tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43904329996462082912024-02-20T17:46:33.391-08:00Egghead Brainiac Clubeggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.comBlogger208125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-22279368539087828982011-06-14T20:06:00.001-07:002011-06-14T20:12:21.919-07:00The differences between me and Raywere easily summed up by yours truly at the bus stop the other day. Ray is very much a "don't rock the boat" kind of guy. While I am standing on the prow, waving a flag, yelling "full steam ahead".<br /><br />Ray is conservative. I am liberal. Although we have had a mellowing effect on each other's politics over the years, things can get testy here around election time.<br /><br />He is affectionate. I'm like a cat.<br /><br />He can cook. I like sci fi. I guess those two don't go together except we each happen to hate what the other one likes in these instances.<br /><br />Despite it all, we really get along. I'm a lucky lady.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-51559811514807198262011-06-13T19:23:00.001-07:002011-06-13T19:54:55.142-07:00Another year!Well, I knew it had been a while since I posted but yikes-since September??<br /><br />This may have been our best year at Sudbury even if at one point I was sure I would pull them out.<br />I know I'm supposed to trust the process but it's hard. Amazingly though, everything seems to work out so maybe if I hold the lessons of this year in my heart it will be easier from now on. (Doubt it.)<br /><br />Since we don't get progress reports or parent teacher conferences I will create my own.<br /><br />Amelia: She took off. Served on JC for something like 5 months. Joined the sewing club and was introduced to the trials and tribulations of business when she busted her ass making stuffed animals, creatures, to sell at the Winter Gift Sale and only sold two-to me and her grandfather. Was involved with the Playground committee and they hired this guy Rusty Keeler to help them build a natural playscape. She was right in there pushing wheelbarrows and using a drill. Started reading chapter books. She's in a rush to grow up and likes hanging out with the older kids. Also got into playing Magic. She taught me but I haven't gotten the hang of it yet.<br /><br />Desmond: The changes in Des are more subtle. He's learned how to read but isn't reading books. He pretty much just hangs out with his friends all day. More interested in music but refuses any instruction. Ray and I go back and forth on this because he seems to have a genuine talent for it. He also learned to play magic.<br /><br />Cady: Cady has actually shown herself to be more independent and resourceful for her age than Des and Amelia were. I think Des just got certified for the microwave this year. I'm not sure if Cady is but she has no problem asking for help with it and she managed to acquire a couple of mugs to heat her stuff up in. One thing I learned about Cady is that she would rather ask for forgiveness than permission. We've had to sit down a few times and explain our expectations and standards that have to be met whether they are the rules at Sudbury or not. Also, I have had to rescue a lot of stuff from the morgue.<br /><br />Ray: Still suspicious, still thinks it wouldn't kill them to have some formal instruction. Still worries but maybe a little bit less.<br /><br />Me: Was asked by Amelia to stop posting stuff on the email list because she didn't like hearing about it in SM. There are three parents responsible for about 90% of the discussion on the list. I am/was one of them. It just occurred to me that she would go bananas if she knew about the blog. Went from loving the school to hating the school to loving the school again by years end. Why? Possibly from holding it to an unrealistically high standard, especially when you consider what they are trying to accomplish. "Democracy is messy" is a common refrain at HVSS. It's also imperfect and I found myself observing two separate situations with students, who were not my kids so I won't go into details, and became increasingly frustrated as I saw SM get it wrong, in my opinion (qualifying every statement with the phrase "in my opinion" is also very common at HVSS) , over and over again. Until they got it right. So this year I learned that I need to be as patient with SM and allow them their mistakes as I am with my own kids. Because, the majority of SM are students working through their own stuff. I wish I had come to this conclusion before sending an impassioned but inappropriate and wrong headed email to staff. Oh well, as I grow older (I turned 40 in December) I find it easier to work with some aspects of my personality rather than try to completely change it. <br /><br />On a completely different topic, I read quite a bit of war diaries of Field Marshal Alanbrooke. He was the commander of the British Army during WWII. I realized that lots of short posts (or entries should I ever return to paper and pen) can be as satisfying as long meandering ones.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-85720272425370429782010-09-23T21:33:00.000-07:002010-09-23T21:46:05.457-07:00Questions and odds and endsThat elimination diet I got bored of blogging about? I made it all the way down to water and it has completely changed my diet. I've stopped snacking and still haven't had soda. In case you were wondering. that's an odd and end.<br /><br />I've become preoccupied with trying to figure out exactly what my path was down the stairs. This started when I realized that all of my bruises were on my right side. I also knocked some pictures off the wall and have a hazy memory of actually taking a step or two. Maybe. But my bruises surprised me because I had this image of being on my left. Maybe because I broke my left wrist. That falls under "questions".<br /><br />Cady has started at Sudbury. She is loving it. I stopped by the other day and loved seeing her there. There are more little kids than I thought. I had this terrible image of her following/being rebuffed by D and A and their friends all day but that isn't happening. I knew it wouldn't but I like to worry. This is neither an odd, an end nor a question but this blog is supposed to be about Sudbury after all so I thought I would throw it in.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-23371673930779820762010-09-19T20:00:00.000-07:002010-09-19T20:38:00.665-07:00The story of me falling down the stairsI often have trouble sleeping, I usually wake up at 3 and can't get back to sleep. This morning that happened except it was 5:30 but really dark. I hemmed and hawed and then decided to get up and get some work done (play on Facebook) before I went to work. <br /><br />Normally we have a hall light on but the kids were sleeping at my MIL's. I could see the end of the hall from the faint light of the nitelite in the boys' room. I didn't turn the hall light on because our door was open and didn't want it to bother Ray. I took a step into the TV room and my foot went down. I thought "That's funny. i don't remember there being a step here." My other foot was on it's way, and my brain shrieked "oh fuck! the stairs!" <br /><br />My mind turned a rectangular darkness of an unlit room into a descending diagonal darkness of an unlit staircase as I fell down. I know I was thinking "I'm falling. I'm falling. I'm falling down the stairs." and my face and arms were banging and banging away until I got to the bottom. It happened very quickly and very slowly. When I got to the bottom I knew I had to scream to wake Ray up but when I did scream it didn't seem loud enough but when I said "Ray I fell down the stairs!" it sounded like a scream. He was dazed but turned on the light and came rushing down. He helped me turn over and I said "Call 911". As he was on the phone I got myself up and staggered over to the couch. My left arm hurt when I moved and my head was in a world of pain. He brought me boo boo kitty for the worst bump and kept saying I would be ok. I said "You don't know that!" I couldn't believe that I might have killed myself all because I didn't turn on the light. <br /><br />I broke my left wrist, I have two black eyes plus scrapes and lumps on my face and a big contusion on my right shoulder. We were back from the ER by 10 am. I am thoroughly exhausted but can't go to sleep. The kids are home, and even with three lights on I'm worried about them up in the middle of the night. I'm worried about me in the middle of the night. I'm worried that the staircase will suck one of us down and this time we won't be so lucky.<br /><br />I know this isn't a typical post but I wanted to get it out of my head so I can get some sleep.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-70766425910907435892010-09-03T18:22:00.000-07:002010-09-03T18:40:51.780-07:00Day 5Bye bye eggs and dairy. I drink a lot of milk. and it's tomato season so I have been eating fresh mozzarella like nobody's business. Oh well.<br /><br />I noticed a couple of things today: I haven't been waking up hungry. Usually the first thing I want in the morning is too eat. I also am noting true hunger. Not the light headed crankiness that I feel and view as hunger. My hunger is a different sensation and one that is so infrequent normally, compared to my other food cues, that I almost had to stop and identify it. <br /><br />I also thought about abundance today. At dinnertime, I was standing at the open fridge and saying "No,no no" to just about everything in it. I have been eating the same stuff over and over: peanut butter and carrots, peanut butter and apples, breadsticks, corn, tomatoes. I didn't want any of it. I started poking through some more and made myself a nice little salad and found some zucchini Ray had sauteed. This made me think how easy it is for us. When I'm hungry, I just grab some crackers or if I'm out a bag of crap and munch munch munch. I don't think about what I'm going to cook or eat. I can have whatever I want and I almost invariably pick the worst but easiest option. But when my choices are limited I've become more creative and stretched myself. Maybe food shouldn't be easy. Maybe I should always put the thought, time and consideration into my meals as I have the past few days.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-38585736262526063812010-09-02T19:54:00.000-07:002010-09-02T20:29:57.813-07:00Day 4Meat was not a problem. Trying to eat food without additives in this culture is incredibly difficult. Especially if you find yourself out and starving. I ended up eating a half a bag of carrots with Finn. <br /><br />Quitting soda is almost as hard as quitting smoking. Not the internal craving but the external cues. That shit is everywhere. Everywhere, dammit! Saying no to myself makes it easier for me to say no to the kids though. I would cave and give them garbage all the time because I wanted it myself.<br /><br />This experiment is so much about small victories. I was making corn muffins for Finn this morning and took a bit of batter. A couple of moments later I realized what I had done and started down the "I already had one so one more won't hurt" path. I stood there looking at the empty batter bowl (one of the joys of my eating life is empty batter bowls, as a child my spatula wielding aunt was my sworn enemy, there was nothing worse than hanging around the kitchen as my grandmother made brownies and see all those glorious leftovers for me and my sister, we would draw a line down the middle of the bowl with a finger for fairness sake, only to have my aunt come in and ruin it with that wood handled white plastic top spatula saying "ma, look how much you're leaving") thinking, how badly do I want this? I seriously stood at the kitchen sink for a good long while, trying to decide if I should indulge in a bit of scraping. I finally decided to skip it and then make a point to see if I felt like I had missed something or felt deprived. Of course I didn't.<br /><br />On the other hand, later in the day I had a screaming headache again and I did take some excedrin. It seemed better to take that than to suffer all night and feel discouraged and talk myself into taking more liberties. I think the little swipes and nibbles are more damaging in the long run because you don't think about their cumulative effect.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-92171444466796047782010-09-01T18:20:00.000-07:002010-09-01T18:31:07.308-07:00Day threeOn the surface, today would not appear to be very successful and yet I feel wildly successful. Today I was supposed to give up refined sugars and flours. Plus, I needed to pay more attention to additives. The first problem was at breakfast because almost every single thing had additives or refined sugar or refined flour or some combo of the three. I finally ate half a bagel feeling that at least it didn't have additives or preservatives. I had meant to bring lunch with me to a friend's house. Forgot it, she had pasta so that's what I had. but a small bowl. Then I had some panzanella bread with Ray. Again i rationalized this as no additives. then I had a small bowl of ice cream (because I have to give up dairy on friday) with no additives but, oops, sugar. That's the bad news. The good news is no soda AND I didn't resort to an excedrin. I drank tons and tons of water. When I had said bowl of ice cream I picked out the bits of chocolate chip cookie dough. I felt like I was continuing to make better if not great choices.<br /><br />Tomorrow I give up meat. Which is why I had a delightful, if bunless, hamburger for dinner tonight. <br /><br />I also ate a bunch of watermelon and salad and tomato by the way. It wasn't just a carb struggle all day long.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-43144611377286360062010-08-31T20:02:00.000-07:002010-08-31T20:14:12.572-07:00My experimentSince I bought the store my health and diet have gone straight to hell. It is most evident in my weight but I get no sleep, no exercise and I just don't feel well. My friend Nina does this spring cleanse every year and gave me a copy of the routine she follows. The way it works is that you eliminate a different aspect of your diet until you are down to water which you drink for two days and then start reintroducing foods again. I have never done anything like this before. No juice fasts, nothing. But I'm going to give this a whirl and hopefully update my progress daily. <br /><br />Why am I doing this? Because I want to clean the slate. I feel like I'm cleaning out a closet and then putting it back together with only the stuff the really want and love. Hopefully the foods that I really want and love will be wholesome.<br /><br />Today was day one. Actually day two because day one is eat a normal diet. On day two I eliminate caffeine, alcohol, any drugs(except prescription) and additives. Alcohol and drugs are not an issue. Caffeine is a big one because I usually drink 1-3 sodas per day. I made it through today without having one. Woo hoo!! At 5 pm I had an evil headache so I opted to take an excedrin which I guess is a drug and it does have a small amount of caffeine. I probably consumed some additives in the chipwich I had at the pool. I was so focused on not buying a soda that it didn't occur to me to opt out of other snacks too. All in all I'm going to give myself a grade of 90 for the day. I didn't eliminate these items 100% but I was incredibly mindful and did not use the small setbacks as an excuse to sabotage myself before I started.<br /><br />Tomorrow I'm supposed to eliminate all refined sugars and flours. Uh oh! there goes half my pantry.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-17796446353525404402010-03-07T16:16:00.000-08:002010-03-07T16:37:40.520-08:00Hellooooo.....Well I had just forgotten all about this. Because I am busy busy busy. Those boxes of books don't move themselves down perilously narrow stairs, you know.<br /><br />My blog is just like my diary. Every other entry is an apology for not writing more often. I always wonder who I'm apologizing to in my diary. Scholars studying it for hints of future greatness?<br /><br />Anyhoo, I'll just quickly fill you in on the past 5 months. Des and Amelia are having a great year. Very few complaints about staff or boredom this year. They have been working on a movie called "Magic Number 7" that has something to do with time travel, and for the sake of continuity, needs a lot snow to film. Amelia became certified to work in the school store. I think she may be the youngest kid certified. Des tried to but it didn't work out. He took it surprisingly well. I guess they are growing up and able to take knocks a bit better. I can't believe they'll be 8 next month.<br /><br />Cady, who I worried about having a crappy year because she was going to school with a bunch of 2 and 3 year olds has ended up having a wonderful time. Everyday the little kids take a nap and she spends one to two hours with the Paula, her teacher, doing whatever interests her. So now she's reading. That has lit a fire under Amelia's ass. Every time she sees Cady reading with us, she comes trotting by with a book of her own to read. It's really funny. Des seems abashed that Cady and his 5 year old cousin are both reading but it hasn't provided enough of an impetus to get him going. And I'm ok with that too.<br /><br />Finn. Well, Finn is 3 and all the good and bad that comes along with it. I feel like we are at mile 25 in the marathon of early childhood. He's potty trained. He almost sleeps through the night. Is just about finished nursing. Can mostly dress himself. We are so close!! Then maybe I will get my sanity back.<br /><br />The store is covering it's bills. which is great. But I can't pay myself yet which is to be expected. I love it though.<br /><br />Lots of great stuff happening at school which I may or may not get around to talking about. for now though, I'm going to watch the Oscars.<br /><br />Toodles.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-71889169744183470872009-10-12T18:06:00.000-07:002009-10-12T18:35:28.832-07:00confidence - humility = arroganceI'm all about humility lately. Maybe because becoming a small business owner is very very humbling.<br /><br />I never did get around to finish my philosophy discussion recap. and I've forgotten most of the details to make it meaningful anyway.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-59825597380765908852009-09-28T21:12:00.000-07:002009-09-28T21:51:17.746-07:00Talk TalkRemember 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.<br /><br />Anyhoo, I was thinking of them because we had a great philosophy discussion on saturday and did lots of talk talking. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />More tomorrow.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-37057929308338744152009-09-24T19:14:00.000-07:002009-09-25T20:21:02.305-07:00Beverly Cleary solves all problemsAmelia 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. <br /><br />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.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-20722527237973972502009-09-23T19:57:00.000-07:002009-09-23T20:19:23.080-07:00Ray is not happyand 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-90772213776093711552009-09-20T00:52:00.000-07:002009-09-20T00:59:04.358-07:00My job is so greatAnd here's why:<br /><br />These are all the things I talked about and contemplated today-<br />world religions<br />medieval literature<br />copyright law<br />Catch 22<br />Byron<br />Robert Browning<br />The Velveteen Rabbit<br />Mark Twain<br />Philip K. Dick<br />magic/magick<br />lovely fall weather<br />Isabel Allende<br />Meryl Streep<br />food writing<br />dictionaries and the art of translation<br />Jack London<br />Edith Wharton<br /><br />Not a bad gig.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-67720659171867076272009-09-15T21:03:00.000-07:002009-09-15T21:13:05.674-07:00How 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".<br /><br />Des spent $8 on soda and then smashed 5 of the cans with his friends to see what would happen.<br /><br />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.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-42168547737409310452009-09-14T20:58:00.000-07:002009-09-15T21:03:15.719-07:00More drama!Oh it never ends with me. This is Sudbury drama now.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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!eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-26365502055136316142009-09-13T23:07:00.000-07:002009-09-13T23:42:13.026-07:00Drama!Short story:<br />Amelia fell at the playground and had to go by helicopter to a pediatric trauma unit!<br /><br />Long story:<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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! <br /><br />There were a few moments where I wasn't worried about dying and here is what I thought:<br />1.That the view was spectacular and I feel lucky to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world.<br />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 <span style="font-style: italic;">we</span> are. We are miniscule. We are atoms in the universe.<br />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?<br /><br />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. :)<br /><br />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.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-70917229725145083432009-09-07T20:45:00.000-07:002009-09-07T21:37:07.388-07:00An interesting linkThis is from a friend. Not the friend whose son actually attended this school but somebody else. It's a small sudbury world.<br /><br />http://www.mountainlaurelsudbury.org/classes.asp<br /><br />(I wish I knew how to do that thing where people just click on a word. It's so much more attractive.)<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-61591605018380050382009-09-06T21:09:00.000-07:002009-09-06T22:15:34.155-07:00Great ExpectationsOh, hello again. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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."<br /><br />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.<br /><br />We'll see.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-6969911437897948832009-06-17T20:34:00.000-07:002009-06-17T20:56:49.469-07:00ElectionsStaff 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-1339439038264042862009-06-01T19:23:00.000-07:002009-06-01T19:33:14.236-07:00My head is overwhelmedIt 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Yep. got a lot on my plate right now.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-46786538878817841172009-05-27T16:43:00.000-07:002009-05-27T16:55:02.500-07:00A full month without me? How have you survived?!Weep no more, my dears. The egghead is back!<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />All I have to do is figure out a way to make the store pay for itself and I'll be set.<br /><br />Lots of stuff going down at Sudbury but I'll have to talk about that another time.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-4529490018638077212009-04-25T21:03:00.000-07:002009-04-28T17:47:13.219-07:00Parental PressureOur 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I heard another argument against offering things at school that weren't generated by the students as wrong becaus<a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a>e '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.<br /><br />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.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-12441930155652979482009-04-19T21:26:00.000-07:002009-04-19T22:37:01.221-07:00Comparisons and competitionI 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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4390432999646208291.post-1158333700579871192009-04-17T21:50:00.000-07:002009-04-17T22:08:37.212-07:00Dither, Deliberate, Dither , DeliberateWhat's the difference between dithering and deliberating? How well you like the person engaged in it!<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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! <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />As usual I'm very very tired. And tired of being tired. but not tired of talking about how tired I am.eggheadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05851154031345419171noreply@blogger.com0