Say Hello to My Little Friend

Posted on by August 2, 2011
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Mamacita says:  This is a caffeine molecule. We hang out far too much.  I had thought about writing a humorous essay about how I’ve been known to drive to WalMart at 3 a.m. for Diet Coke because we were out and I couldn’t wait for morning to go get some.

But that isn’t really funny – it’s just sad. Besides, ever since I discovered the “People of WalMart” website, I’ve been afraid I’d end up on there with keywords like “dowdy” and “hoarder” under my not-even-lucky-enough-to-be-blurry picture.

So I thought I’d talk about how even my students know I’m happier when there’s a Diet Coke on my desk, and when the professor is happy, everybody in the room is happy. And how sometimes, a student will even bring me a Diet Coke.

Diet Coke is the new apple for the teacher.

But that’s not really humorous, either.

Then I thought about mentioning how people who know me make a point of having Diet Coke in their refrigerators when they invite me over or know I’ll be there.  People who wouldn’t touch a Diet Coke with a ten foot pole will make sure they’re a few for me, even in, among, and around their own wholesome, nutritious spring waters and fruit juices.

Again, not funny.

Well, how about a piece about how flavored colas are Satan Juice, especially the lime ones?

Naw.  Silly isn’t humorous; it’s just silly.

Finally, I thought about turning my original idea from humor to a serious talk about health and well-being, figuring that it might help a few people battle their own obsessions.

“My poor personal example might inspire someone to take charge of his/her own nutritional requirements and make wiser choices, ” thought I.

Like that’s going to happen.

So I’m showing you all what a caffeine molecule looks like because I think it’s all cute and stuff, and it makes me snicker to imagine an ice-cold bottle full of these little wiggly jobbers being sucked down someone’s throat on a hot day science is important.

In fact, science is one of my favorite things.  That’s because science is ALL things, a wonder at a time.

Oh, and the melted Mentos and Diet Coke dregs left in the bottle after the Geyser goes off are delicious.

And, I’m sure, quite good for us.  No, I’m not sharing.  Back off.

Are Our Children Really Overprotected? I Think They Are.

Posted on by July 24, 2011
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bratMamacita says:  Are we protecting our children too much?  Everything is so bland, so effortless, so sanitary, so entitled, so sterilized, so soft, so completely without risk, requiring little or no talent or skill, so full of self-esteem and so lacking in merit, that it is little wonder so many of our young adults wouldn’t survive three days on a desert island without a camera crew on hand to keep them alive when push comes to shove.  There’s no WiFi on a desert island.  Many people would die in less than a week without their WiFi.  (They don’t know how to grow or hunt their own food or make a fire or a shelter, etc.  They’re pathetic.)

We’ve got children who not only wouldn’t know how to climb a tree to save themselves from a bear attack, they probably wouldn’t know any better than to assume the bear was a sweet thing that welcomed a Kodak moment.  We’ve got children who’ve never walked around their own block without at least one adult present.  We’ve got children who have never in their entire lives played in their own back yard without adult supervision.

Our kids have never organized their own games, made their own friends, walked to the neighborhood store, jumped rope, been outside after dark, put lightning bugs in a jar, or gotten dirty without a scolding.

Today’s kids get passing grades without really passing, sports trophies without really playing, and attendance awards even when they’ve missed six days for orthodontia appointments.  Bullies receive more sympathy and help than their victims.  Disruptive students are allowed to remain in our classrooms, destroying the learning opportunity for other kids.  (Disability or not, no child should be included IF that student presents a danger to other children, or in any way prevents other children from learning.  I’m not backing down on this one.)

These kids have no organizational skills because all their school supplies are in big bins that everyone helps himself/herself to – many of these students will go to college and expect their professors to provide the pencils and paper.  How do I know this?  I am a college professor, and every semester, at least one younger student wonders where the paper, pencils, paper clips, and staplers are kept.  When they are told to supply their own, these students are absolutely flabbergasted.

Many kids these days would not know what “flabbergasted” means.

Their playgrounds look like the toddler room in the church basement, not a single pair of jeans has had to be patched, they’re chastized if they get dirty, and they have never had a broken bone or stitches from just being a kid and playing in their lives.  Simple falls, slips, bumps, and bruises are Benadryl foddder.  They’re not allowed to climb because they might fall.  They can’t whirl and twirl because they might fall. They can’t run because they might fall – or make some child who can’t run as fast feel bad.  They can’t throw or kick baseballs or footballs or kickballs because someone might get hit, or get upset at witnessing another child’s skill.  Imaginative play is forbidden lest it include a pirate sword or a finger gun or some kind of sexist, non-PC labeling.

What’s next?  No walking, because they might fall?  It wouldn’t surprise me.

Many kids are not allowed to make their own friends because unless the parents can also be friends, it just ain’t happening.

Children are allowed to run wild in public places, eat and drink anywhere they want, talk during movies, and pretty much rule the roost in their own homes and anyone else’s, too.

Excuses, reasons, and rationalizations are made for all misbehavior.  It is never the child’s fault.  He can’t help it.

Many children eat what they want whenever they want it.  Parents are so afraid little Lulu and little Tubby will be hungry or their self-esteem will be eroded that they cater to these little monsters in every way.  If anyone objects or finds fault, that person must be a child-hating ogre who just doesn’t underSTAND how sensitive Lulu and Tubby are.

Teachers are too strict and require too much.  Theater patrons who glare have forgotten how it was to be a free-spirited child.  Restaurant servers and customers are just hateful selfish beasts who ought to appreciate children and not expect them to be sentient. Fast-food restaurants FORCE families to eat there every night, and that we are all fat isn’t our fault -it’s the restaurant’s fault for MAKING us go there.

Am I in a bad mood?  Not at all.  I am actually more amused, in a head-shaking, disgusted, sarcastic, snarky way, at so many young parents these days who are making it so difficult all the time when it really shouldn’t be.

When people allow children to be in charge, life is going to be hell.  Plus, these parents are also responsible for encouraging their children to grow into adults who must be ever entertained from without, who can’t sit still for thirty seconds, who have poor eating habits, shoddy entertainment preferences, and a sense of entitlement and blamelessness that should shame the nation.

P.S.  Parents who allow their children to be in charge DESERVE the hell they are nurturing.  Is that harsh?  Bite me.  The truth hurts.

Yes, I am aware that such things have been said about the younger generation for thousands of years.  That doesn’t make it any less true.

I love children too much to stay quiet.  We need to nurture them, love them, cherish them, and require them to genuinely grow up, and that means, to have the knowledge and skills to take care of themselves and of others.

Nobody has the right to be helpless unless he/she really is.

Good Teaching Is Like Good Stand-Up.

Posted on by July 18, 2011
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teacherMamacita says:  I love children, and I love students of all ages, and I love teaching, and I love genuine education in all of its 6-degrees-of-separation wonder. Everything is connected – everything in the known and unknown universe is connected. Nothing exists only within the four walls of a classroom. It often happens – I sincerely hope – that in the course of our education we are required to learn something we simply do not understand.

“Whyyyyyyyy do I have to learn this? (Best said in a whiny, nasal tone.)

There are many answers to this question, all correct, although “Because it’s going to be on the test” is the poorest answer, even though it might be the only answer the student is capable of understanding AT THE MOMENT. Education is so full of wonders that it’s difficult to highlight just one, but I’ll give it a shot.

One of my favorite educational wonders is the simple fact that there are many things we learn for which we know no immediate reason. This not “knowledge for knowledge’s sake,” although I love to know things just to know them. This is “life prep.”

Hasn’t it ever happened to you, that five, ten, thirty, sixty years later, something pops in your brain and suddenly you make a connection to that little poem your mean third grade teacher made you memorize much against your will, and you are able to comprehend something?

I thought so.

THAT’S why you “have to learn this stuff” now. Some of it is for today, and some of it is for tomorrow, and some of it is for when you’re seventy-two years old and struggling with questions far more difficult than school ever made you do. Each of your teachers is trying to prepare you not merely for the next grade up, but for all of the rest of your life. Everything you have ever learned is stored away in your head, somewhere, waiting to serve you “later.” Good teachers know this, and do their level best to encourage students to find and understand the connections and relationships between and among “things.”

That’s what I’ve always tried to do, anyway. I didn’t learn that in college. I learned it from some of my own teachers. Not all; just the good ones. I learned plenty from the bad teachers, too, and not just because bad examples are as useful – and sometimes more so – than good examples. The many good teachers in my life taught me much more than their job description required, and it was these “tangents” that taught me the most. I do this with my students, too, and often those tangents end up being more important than the actual lesson.

If our children learn nothing else in school, I hope they learn about the connections, which are, of course, also relationships. Connecting the dots between math and English and science and history, etc, will help us all want to learn more, and more, and more, and never stop learning more. I consider that to be my primary goal. Perhaps knowing these things about me will soften what I am about to say next, which is simply this:

It’s no surprise to me that a student doesn’t much like to sit still and pay attention when the instructor is boring, lackluster, monotonous, incompetent, and uninformed. (Or any one of those things.) Excellent lessons require much more than books, paper, and pencils; they require the skills of a savvy standup. You can’t teach Period 7 the same way you taught Period 2; it’s a different audience.

However, I still maintain that the majority of responsibility for learning lies with the student, not the teacher. A person who desires to learn will learn in spite of all of the obstacles our modern educational system puts in his/her path, and believe me, modern educational systems put all the obstacles in the path of our students that they possibly can.

It’s still – mostly – the student’s responsiblity.

Bring it on.

(Another re-run.  We’re moving this week.  I’m buried alive in stress, mess, & junk.  This house is a hoarder’s dream.)

Teachers and The Knack

Posted on by July 12, 2011
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Mamacita says: There is a knack to teaching middle and high school students that some teachers never quite learn. I’m not sure it can be learned; it might be an art, a talent one must have at birth. For want of knowledge of this art’s actual name, I will call it ‘the knack.’

I have seen many teachers fail at the secondary level, because they just simply did not have ‘the knack.’. I have seen a lot of excellent, successful elementary teachers fail at this level, because they did not have ‘the knack.’

It’s easier to do at the upper high school level, because some of those students are more mature than some adults I’ve known. But at the middle school level, and the lower high school levels, it’s harder to do, and even more important to do it.

Once in middle school, students are no longer ‘children.’ Oh, we know they still are, but don’t make the mistake of treating them as you would treat a fifth-grader.

Never talk to older students as you would talk to younger ones.

A teacher can lose an entire group of seventh-graders simply by referring to them as ‘boys and girls.’ I’ve seen entire classes turn against a teacher because he/she used a tone of voice that connoted ‘elementary.’ I’ve seen principals wonder all year why the students disliked him/her so much, and it was all because of a condescending remark made on the first day of school, that the adult doesn’t even remember but every student knows by heart.

Never talk down to older students. Or younger ones either, for that matter.

Put simply, talk to older students as THEY THINK you talk to other adults. And put simply, that’s not simple.

It is possible to talk to an older student about very serious matters, or matters that are actually frivolous but which are important to the student, in a tone of voice that tells the pre-teen or teen that you consider them capable of reasonable judgment, and that you respect what they have to say. Two teachers can say the exact same thing and one of them will succeed while the other antagonizes and infuriates the student.

There is some kind of internal attitude inside each teacher, and the least astute kid in the entire school can pick up on it.

Being a good teacher is hard work, exhausting and nerve-wracking. Loving kids isn’t enough to be a good teacher. Being organized isn’t enough. Being passionate about one’s subject isn’t enough. Being a member of Mensa isn’t enough. Having been an excellent student oneself, isn’t enough. Ditto on having been a poor student. Having kids of your own isn’t enough. Wanting desperately to have kids of your own isn’t enough. Having had an excellent teacher in one’s past isn’t enough. Having had a terrible teacher in one’s past isn’t enough. Being the favorite Aunt or Uncle to tons of nieces and nephews isn’t enough. Combinations of these things aren’t enough.

Oh, those are excellent parts of a teacher’s background, yes. Definitely. But alone or in any combination, they are not enough.

To be able to deal with secondary students, to be able to communicate and earn their respect, a secondary teacher has to have the right kind of internal attitude.

Can’t some of you still instinctively know when someone is sincere? Do you still have that radar detector in your brain that tells you when somebody can be trusted? Pre-teens have this instinct, and it’s sharp and clear and laced with brand-new hormones, a big hunk of ‘fear of the unknown,’ and an intense desire to be accepted.

A good teacher must understand the pack instinct of teens, and be good at intervening, listening, and helping them to realize that it’s not the best way to live. Some cliques at this level can be brutal; a good teacher watches for such things like a hawk and simply does not permit it
in his/her classroom. A good teacher must have shock absorbers in his/her heart, because some of the things older kids will tell them are real zingers. A good teacher knows how to speak the “language: of all the different social groups within the system. (A REALLY dedicated teacher is bilingual.) A good teacher knows how to encourage individuality and creativity, and be able to stand firm when a student or his parents try to buck the system and gain privileges which that student did not personally earn. Other students know when this happens. Word gets out, and it gets out fast.

Good teachers are probably just a tad on the schizo side, because every time the bell rings, they have to shake off one personality and put on another. No two classes are alike, and a good teacher will not try to teach them in the same way. Secondary teachers are doing stand-up, and audiences differ with every gig.

It goes without saying that a good teacher will not compare a student with his/her older brother or sister, even favorably. Each student stands, or falls, on his/her own merit and work habits. Students respect that, even when they try to sway the teacher. They know that some teachers are easily swayed, more’s the pity. (The good teachers aren’t.)

Secondary teachers, the good ones, know how to talk to the students as the students think one adult talks to another. Read that sentence carefully, for it does not say that a good teacher talks to the students as one adult to another.

Some teachers will not agree with me. That’s fine. All I know is, those things worked for me, and for several other teachers that I know.

I’ll add this, too: A good secondary teachers keeps up. He/she knows what the students are reading, and what they’re watching, and what they’re listening to, and who. This is absolutely vital at this level. If you are conversing with a secondary student and that student happens to drop the name of a band and tells you this band is his/her idol and he/she adores them, and you don’t know ahead of time that this band advocates drugs and violence and kinky sex, and that the lead singer has been arrested for DUI and CDM several times, something ignorant such as “Oh, me too, aren’t they awesome?” might be said. And any teacher who doesn’t know ALL about Facebook and texting and pretty much all other aspects of social networking has no business at either the elementary OR secondary level. Check that stuff OUT, because I’ll tell you what, your students sure are. Get on there yourself so you can communicate.

These things have to be done carefully, remember. Don’t make the mistake of trying to ingratiate yourself with students by using their generation’s groovy, out-of-sight, beat-me-daddy-eight-to-the-bar, gnarly vernacular with them. Some words were never meant to come out of the mouths of actual adults. Am I right, peeps?

All of these things, and more, can be done if a teacher has that internal attitude, the right attitude, the one that can’t be detected by anyone except a teenager. Sometimes, other teachers sense something different about a really good teacher, and there are occasional clashes. Age has nothing to do with it; some of the very best teachers are 110 years old if they’re a day, and some of the least savvy ones are 25.

Middle school kids are the greatest; I loved teaching that age level. Teachers who tell you that those grades are a nightmare just didn’t do it right. Such statements are unkind, and untrue.

I am not, of course, referring to NASTY SPOILED BRATS WHO HAVE NEVER BEEN REQUIRED TO BEHAVE PROPERLY IN PUBLIC, but that is their parents’ responsibility and fault. They should arrive at school already knowing how to behave. But I’ve ranted about that too much already. . . . .

Good parents always go to parent-teacher conferences, of course. While you are there, see if you can dredge up some of that adolescent attitude detection you used to have. Check out your kids’ teachers.

I’m not saying to sniff them all over like a dog, but wouldn’t it be cool if we could? Heh.

At any age, we could all use (to paraphrase Hemingway) a good, built-in shock-proof shit detector. Our students need it for us, and we need it for them.

Shhh, I Hear Freedom Ringing!

Posted on by July 4, 2011
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fireworks1Mamacita says:  Happy Independence Day. And if you do not believe in that, then, Happy Fourth of July.

Everyone has a fourth of July. It’s right there between the third and the fifth, so none of your lip now. . . .

I was looking at all the black burn marks on the deck today and wishing the kids were still little and out there making more.  Our deck is covered with many years’ worth of black burned Fourth of July spots. Isn’t everybody’s?

Please tell me your deck is covered with black spots too?  From bottle rockets and snakes and all kinds of fun noisy things?

Well, mine is, and I love the memories.

I’m afraid to ask about your sidewalk, because, well, mine has a lot of black spots on it from those “snakes” the kids used to burn when they were little. I like the spots, because they make me remember those giggling little kids, watching the coiling black snakes with big laughing eyes. The kids, not the snakes.

I’d rather have the spots, and the memories, than a life full of pristine “things.”

Have a wonderful holiday, everyone. Please be safe, and happy. Don’t step on the hot sparkler wires on the ground. Watch out for the tiny kids; sometimes they bite and keep them out of harm’s way.

I love you all. Happy Independence Day!

Shhh, listen!  Do you hear freedom ringing?  I do.

Let’s all work hard to keep it so.  Let’s not wait until we’re at the funeral home and it’s too late to say “I love you” to someone until another horrendous crisis to rally together and love our country in public.

P.S.  Loud pops, bangs, smoke, and cool colors aren’t necessarily dangerous.  Here are some great ways your kids (and you – who are we kidding?) can have a great time making loud noises and playing with smoke and cool stuff!  You’re welcome.

Potty Mouth, Wiggly Little Boys, Recess, and Reading

Posted on by June 11, 2014
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“No two people are alike, and both of them are damn glad of it.”

Mamacita says:  That’s a quotation; that’s not me saying “damn,” although I frequently occasionally do. I am, to my shame, greatly afflicted with “potty mouth,” and although I managed to control it somewhat while my children were tiny,  it’s back, in full force. Honestly? I need help.

But I digress. No two people are alike, but both of them are expected to progress at the same rate by our public schools.

Our children are expected to learn to read and write by a certain age lest they be labeled “special education” and given an IEP and pulled from the classroom to be tutored in the Reading Room. Most of them are little boys.

Old hippies like me sometimes have a hard time admitting that there really are gender differences that no amount of “environment” is going to change. One of those differences is this: a lot of little boys need a few more years than a lot of little girls need, to mature enough so that their bodies and brains can sit still, together, long enough to learn how to read and write. Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that while a lot of little girls are reading “Gone with the Wind,” the little boys sitting next to them are still struggling to recognize letter combinations. It is also a fact that some of these little boys who still can’t do it in the third grade, or the fourth, somehow have their own “epiphany” in the middle grades; something in their brain becomes aware of symbols and their meanings and how to translate them to Harry Potter. It wasn’t that these little boys didn’t TRY down in the lower grades; it was that their bodies and brains weren’t THERE yet.

I saw this miracle happen over and over again. With my own eyes I saw it. Sometimes, when I tried to tell other teachers, especially elementary teachers, about this awakening, they did not believe me. “I had that boy in third grade and I’m telling you, Jane, that he just doesn’t have what it takes to be a reader, a good student. He just can’t do it.”

And I’m telling you, Madeline, that I don’t give a rat’s ass* what the child did in your class. I am trying to tell you that in my class, the boy can read. One week he couldn’t, and the next week, he could. And he’s ecstatic.

My point? Do I have to have one? I guess I could drag one in by the hind legs if you must have a point. How about this one:

Hold off on the IEP’s and the labeling until the kid is in middle school. Tutor, yes. Give special help, yes. Hang a label on his forehead and put it in his permanent record? Not so fast there, Teach. Don’t do it Not yet. Not just for reading. Save the labeling for the children who genuinely need the help; don’t fill up the room with little boys who just need a few more years to mature.

Same-sex classrooms in the lower grades? Why not? It might work. It would certainly be better for the little girls who, most of them, just naturally catch on to the reading faster; they could move on! It would be better for the little boys, too; they wouldn’t feel pressured and might get comfortable enough to relax and blossom, too.

Many of our most highly esteemed scientists, inventors, etc, were late bloomers. Edison wasn’t even allowed to continue at his school; he was so slow, he held the others back!

Let’s give our little boys a break, what say, people?

And by the way, taking away a child’s recess because he couldn’t finish his vocabulary words quickly is cruel and unusual punishment. I suppose the boy would then be punished because he was extra wiggly since his ‘outlet’ was taken from him? Energetic little children NEED to be let loose on the playground several times a day!!! Taking away recesses for punishment or to make more room for standardized test review is the action of a halfwit who knows nothing about either education OR children and probably hasn’t been in a classroom since 1972 teacher, politician, superintendent, or some other administrator who falls into the ‘nimrod’ category of typical la la land unawareness of real people and how we live. Probably people who do that don’t know how to access their email, either, or use a computer. But then, that’s what secretaries are for.

I put up with this for 26 years. No wonder I had a potty mouth.

And by the way, this guv’ment standard of requiring our tiny first and second graders to sit still for NINETY MINUTES and read without interruption is ignorance in action on the part of whoever thought that one up. Tell me, Mr. Standards: Can YOU sit absolutely still for ninety minutes and read without interruption? I thought not.

*Dammit **, there I go again.

** Crap.