“Ever since Jill started first grade, she’s become louder, messier, and not as kind as she was in kindergarten. I think her first grade classroom must be the reason she is the way she is,” said Jill’s mother, Paula. Susan, a former kindergarten and first-grade teacher, smiled. “Paula, I heard this every year. What’s happening […]
Reading. Writing. Arithmetic. These are the basic academic skills. There are also three R’s that are important to our leadership abilities: Respect, Responsibility and Resourcefulness. I would like to give credit to the person who initiated this phrase, but when I did a search for these 3R’s on the educational research data base (ERIC), I […]
“Idleness, indifference, irresponsibility are healthy responses to absurd work.”—Frederick Herzberg “Marjorie is lazy. That’s all. You need to push her to get things done,” said Ms. Busch. We were in a parent/teacher conference and I felt uncomfortable with the word “lazy” as a descriptor for five-year-old Marjorie. Lazy seemed derogatory. Marjorie’s teacher, Ms. Busch, had […]
As soon as my southern drawl is detected, I am usually greeted with something like, ”Aren’t you from the South? Southerners are so polite.” Folks from all over the world marvel at our use of “yes, ma’am” and “no, sir”. My imagination is not large enough to consider growing up and not saying “yes, ma’am”. […]
It was Parents’ Weekend during our daughter’s freshman year at college. The ladies cross-country team had arranged a dinner for their parents. As we dined on ravioli at a local restaurant, it dawned on me that I was sitting in the middle of a statistical anomaly. Every team member had a parent there and of […]
Children don’t misbehave, says Dr. Thomas Gordon, author of the best selling book, Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T). Wait a second, you say. Whoa! Everywhere you look there are children misbehaving. Dr. Gordon says that children’s actions are judged as misbehaviors when those behaviors come into conflict with the desires of parents and other adults. What […]
“Humans would degenerate without the child to help him rise. If the adult does not waken little by little, a hard crust will form around him and make him insensible.” ~ Dr. Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood, page 106 Being in the city is interesting, to say the least. Surrounded by world-class restaurants with […]
“No man is free who is not master of himself.”—Epictetus A flower begins with a seed sprouting from the earth with the seed leaves coming out of the ground first. The plant grows a stalk, and sends out more leaves. On the stalk or branches of the plant, small buds form and are protected by […]
There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.—Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949 A visit to a toy store in a California beach town uncovered a new product, a mud pie […]
The troubling nature of censorship is clearer when it falls on the very young. A certain kind of silence, that which comes from holding back the truth, is abusive itself to the child. The soul has a natural movement toward knowledge, so that not to know can be to despair. In the paucity of explanation […]