Having the Courage to Let my Kids Have Courage

The other day I met a friend at a nearby park for a community picnic. Her kids rode their bikes. After the picnic, we were chatting while my son chased her daughter around the park. She was on his bike. He ran. We paid very little attention.

When I looked around the park to check in on them, I spotted them on the bike trail as far away from us as they could get, but what in the world was going on? 

What was my son doing on the bike? The bike had no training wheels. He was NOT wearing a helmet, and he WAS wearing FLIP-FLOPS. Not good.

I held my breath. I got ready to run. I mentally prepared myself to call for an ambulance and take a trip to the emergency room. 

Then he did it. He stayed up!

Amazement.

Gratitude.

Pride.

Irritation.

Pride.

Fear.

Pride.

Relief.

Excitement.

Confusion.

I decided to pretend not to notice the flip-flops, at least for the moment.

This is later in the day at home.
He's wearing long sleeves and long pants to protect his skin. His idea, not mine!

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Since I Resolved to Be Courageous-- #SOL15

I was at a loss for what to write this week for a Slice of Life. I pulled out an old notebook to work on some other ideas, and I discovered some pages entitled Poetry Experiments. It looks like they were written back during my first year teaching. 

I vaguely remember being very nervous to teach poetry to my first graders, so I took home the Lucy Calkins manual to study. As I read, I began to realize I had never been taught anything about writing poetry beyond counting syllables and rhyming. I was inspired to try out some of the techniques from the primary poetry writing lessons (sad as that is). Most of my "Poetry Experiments" were samples I ended up using to model for my class. Oddly enough, poetry is now my favorite writing unit to teach. 

I found one poetry experiment that didn't really fit with the rest. Since I resolved to be courageous this year, and I am always encouraging my first graders to be brave, here is the poem I found.

Do you have any interests or passions that you would have never discovered if you weren't required to teach them?

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Well, That Didn't Go According to Plan

On the second day of my summer vacation my Cody (6) was up bright and early. By 6:20 he was wearing his swimsuit. I got downstairs and found him reading a book on the couch. I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down to listen.

As soon as the book was finished, he asked if we could set up the slip and slide. The time was 6:45. He had mentioned the slip and slide about 40 times the day before, so I wasn't terribly surprised. 

I explained that the temperature was only 66 degrees. He was not persuaded, so I sent him outside to feel the temperature for himself. He came in and announced that it was perfect weather for the slip and slide.

By 7:00 the continual badgering wore me down. We went outside and set the slip and slide up in the front yard. Before I turned the water on, I looked at him and told him very firmly that if he was only outside playing for 15 minutes before getting cold and coming inside I would not set up the slip and slide at all for a week, and he would have to listen to me when I told him it was not warm enough. Of course I was completely confident he would only last about 3 minutes. He said he understood, and the water went on.

I watched through the window for a while. At first he was hesitant to get wet, but he quickly adjusted and appeared to be having the time of his life. After a few minutes he came to the door and asked if he could invite his neighborhood friends over for a slip and slide party. (Um, it's 7:08 and 67 degrees, no.) Next he wanted to know if he could wake up his two year-old sister for a slip and slide party. (Again: no.) He went back out and played happily (and very loudly) by himself for about 15 minutes. 

I called my mom to report the ridiculousness of the situation. She was amused.

I was still on the phone when I heard him come to the door and shout: 

Mom, has it been 15 minutes yet?

Yes.

Finally! Thank goodness!

and he came in.

This post is linked with Two Writing Teachers for their Tuesday Slice of Life Challenges. I hope to continue to grow as a writer by participating in this challenge over the summer. I'm also hosting a weekly summer linkup called Teacher in the Kitchen on Mondays. It's very low-key, and I'd love for other teacher bloggers and Slicers to join.

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Challenging Conversation #SOL15

This is just a slice of my life. I thought sharing it might be helpful to some people. It is not intended to be a guide. It is not ideally structured nor researched. This was just my attempt to break down a very complex issue for my son, who asks incessant questions about everything. There are probably much better ways to approach this topic, but I think we need to take advantage of opportunities as they arise, even at 6:15 am on a school day (the time of this conversation.) If we want to work toward a more equal society, we need to talk to our children about difficult topics. I don't think we can let seemingly little, innocent ideas like "girls always go first," go by without discussion.

This morning my 6yr old son woke up and said, "My friends think that girls are better than boys, and that's why they made a rule that girls always go first." 

That's silly. Boys and girls are the same. Nobody is better than anybody else.

I know, but they always say they get to go first because girls are better than boys.

Tell them that's not true. Tell them that's a very old-fashioned rule, and you have more modern ideas.

I did tell them it isn't true, but they don't listen to me. I don't know why they made that rule that girls always go first. 

{This is the moment of decision. I could tell him it's just good manners. That's the way things are. Boys are nice say, "Ladies first" because it's just good manners. Conversation over. He learns that he should be nice to girls and let them go first. All is well. But why do girls get to go first?}

Well, they didn't really make up that rule. They've probably heard people say, "Ladies first." Sometimes people say that. It's a very old-fashioned rule.

Why do people say that? Why do they think girls better than boys? Why do girls get to go first? Why is that old-fashioned? What is old-fashioned?

Well, they didn't make that rule up because they think girls are better than boys. A long time ago people actually thought that boys were better than girls. They thought that boys were smarter, and stronger, and braver than girls; so they tried to make girls feel better by letting them go first. 

WHAT?

They thought that boys were smarter, and stronger, and braver than girls, and because boys got to do more things than girls, that boys had to take care of girls. But that's not true. Boys and girls need to take care of each other. 

Yeah. 

They thought that since boys needed to take care of girls, they should let girls go first. They thought that since girls weren't as smart, or as brave, or as strong, they should let them go first to try to make them feel better about not being smart, or strong, or brave.

But mom, you're really strong, and your smart, and brave.

Yep. Both boys and girls can be smart, and strong, and brave, if they are allowed to go to school and get good jobs. A long time ago girls didn't get to go to school.

WHAT?! Then they couldn't learn!

Right. And if they wouldn't let girls learn, then they wouldn't seem like they were very smart, but now girls and boys both get to learn. We're very lucky that we live in the United States in 2015 because both boys and girls get to learn.

But is it different in other states?

It's not different in other states, but it is different in some other countries. There are some countries where girls don't get to go to school. There are some countries where girls, even grown up girls, aren't allowed to go places unless a grown up boy, a man, goes with them. They think that men need to protect the women. But the truth is that women and girls can take care of themselves just like men. The problem is that in some places women aren't allowed to buy houses or have jobs, so then they can't take care of themselves. 

But that is so SAD! 

I know. There are people working all over the world to try to change the rules like we changed the rules in the United States. We've changed lots of rules in the United States.

What rules?

 A long time ago the only jobs women were allowed to have was to be teachers or nurses, but now girls can be anything they want to be. Now girls are allowed to go to school, and they are allowed to buy houses, and wear pants.

Wear pants! What?

Yep, they thought girls shouldn't be allowed to wear pants. Girls were only allowed to wear dresses and skirts.

That's weird.

It is weird. I'm really glad that I live in 2015 because I like to wear pants all the time, but it's still hard for girls. Did you know that there's never been a girl president in the United States?

Why not?

Because people won't vote for a girl to be president. Some people still don't think girls are smart enough or brave enough to be president, so they won't vote for girls. Right now men make more money than women for doing the same work sometimes. Some people won't give girls as much money as they give boys because they still think boys are better, but that's not true. Boys and girls are the same.

That's bad. This is just so upsetting! I'm so sad about this!

I know. I'm sorry. This is a lot of information isn't it. It is bad, but there are people working everyday to change that. People are working everyday to make men and women equally, and to change the rules and make sure that men and women are treated the same. Maybe someday you'll work to make men and women equal.

But I want to be a train driver.

And that's fine. You can be a train driver. You can be anything you want to be, and so can girls. They can be anything they want to be. So if your friends tell you that girls always get to go first, you can tell them that boys and girls are the same and they should take turns going first. 

Or you could just let them go first because going first isn't really a big deal.

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Suburban Birdwatching #SOL15

Out of absolutely nowhere, Cody asked me to take him bird watching. This is something we have never done. At first his cousin was not interested, but when we were half a block away from the house he ran to catch up with us.  

When we saw bird poop on the sidewalk, we knew we were on the right track!

When we realized there was a compass on the binoculars, we had some big decisions to make regarding our direction. Connor thought since it was a chilly day the birds would be searching for warmth, so we should head south. Cody thought we should head north because he was worried about getting lost. Since the expedition was Cody's idea, we went north.

Sometimes being a mom is so much fun. :)

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Digital Journey Part 2 #SOL15

I'm attempting to participate in the Slice of Life Challenge, and since this post is on a Tuesday and happens to be Tech related, I'm also linking up with my friend Cheryl for Tech Tip Tuesday. I encourage everyone to visit both linkups to read more. 

In Part 1 of My Digital Journey I learned what a blog was; got onto Facebook; and created, then abandoned, a Twitter account.

I was beginning to explore learning resources online. I learned about Starfall. I got a bit obsessed with Cool Math. Have you played Bloxorz? Brick Breaking? Gems Swap? Phit? I swear they are all thinking games. They grow dendrites! (It was bad...) I discovered Hooda Math, Internet4Classrooms, ReadWriteThink, and Fun4thebrain.

Now I had a problem. I had tons of resources, but it was impossible to put them to good use! It was a royal pain to try to get all these sites bookmarked onto the computers in my classroom. Once they were bookmarked, I had no way to teach the kids how to use them all. The kids couldn't read the bookmarks, and they couldn't read all the options once they got to an approved site, so they couldn't navigate at all. It was so frustrating!

Then 3 big things happened:

1. I began to use online bookmarking.

2. My principal got an InFocus and ELMO for every classroom.

3. I learned how to make a class website on Weebly.

I began using Diigo to bookmark the pages I was discovering. At the time this was amazing. I was able to switch between school and home computers so much more easily. I still have my account, but it's pretty much just sitting there. Does anyone have any tips? Should I just abandon it, or is it worth learning to use effectively? 

Finally, I was able to bring up a game or website on my computer and do a demonstration for my class. I was able to show videos! LIFE CHANGING! 

Using my class Weebly page I was able to put all the links I wanted my students to have access to on the same webpage. Now I could just bookmark my class website on all the computers and teach my students how to navigate from there. I could even share it with parents and kids could access it at home! So exciting! (Feel free to visit and use my class website. Like everything else, it ought to be updated, but I'm still using it.)

The key to making my class webpage a success was my use of screen shots. Since most of the kids can't read in the beginning of the year, I needed pictures to help them navigate. Honestly, whenever I don't take a screen shot for a while I forget how to do it. Never fear. Google is always there! If you're thinking, that would be a handy dandy skill to have, I found this easy tutorial for Windows, and How-to-Take-a-Screenshot.org can help you take a screen shot on anything.

Finally I was finding effective ways to use the web professionally! Come back soon for 

One of my friends helped me get started with my Weebly page, then I figured out most of it through trial and error. If you're interested, here are some nice tutorials I've come across recently:

Symbaloo and Weebly from Teaching Trio

(By the way, Symbaloo appears to be very similar to what I was creating with screenshots.)

Weebly from T.E.A.M. Togetherness

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