitely gets snottier than she used to. She peppers her speech with the word "like" and occasionally adopts a valley girl cadence. She still shows amazing patience with her brother and sister but she is not as helpful as she used to be. She doesn't get written up very often. She still pretty much goes to school meeting only if she has a motion. She's very interested in the bookstore. Thinks I should buy it. :) I know some of these things are developmental and I'm not blaming the school for her growing up. What concerns me is the decrease in enthusiasm and ideas.

Des often complains of boredom and talks incessantly about the computer. Likes math. Is not quite along with the reading but working on it. Has become even more resistant to instruction in any way, shape, or form. If Des isn't convinvced that something is going to be fun beforehand or that he's going to be perfect at something from the very first try, he doesn't want to do it. He had a huge meltdown this weekend because Amelia went on this day long hike in the woods and he didn't. He didn't want to go because it was a drop off and when we got there he said it didn't look fun enough. fine. Turns out that it wasn't just a hike but there was a story involved and they found a sword and got to touch it. He went ballistic. It sucks that he has to learn this way that if you don't try things you often end up missing out on fun but there you go.

While Amelia was on this hike we went to the playground at an elementary school. Cady had to go to the bathroom so I took her inside the school and it turned out there was a fencing tournament. Cady, Finn, Des and I watched it and found out that there's a fencing club that meets at the school on tuesday nights. Des has been interested in swords and stuff like that for a while so last night I proposed going to a meeting. He was very suspicious.
"Is it a class?"
"No, it's a club."
"Well, do I have to do it?"
"No."
"I don't think I'm big enough to hold a sword with one hand."
"Would you be willing to try?"
"Yes. do parents stay?"
"Sure."
"Are they just going to teach me stuff. Is it a class?"
"No, it's a club and peeople might tell you things if they think it's helpful but it's not a class. If they see you holding the sword and your arm hurts they might say 'try holding it this way'."
"OK. do I have to go every week? What if I don't like it?"
"Des, I'm not going to answer that yet because you tend to like things but then say you hate them and never want to go again but then you go back and you do like it. So I'm not going to make any promises."
"OK. but what if I don't want to be in the club anymore?"
"Well, we haven't actually joined it yet so let's not worry about quitting. Why don't we just try going and see what it's like."

I have a conversation like this with Des about any new activity. Even the ones that are his idea.

Hilarious follow up to the anecdotal evidence

So I got to have a conversation with my friend's cousin about his cousins. Turns out that they did live on a commune but ended up going to a well known progressive boarding school. I googled it and checked out their website. Now I don't know what the cost was 30 years ago but right now it's 40,000 a year for boarders and 27,000 for day students. But they are "committed to socioeconomic diversity" and in fact even full paying students are subsidized because tuition only covers 75% of of their expenses. That would make me feel so much better knowing that my 40,000 was a bargain!

The school does have many similarities to Sudbury in that it encourages the students to participate in the running of the school but doesn't seem to take it as far as Sudbury does. However they must do two independent classes of their own design and attend regular classes and have grades and all of that. This phrase I found somewhat chilling "Life at_______ is structured such that students spend almost every waking hour involved in learning of one kind or another." Really? Every waking hour?

I'll have to own up and tell my friend that these success stories are the product of a more conventional type of education than she thought. I'm just too honest.

More thoughts on my anecdotal evidence

I used the phrase "didn't have to do anything" to compare this school to Sudbury but it's a really simplistic comparison. It's also easy to misunderstand what someone might mean by that.

First of all, there are basic requirements for every student at a sudbury school: They must attend school for a minimum amount of time each day. They must perform a minimum amount of community service hours. They must do cleaning jobs. They must serve on JC at least once during the school year. These are responsibilities that I think of as being civic in nature-in order to maintain their society they all have to pitch in a certain amount.

What they don't have to do is engage in any sort of intellectual pursuit that they aren't interested in. They are not compelled to vote on any matter, even though it may be in their best interest to do so. They have no homework. They don't have to regurgitate information at someone else's command to prove themselves. They are completely free, once they have fulfilled their duties as a member of school meeting, to spend their day as they see fit.

Keep in mind that "not having to do anything" is not the same as "doing nothing". Sometimes it looks that way to people, even me, but part of that is because we're conditioned to kids having their day filled for them. And part of it is that they're just sitting around doing nothing. (that's a joke!)

Is there anything more compelling than ironclad anecdotal evidence?

I have a friend who is very skeptical of the Sudbury philosophy. Her concern is that kids won't learn what they need to learn and she doesn't like the idea of an unstructured day.

She called me yesterday and said that she was talking to her husband and "of course I told him what I thought about it." Her husband said that his cousins had gone to a similar type of school in New Hampshire on a commune. Whether it was a sudbury school or not is debatable but his impression of it was that "they didn't have to do anything". I guess their father had no faith in formal education whatsoever and that's how they ended up on the commune.

What became of these cousins? One retired in his forties after starting his own computer company and making a boatload of cash. His sister became an actress and was nominated for an academy award this year.

Chew on that, o ye of little faith. :)

Why am I awake so very early? Or did I just stay up really late?

Insomnia. Evil evil insomnia.

Postcrastinating

I have some stuff to do that is way more important than this but I just don't want to deal with it.

There are some financial troubles at our school. The budget is always tight but more people are having problems paying the tuition because of losing their job or they are self employed and business is down. It sucks. I wish we could pay full tuition, I would, happily. That's why I'm so grateful for the sliding scale. Without that there would be no sudbury for us.

OK back to the real world.

ok

hmm that was weird.

My mystical magical box is behaving strangely today. I hope it is not suffering an imbalance of humors. (my knowledge of computers is equivalent to that of a well educated person from the middle ages knowledge of medicine but I think their terminology is more fun!)

testing testing

All my posts have vanished so I want to see what the deal is

Behavior Modification

Des has the most irritating habit of shouting for no good reason and singing quite loudly. He is a loud child to begin with but when he sneaks up behind you and shouts some gibberish the effect is jarring. To say the least. Some of his songs are entertaining, but then he sings them over and over again, loudly. so it kinda takes the shine off. Our favorites are Hey, Finlay! , Ohmanoma (the lyrics to this one consist solely of "Ohmanoma, cheebadeeba") and I Hate Everyone(Because They Don't Do What I Want).

Anyway, on the way to the bus the other morning, Des let it slip that he might get suspended if he doesn't stop shouting all the time at school. Ray said "So where are you going to go?" Des said "I guess I'll go to a babysitter with Cady and Finn." Ray said "No way, there isn't even room for you at Cady's school. And we're not paying for Sudbury and a babysitter. If you get suspended you're going to regular school." Nothing strikes fear into Desmond's heart like the threat of regular school. Now most likely he would only be suspended for a day so I don't know what Ray was thinking. And in the time it has taken me to type this I can't remember what my original point was. Oh yeah, behavior modification. So it's great that sudbury will get in a kid's face about their behavior. Not just the big stuff like stealing, lying, breaking rules etc. but in this case being annoying. Once again, JC is a neutral tool for telling people that the way they are acting just will not work in the community.

We can't suspend him from our life though. And we wouldn't want to. I wish we could get him to take a music class or something and let him go nuts there. Ray and I are not musical people. We don't know how to find a positive way to help him express himself without driving us all crazy.

Egghead likes her booky book!

So I'm thinking about buying a used book store. for realsies.

I starting working there this week to see what it would be like to work and have four kids. since I'm only working from 10-2 it's not that bad.

I'm in heaven. For starters I have adult conversations the whole time I'm there. I might mention my kids in passing but they aren't the focus. How refreshing! Secondly, I'm surrounded by books. I've already come across about 30 that I want to read. Plus so many that I have read. It's like running into old friends.

The store itself is a disaster. There are probably 40,000 books. There are boxes and piles and stacks of books everywhere you turn. It's insane. It smells. It needs to be painted. Half of the books need to be priced and shelved. And people don't read the way they used to. Idiots.

Ray is not into it but I feel like this is where I'm meant to be. It makes me so happy to be around these books and talk to people about books and look at books and alphabetize the books.

I think i just may end up doing this!

Believe it or not, I should probably thank the sudbury gang. Seeing what they have accomplished with the school made me feel like I could accomplish something for myself. The people who founded the school or have been involved from almost the beginning are a very smart energetic bunch. I've learned so much from them.

I have to backtrack here. This whole bookstore project has been a revelation to me about what I can and can't handle and what is really important to me. I also feel like finally, at age 38, I'm actually daring to do something. Something hard but possibly rewarding. I'll have to continue more on this tomorrow. As usual, someone is crying and needs me. Ah, motherhood.

Church

We had to go to my uncle's funeral yesterday. It was in a catholic church. A novelty for my children. As we enter the pew Des says, "Mommy why do they have a statue of a man being crucerised?" Before I can answer he says, "Who wants to look at that when they're going to church?"

Later on, in the car, he says "So you're telling me that people get married in front of a big guy getting crucerised?"

I tried to explain to him that it was a reminder of Jesus' suffering for all of us and Ray pipes in with "There is no guilt like Catholic guilt!"

A testamonial

I've been meaning to share this for a while. It's amazing.

To Sego Lily School

A note from A Dad.

My daughter H. graduated from Sego Lily in December. What a long amazing
trip it's been.

When H. came to me early last fall and said she was ready to move on,
that she had gotten what she needed from high school and was ready to join
the world of adults, I was brought to tears. For you see, H. was at one
time, a disabled child. She was diagnosed with both Absences Epilepsy and
Autism. Until a few years ago the idea that she would be ready for the world
let alone taking care of herself or having a job was inconceivable. Her
disability made it so that she could not learn. From an early age we used
tutors, therapists, full-time aides in the classroom, private and public
school, and all of the special Ed that the public schools provide.

Until about 5th grade H. was a very happy, tough kid, with a spark and
gleam in her eyes. Unfortunately she still could not read, spell, write, or
do any math. She could not tell time nor understand what a certain time
meant, although she was able to speak and understand, and had language
skills above grade level. On first meeting H., she appeared normal. One
would only notice that she seemed a little different, but she still had
great trouble learning.

After a very traumatic 7th grade in public school, with all of the
associated teasing, bullying, and hopelessness that comes with a disability,
she was done. She was depressed, angry, temperamental, and hopeless. I could
go on and on. She hadn't smiled in a year. She told us that she was not
going to go to school anymore. Seriously, running away or worse were her
options if we did not believe her. We had looked at all school options in
Utah and even were looking at moving out of state to find her a place to go.
Home schooling seemed like the only option. An article in the Salt Lake
Tribune mentioned that a new school with a different philosophy was starting
in Salt Lake. I was on the phone with Jen that day. After speaking with her
I was very impressed. Her vision, expertise, and love of kids and their
learning swayed me. We took H. to see Sego Lily as we had done with many
other schools. She would not even get out of the car. After hearing about
the school and philosophy and meeting Jen she agreed to try it for 8th
grade. The first few weeks were hard. She spent most of her time curled up
on the couch, but she went to school every day. Within a few months, she had
gotten into the swing of things. She started talking about her day at
school. H. didn't come home in tears every day and actually looked
forward to school some mornings. She started to smile!!! The old wonderful
H. was starting to reappear.

Over the next few years H. started to really assert herself. She was
gaining self-confidence, joking and kidding with kids and staff. She was
happy, healthy, and was starting to learn. I was now going into parent mode.
Was this the right school for her? No classes? No curriculum? How will this
be for her as she gets older? I started flipping out. Was this just teenage
daycare? H. seemed to spend all day watching TV. I had many meetings with
the staff and they told me to have faith. H. was making much more
progress then I thought. I almost pulled her out many times. This was so
foreign. Thank goodness I didn't.

This is the important part. H. came home one day and started to talk
about ancient Egypt. She had seen a DVD on Egypt and was exited. I asked her
if she wanted me to get some more DVDs and she lit up. I started buying her
videos on many subjects and she ate them up. H. had found a way to learn.
Textbooks and lectures did not work for her but visual audio and hands on
did. Wow. H.'s learning exploded. She now started using the computer.
Every day and most nights were spent looking for info on her Mac book or
watching TV. The Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, and National Geographic
were her new best friends.

Sego Lily allowed H. to figure out for herself how to learn. She took it
and ran. Sego Lily gave her the tools that will serve her well for a
lifetime. She no longer considers herself to be disabled. She has discovered
her ability to adapt and adjust to outside influences. SHE HAS LEARNED TO
READ. I don't know how. She did not spend her days in English class. H.
can handle basic math, balance her checkbook, tell time, and keep schedules.
If there is something she wants to know she can go out and find it on her
own. I sometimes call her Google Girl. Her ability to research is amazing.
There is no way she would have progressed to this level of independence and
maturity at a regular school. I am not sure she would even have survived.
Sego Lily gave her the tools for life and maybe even saved it. During her
first year at Sego Lily Her Mom and I used to say, "Well, she won't be a
rocket scientist but at least she will survive". We were only right about
the rocket part. Today you will find H. working in the Paleontology Lab
at the Natural History Museum at the University of Utah. After finishing her
training she is now a full-fledged member of the team. She is living her
passion and is looking at going on and getting a degree in Paleontology. I
am more proud of her then anything else in my life. For H. to have made
it this far took tenacity and her unique outlook on life. But most of all,
it took Jen, Kyle, Craig, Tara, Katee, Hollie, and all the other staff,
parents, and kids at Sego Lily. The school and family that is Sego Lily gave
her the gift of success and for that I will be forever deeply grateful.

Introducing...

My friend Jen will be sharing her thoughts on the Sudbury experience here now too. I have graciously bestowed this honor, made possible by her clever navigation of Blogger's many and mysterious menus. This blog was actually her idea in the first place.

Jen's elder son attends a smaller Sudbury school part time. This is his first year. We met at a La Leche meeting, back when we still loved our kids more than knitting.

I hope you enjoy getting another parent's perspective.

Why haven't I been posting lately?

Well, the egghead is going through some stuff. all of it positive but time consuming. First of all I started doing weight watchers because my high school reunion(which should have been last year) is in May and I would at least like to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I really only started in earnest the past week or two but have spent the past couple of months examining my eating behaviors and really figured out why nothing worked. So that's taken up some time. My other big project has been the idea of buying a used bookstore. I've been talking to the owner for about six weeks and I'm actually going to go work there for a few weeks to see howit will be with the kids. I'm very excited. I've also been doing a major purge and reorganization in my house. It is much easier to be neat when you don't have that much stuff.

I'm most excited about the bookstore. Even if the book business is on the decline and the advent of Kindle and all of that. I walk in there and get tingly. Obstacle after obstacle keeps coming up and I find a solution to it. That's how badly I want to make this happen. I should talk more about it but time for BSG!

Cady

Cady is at the stage where no detail is too small for sharing. "My pants are wet because I peed all over them. I'm cold." "I'm going to read this book now because it is good. I don't read bad books." "This puzzle is funcusing me. It's so funcusing."

Cady will be turning four next month but she could care less. Four is just a stepping stone. On our way to school today she counted on her fingers-
"Right now I'm three." Holds up four fingers. "At my birthday party I be four." Hides her hand. "You know what comes after that?" Wiggles all 5. "5. And then I go to Sudbury School."

It's going to be so interesting to see what it's like for her and what her relationship with Des and Amelia will be by then or how it will change. It was so important to me that my kids grow up together. Even if it means they bicker more. With the age based segregation of public schools they could lead whole separate lives.

I wonder if Des and Amelia ever fight at school the way they do at home. Probably not. Kids are always better in public than they are at home.

Asking questions is a good way to find things out

So I decided to ask the staff about the attendance policy. I really only wanted three people's opinion on it but I felt that everyone should be given a chance to answer if they wanted. It seemed to be more democratic that way. I sent an email privately rather than the Assembly list because I was afraid my questions would be misunderstood and there is always someone who goes off on a tangent and the original point gets loss in the ensuing evolution of the conversation. I sent an email even though I prefer to have these conversations face to face although email does offer some nice advantages. I can be more thoughtful and measured in my responses in an email or a letter, although I'm not always, and I think sometimes it's easier to say things that you might not face to face. On the other hand, without the visual cues of body language it is so easy to misinterpret tone. I reread my original email and while I was trying to be succinct I think, because I tend to be jokey and cheerful by nature in person, it could be read as hostile or challenging but I was trying to keep it all business.

Why did I even feel the need to do this? Like any human being I brought my own bagage and assumptions when I read the policy and I was feeling really negative about it. I'm invested in this school. I'm not a founder or a staff member but this is where my kids will spend a large part of their childhood. I simply will not have them in an environment that generates more negative feelings for me than positive ones. I used to work in a nursing home and when I would tell people what I did they would say "Oh my mother was in a nursing home. It was horrible. It was the worst place in the world." And I would think, "Then why did you leave her there?" That's how I feel about schools. No place is perfect but when I have more bad things to say than good, they're out of there.

So I felt if I understood it better I would be more accepting of it and I was right. The reason for mandatory attendance is that the school is only as "vibrant as it's students". If there aren't enough people there it's like a poorly attended party-everyone milling around wondering where everyone else is. I also came to realize that there is a difference between policy and procedure. Policy is what you want done. Procedure is how you do it. As a parent I really only need to know the policy and maybe the reasons behind it, reading the endless list of details and stuff made it feel burdensome. I'm glad I was able to sort that out too.

Here is a funny thing about human communication. I first noticed it in the second Matrix movie. Too often we answer questions that nobody asked or present something that will generate all sorts of questions and then never answer them.

Smells like teen spirit

The kids were telling me about some activity in the blackboard room and Amelia said "We can play there now that the teenagers go to the music room. It smells much better." Des said "Yeah and now the music room stinks." I said "Really? What does it smell like?" Amelia scrunched her nose and said "Hot."

In other news, the kids made a motion for a valentine's day party which was approved but with stricter conditions than Des had anticipated. After his 20 minute meltdown I was able to deduce that his vision for the party was something on the scale of the Halloween fair not "some dumb thing where you're stuck in the kitchen and have to do every single bit of cleaning. Who thinks that is fun? It isn't fun to just be stuck in a kitchen." I hear that! If an idea isn't abandoned before it starts Sudbury is very good at teaching the amount of effort and work needed to achieve something.

Attendance

There's a new attendance policy. I'm not really sure why it had to be changed. Attendance is one of those things where I recognize that School Meeting has authority but I think as a courtesy they should seek parental input. I think if you are going to make changes with the potential to affect home life you should involve the larger community. The new policy sounds a little too much like a regular school with all sorts of threats built into it. (I'm being dramatic-we're talking about write ups and fines but still!)

Let me backtrack here. I'm philosophically opposed to mandatory attendance. There is always a distinction drawn between alternative models of education and "compulsory education" but if you are forcing a child to be in school when you say so, isn't that compulsory? I think the merits of attending any school should be obvious enough that there is no need for a separate consequence simply for not being there. I've heard the argument 'well, when they grow up and get a job they have to show up for work or they'll be fired'. Then so be it. Again, do you need 12 years to teach this lesson and is that the point of going to school? I've had jobs where it was the work that I actually accomplished that was key and not when or where I did it.

Here's another little sticking point with me(winter makes me so cranky). If we want to do something outside of school on a school day the kids have to make a motion for school meeting approval. I think the policy should be that school meeting has to be notified. I neither want nor care about school meeting's approval. They are my kids. I pay for them to attend this school. And one of the reasons that I sent them to this school was for flexibility so that if I want to take the day off and take them to the city I can without having to answer to anyone. The idea of school meeting having to make a decision about whether an outside activity is comparable to a day at Sudbury seems silly to me because there is no typical day at Sudbury. What would school meeting disapprove of? Illegal activity I suppose. Excessive absences where the kid was out of school more than they were there? I don't know. I should ask.

I think, I hope, the reason for the policy is because it's a state mandate. I think NY even makes homeschoolers keep attendance. Beauracrats. Humph. They are my sworn enemies.

Oh, so that's what they do

We were visiting some friends and of course the subject of school came up. Des was surprised to hear that their 8 year old daughter was reading. Amelia said "Of course she is, she's in 3rd grade! She's 8." Our friend's 5 year old boy said "I go to her school too but I'm not in a grade yet." Des said "We don't go to a grade school." The other boy said "You should come to my school. Math is fun." Des said and he looked at me kind of slyly,"Well, at my school we can do math all day if we want." My friend asked him "Do you?" Amelia said "No, he plays video games all day."

They missed the bus today so I drove them to school. Amelia had a fit that I was dropping Cady off first "That is so unfair. I don't want to get there all late!" i pointed out that Cady's school was only 10 minutes away so that's why she went first. Later on I said to them "I know it's important for you guys to get to school as soon as possible but it isn't that important to me because I don't really see you doing anything there." Amelia said "We love our school! We love it so much so we always want to be there. Sudbury is like a giant playdate." and then Des added, "But not at anyone's house."

Lately I've been very cynical and thinking it's all BS. I know I've said this before but do they really need 12 years of hanging around? Just like I ask if the regular schools really need 12 years of total control. Is there no middle way?!

Lacunae in The Philosophy

When Sudbury Valley first started people got away with all kinds of discrimination, including but not limited to, the disabled.

I think there is a big gaping hole in the Sudbury philosophy when it comes to special needs kids. I know a couple of people with kids with special needs who would love to send their kids to the school but feel like they would get lost there. I've also had discussions about the possibility of children with disabilities enrolling and having an aide and was kind of shot down and told that it wouldn't work. My issue is that this is not 1968 where you can tell people I'm sorry but this school won't work for you because your child can't get up the stairs. Nowadays the schools need to make reasonable accomodations for the child. I think with proper training an aide could be present if they made it possible for the child to attend. A sticky wicket would be if the child had therapies also. what happens if the kid refuses treatment? Now that I think about it that's their right as a patient no matter where they are.

There would be questions about whether or not the aide could vote in school meeting or write people up or what have you but in my mind it is not an accomodation that would compromise the mission of the school. And it's true that a developmentally disabled child might not particpate fully in things like JC or school meeting but who knows. I think another aspect of democratic society, any society, is that you learn to make provisions for or help in the care of or be a voice for the voiceless. I think to be as inclusive as possible .

Another weird issue that I have, and is that not with Sudbury schools in general but in our school in particular is that people are not very friendly. From the staff down. They aren't mean, but it's hard if you are a new parent in the school. A common complaint of parents is that they walk in and nobody acknowledges their presence. Same with the students. I have a problem with behavior that I think of as indifferent, if not downright rude to be modelled for my kids. Also, if someone they don't know comes into the building the first person who encounters them needs to find out who they are and what they are doing there. I remember saying hi to a mom last year and she said "You know, my son has been here two weeks and you're the first person who has spoken to me." What's up with that?

I always say hello to staff when I encounter them and I don't wait for them to acknowledge me but I haven't been doing that with the students. When you first start at the school they tell you not to interfere or engage or interrupt the students unless they invite you to but I don't think saying hello is so very intrusive. I'm also scared of teenagers so I kind of avoided some of the older students if I was coming into the school. I'm changing because I don't think that I should act in an artificial manner and I think the kids need to learn some common courtesy. When someone comes into your space, your home, your school, your business, the polite thing to do is to greet them.

Hi again

Well I made it back from Texas in one piece. We had a good time. Here's some odds and ends stuff before I get back to "regular" posts.

BSG spoiler- ellen as the fifth? gaeta leading a mutiny? what the frak?!

I finally finished Democracy in America. wow. I'm thinking I want to read parts of it again. I also read The World Without Us. It's made me amp up my green living. It's not preachy but you can't read the whole book and not come away with a sense that we need to change the way we do things. It also appeals to the curious geek in me.

Speaking of the world withou me, my house without me had a leak from the washing machine and I now have a giant hole in my basement ceiling and a smallish hole in my kitchen ceiling. I'm getting a new carpet for the hall and stairs though.

Some funny "you just don't get sudbury, do ya?" moments with my in laws:
Ray's step mom would say after different activities "You can go back and talk about it at school. That was educational." After 4 or 5 times of this the kids told her "Nobody cares. Our school is fun!" She looked at me and I said "It's true. That's not what's most important about the school."
My father in law would give them these little pop quizzes. One time he asked Des how many states there were and Des said something like "You don't know? You're supposed to be a grown up!"

I never noticed how much strangers like to test children until my kids couldn't pass their tests anymore. They don't know how many states there are. They can't read yet. They don't know how to multiply. In fact they can barely add. Sometimes I worry about this. Mostly I don't.

Hmm, what else is new? I guess nothing else. The Alamo is much prettier than I expected. Texans are very tiresome with their love of ugly ass Texas though. I don't even think New Yorkers go on and on about New York the way Texans do. We really don't need to. :)

I'm off to Texas!

Yes, we are off to San Antonio to visit Ray's Dad and Step Mother. I expect at least one or two lively debates between me and my brother in law when I try to explain the merits of a Sudbury style education. They switched their oldest, he's two months younger than Des and Amelia, to a catholic school this year because "he needed more control and discipline". Yep, I'm sure that's what he needed.

I also expect at least one or two shouting matches between me and my father in law because he can be something of a blockhead. Also, we are both just loud talkers so our spirited conversations are sometimes mistaken for arguments. But we'll make up so we can gang up on Ray for being a republican.

I hope I don't come home with any bald spots after a 7 hour trip with one plane change, four kids and no hubby. (Ray is flying home a week earlier.)

R.I.F.

These are some of the topics that come up again with Sudbury parents, including yours truly:
Screens/video games/computers
will they get into college
reading

Des and Amelia are sort of starting to read. Amelia makes a project out of it about once a week. She sits down with Frog and Toad and slogs through it. Des spells out signs to me and asks what they say. He also reads signs and menus when we're out, or he tries to sound them out.

English a tricky language. It's a cluster fuck of borrowed words and latin grammar superimposed(arbitrarily) on a germanic language. It's also extremely difficult to learn to read english because it is not purely phonetic in its spelling like most languages. That being said it's mutability is ultimately a strength because it is so expressive and allows for a great deal of nuance in communication.

Back to reading, when it comes to learning or teaching someone to read I am strictly on the side of phonics. The greeks came up with such an elegant solution to recording speech by transcribing sounds instead of whole words or ideas. The flexibility is amazing. One of the first things linguists do when they discover a new language is assign it an alphabet. Not a set of pictograms but phonemes. Why? Because all languages have a finite number of sounds that they form but a much larger set of words, ideas, etc. that are conveyed by these sounds in different combinations.

So that's my biased view. I had to rethink reading when the kids were first interested in it because I have read thousands of books. I don't read the same way they do. I am a fluent reader in English. I don't have to sound out the word "can" every time I see it because I have probably seen it a hundred thousand times. I recognize it and I only have to focus on its context. So the first part of reading is decoding, matching the letters with the sounds and the second part is context, understanding the place and definition of a word in relation to other words. It takes some serious thinking at the beginning. Many of us, without realizing it, read on autopilot. The way you drive to the grocery store and have no recollection of how you got there because you've gone so many times you don't really have to think about. You can focus on yelling at your kids to cut it out already.

So here's an experiment inspired by a set of christmas ornaments I have.
Read this word:
POSTOB
What does it mean? How do you pronounce it? POST-ob? Wrong! Po-STOB? Guess again.
Here's a hint: It's the name of a city.
Still can't get it? Well, I'm being a jerk here, I'm using the Cyrillic alphabet.
In the Cyrillic alphabet P makes the sound of the latin R and B makes the sound of the latin V.
Now try-
Yay! You did it!
A small city on the Don river in southern Russia. The word is at the bottom.

The ornaments are painted to look like Matrushka's with the name of a different russian city inscribed at the bottom of each. My dad brought them back for me from Russia. I studied Russian for about two years. I actually went there about ten years ago. Can't speak a word of it but I sort of remembered the alphabet so I was able to sound out, slowly, the names of the cities( Yaroslava was by far the toughest). You had to figure it out with no background info. What assumptions did you make? That it was an English word or an american city? Why did you do that? Because this is a blog written in English by an American. When I was trying to read it I had a different set of facts but it still took me some time because the material is so unfamiliar. New readers are reading with much more of a blank slate than us. That's one of the reasons why they struggle.

Hmm, what's my point here. I guess my point is that reading is difficult for anybody if it is unfamiliar material. We all go through the same process but our experience let's us move faster.
So I don't worry about my kids learning to read or being fluent readers eventually. I respect their process. People worry so much about the decoding part of it when they could help their kids ultimately more by just talking to them more and introducing them to as many unfamiliar words and ideas as possible. This way when they come across something in their own reading they won't be flying blind.

Rostov.

Happy New Year!

I know it's just another day but doesn't the idea of starting over seem so promising? Clean slate and all that. I wish I lived in a warmer climate though. I think the New Year would have more oomf in a warmer climate.

The kids were exhausted and strung out today. Too many late nights and parties. Back to school on monday. I hate the morning rush but I love the bus!