Not June Cleaver
Not June Cleaver: age 45
Ward Cleaver: age 44
Simon: ds age 12
Alvin: ds age 10
Theodore: ds age 8
Jerry: Betta fish, age unknown
Albert (as in Gator mascot): hermit crab, age unknown
Tiger (as in Tiger Woods): hermit crab, age unknown
I'm not atheist. I'm not agnostic. If you figure out what I am, please tell me. Be nice.
Read more about me here.* * * * *
These Go To Eleven
NIGEL: All the way up. You’re on ten on your guitar, where can you go from there? Where?
MARTY: I don’t know.
NIGEL: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
MARTY: Put it up to eleven.
NIGEL: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
MARTY: Why don’t you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
NIGEL: These go to eleven.Curious about the title of this blog? Here's a link to a video clip of one of my favorite scenes in "This Is Spinal Tap"
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Amen!
Lest you think I’m going to burst into prayer at any moment…
Amen to the sentiments of this article Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills
Apparently, limiting imaginative play for children may cause deficits in executive function, which is a part of the brain responsible for many things, including a person’s ability to exert self-control. Children today focus on toys and electronics for play rather than imaginative and interactive play. In an effort to keep children safe from harm, we have created activities to keep them busy — classes, camps, sports. These regimented activities limit the children’s decision-making opportunities. And to top it off, the emphasis on test scores and academic achievement have led us to approve of schooling over play. It is in the best interests of the children afterall, right?
The article concludes with the following statement in which the author quotes psychological researcher Dorothy Singer:
‘Because of the testing, and the emphasis now that you have to really pass these tests, teachers are starting earlier and earlier to drill the kids in their basic fundamentals. Play is viewed as unnecessary, a waste of time,” Singer says. “I have so many articles that have documented the shortening of free play for children, where the teachers in these schools are using the time for cognitive skills.’
It seems that in the rush to give children every advantage — to protect them, to stimulate them, to enrich them — our culture has unwittingly compromised one of the activities that helped children most. All that wasted time was not such a waste after all.
Amen!
Reading this article, I was reminded of a situation that happened a few months ago. We attended “Colonial Days” at Mount Vernon, home of George Washington, with a homeschool group. There was a wonderful hay maze there. After running through the maze a little bit, the kids decided it would be more fun to run on the maze, and so they did. We moms stood by watching and occasionally snapping some pictures. There was a little stairstep section at the edge that was apparently there to allow easier access to the top of the piles, and there were no signs indicating that being on the hay was not allowed.
Quickly, the school children who were on field trips joined in. We got a kick out of the looks we got from the teachers and chaperones as they yelled at their students to get off the hay bales and go through the maze the way you are supposed to do it.
Did you ever hear the song “Flowers are Red” by Harry Chapin? Seems the person who loaded the actual video of Harry Chapin singing this song has now made it unavailable for embedding, but here is a link to it in YouTube:
Here is a link to the lyrics.
Comments
15 Responses to “Amen!”
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Amazing that they need to employ psychologists to figure out what we all already know.
So — the perpetrators of SOLs and No Child Left on the Playground — are they listening?
I love it! I believe with all my being that this is true. When we went to the concert the other day we were one of a few homeschooling families. The other kids were groups of public school kids. One group, maybe 2nd graders, was lectured for about 1/2 an hour on how to appropriately behave in the theater. The teacher was loud enough that everyone could hear her. My kids were dumbfounded at all of the requirements. Mine were simply be respectful and enjoy. But of course none of that was actually said.
Then the teacher who spent all that time telling her students to be quiet answered her cell phone, and proceeded to have a conversation. The irony was NOT lost on my kids!
Lovin’ the picture.
Just one more reason to home school my boys. Great pictures!
I think the same thing when we find ourselves out amoungst school groups. Museum, Zoo, parks, wherever. I’m generally not one to be the ‘radical’ in the group, but I always marvel at how school is perfect for instilling conformity and authoritarian power above curiosity, exploration, and uniqueness.
I always feel a bit sad for the kids in the alphabetical order lines, silently shuffling down museum corridors while my kids have free rein to move about and ask questions.
Once I saw a class of kids have to sit still and stay silent for 5 minutes because one kid talked out of turn in front of a cool astrology exhibit.
OMG, I just noticed something in this picture that I never noticed before. The BOYS are ON the hay, and the girls are doing it the way you are “supposed” to do it. LOL!
childsplay – I have seen some teachers exhibit some horrendous behavior toward their classes on field trips. Really awful and disrespectful. I guess in school, respect is a one way street.
Yay for creative kids! Of COURSE it’s more fun to run on top.
This line gave me heart palpitations: “‘Because of the testing, and the emphasis now that you have to really pass these tests, teachers are starting earlier and earlier to drill the kids in their basic fundamentals. Play is viewed as unnecessary, a waste of time,”
I think you’ll appreciate this:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/202
I saw that when it first came out and commented about it on somebody’s blog (I wish I could remember who).
Anyway, I agree that kids need to do stuff like this (girls and boys). The only one I disagreed with was driving. I think that should wait until the child is large enough to sit in the driver seat and be a safe distance away from the airbag (doesn’t have to be legal driving age, just good driving size). There was a tragic story in the news a couple of years ago about a grandmother (grandfather?) who let her 11 year old granddaughter pull the car up the driveway when they got home. Unfortunately, the girl didn’t stop the car in time and TAPPED the back wall of the garage. The airbag deployed and killed her.
That story alone freaked me out enough to worry about letting my kids drive. I’m sure it was a fluke, but it scared me. I am only 5′1″ and I really worry about how close I sit to the wheel. In college I had a serious accident. Even with a seatbelt on, I still whacked my face on the wheel. I can’t imagine what an airbag would have done to me (they didn’t exist back then).
So, all my kids have pocket knives. My 10 year old is allowed to light matches. I let them climb high. I let them ride fast. And I cringe and close my eyes and hope for the best. They will learn their limits, and hopefully without drastic results like death! I won’t allow driving though (as long as I can help it!). They do get to drive tractors all over their grandfather’s property though, and they love that freedom.
I wouldn’t have let my kids drive when they were younger, either. They learned to drive the tractor when they could reach the pedals. With supervision and rules.
Hey Debra, you just made me think of something. New blog post on the way.
[...] One of the 5 things is drive a car. That is the only one in the list that I (partially) disagreed with. Feel free to read why here. [...]
I love how you let your kids run on the hay bales. I am always getting the evil eye because I don’t believe that children should have to wear shoes unless they wish to. My son is often dressed in a heavy winter jacket and no shoes in winter. My only rule is that if there is a chance of foot bite, foot covering should be worn if the kids are going to be outside for extended periods. When my twins were around 2 I was kicked out of a playgroup because I let them play in a mud puddle during a playdate at a park. The other moms felt that I put them under undue pressure because their children were upset with them for not letting them play n the mud puddles.
I loved this post so much that I included it in the inaugural edition of the Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers
thanks for a thought provoking post
Shez
[...] has posted links to a bunch of neat stuff, including my “Amen” post regarding the importance of free play to children’s brain [...]