A Fine Line

I’ve been away for a few days. Got caught up googling “Governors of Alaska.“ It’s been a nice diversion in this humid summer heat. Many of us have already been over at the school buildings setting up our classes. It’s very rewarding as you know volunteer work always is. There are a few things we discovered while we were there, that you may want to know about. It might be a good idea for you to send a fly swatter to school with your child for the first couple weeks. The wasp chat rooms have been full. Stories have been passed from wasp to wasp reliving doorway escapades of days gone by. They’re after the sweet stuff, or the packages it came in and they can’t wait. The ones assigned to the windows will find easy entry in lots of places where screens have been damaged, removed and not replaced. Our choice on hot days is stifling heat or distracting, nasty wasps. You can't smack heat, so send flyswatters. If you are are uncomfortable with insect road kill, teach your children how to trap. You will be responsible for  transporting them to the other school down the street and setting them free in the stairwells.

You will want to send a spray bottle or personal fan along with your child. As you may know, there is no air conditioning in the elementary school classrooms. On days of high humidity and temperatures of eighty-five or ninety, nausea and light headedness may occur. In the past we have filled trays with water for kids to put their feet in, purchased popsicles for them or gone out for water balloon play, but that kind of cool only lasts a short time so consider getting a spray bottle of water for cooling purposes.

Teach your kids fan protocol. We only have one per room, so air hogging will not be tolerated. Kids cannot sit right in front of the fan, blocking the air to everyone else. Fingers can be brought close to the fan blades, although before we dismiss, we’ll let each kid sing into the fan while it’s on, so they can laugh at their exaggerated vibratos, hands behind backs of course.

No spaghetti straps, hemlines no shorter than where your fingers touch your leg with hands to sides and no unacceptable-to-most-parents graphic art or text on t-shirts. Leave home the "My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad" and"Teachers Suck" t-shirts. "I'm With Stupid" probably shouldn't be worn either. This goes for the teachers too.

Dear John McCain and Barack Obama campaign people. Knock it off. I think I can speak for many of us when I say this. We’re sick of the cute gottcha ads, the one upping, the accusations and dredging up of pasts. If you don’t have better ideas of messages to get out besides one of you is an elite celebrity and another is an old man in expensive shoes here are some ideas.

How about taking the money you’re planning to spend on the next three TV commercials and give it to some school principals who could make great use of it? Staff members would be hired or hired back; full time nurses and psychological services could be purchased. Schools could have their libraries open all the time, maintained by trained school librarians instead of parent volunteers. Your commercial text could simply say: “Rather than run a campaign ad at this time, the money for its creation has been donated to the Shorewood School District for purchase of full time medical staff.” Then maybe show a picture of the school and a smiling child with a Band-Aid across her forehead and a tooth necklace on. The candidate’s name would come onto the screen and then go to a fade.

Instead of running your next juvenile attack ads, why not run this text across the screen? “The cost for creation of an ad for this spot has been used to purchase winter clothing for children in schools who have none.” Kids will have boots to wear through the snow instead of tennis shoes, mittens to put on instead of pulling sweater sleeves over freezing knuckles and scarves to wrap around open necklines of used clothes that will have to last the rest of the school year. Winter is coming and these are not exaggerated examples. People ought to know that every day teachers are providing their students clothing, shoes, boots, supplies, book fair money and field trip fees. I know people will say, well that’s the parents’ job, but you tell that to the six year old standing out at recess in fifteen degree weather covered only with a nylon wind breaker and a sweatshirt.

My colleagues could supply many more worthwhile ideas, so if politicians want to make a change, let‘s see it. If someone wants to defend our country, let’s not forget that our country is made up of its people, many of whom could use the benefits of campaign funding better spent. Putting their money where their mouths are would reap something tangible, definable. I wish someone had the guts to really do this thing differently. Instead of all these dollars going into manipulation, fear and doubt creation, they would give some real meaning to the HOPE and CHANGE both candidates claim they represent.

School starts soon. If you are new to this, allow me to give you some real help. If you’ve been through it all before read it anyway and rate yourself on how well you did with your child’s teacher. Knowing these facts will be helpful and following the advice may well make the difference between early childhood teachers loving you and…well, not loving you. Kindergarten and first grade parents need to know that teachers don’t want you crying your eyes out in the doorway waving goodbye for half an hour on the first day of school. You need to know that your kids will cry as long as you will and not more than 30 seconds longer. I happen to know for a fact that no matter how much blubbering and wailing goes on before you leave, your child is completely fine the minute you’re out of sight. Many a parent has been made a fool of without even knowing it. Oh, and don’t show up early at the end of the day and hang around outside the door either. Teachers know you’re listening in to see if they’re as nice now, as they seemed to be in the morning.

In August, your focus must be on supply accumulation. When you know what to get, get it all. Teachers love it when kids come in on the first day with everything. It means your child won’t have to cry, borrow, pout, withdraw or refuse later on in the week when the real work begins all because they don't have their own pencils yet. Want to score more points with your child’s teacher? Label. You can never overdo the labeling. Label the lunch bag, the pencil case, each crayon, every pencil, shoe, scissor, marker, paint box, eraser, notebook and folder. Show up with a nametag on that says, "Hello. I'm June, Jennifer's mother." (Jennifer, of course will have "Jennifer" embroidered on the front of her T-shirt.)You can’t imagine how territorial kids are and how many problems erupt over unlabeled supplies, desire and raw impulse. When in doubt, label. Love your child. Buy a Sharpie.

When sending food with your child there are things you should know. A snack shouldn’t be a meal, and can‘t be complicated. You could send sliced pears, pickles and fruit cocktail in a black flight box and there would be juice all over everything by 11AM. There is just no time for liquid matter and kids think it’s funny when stuff squirts all over the place. Teachers, not so much. They don’t want you to send juice in those boxes or bags you have to jam the skinny little straws into, either. Teachers want you to know that many of your kids can’t peel. They can’t jam down an apple as big as their face during the five or ten minutes of snack time, especially with only three teeth. They can’t eat applesauce without spoons or open single serving fruit containers, soda cans and Tupperware. If it can spill, it will. When you think food, think dry. Here’s a test. If you, wearing an expensive white silk suit, would be willing to eat the food you send with your child, if it doesn’t change its shape when put in a different container, and if an arthritic can open it, you’ve sent developmentally appropriate food. Unless the teachers provide the snacks, you’ll have to accept the fact that every single day for the next three or four years of your life, you will be obligated to prepare a non-liquid, small sized, pre-sliced, possibly nut free, healthy, dry snack that your child will eat and not be tired of after about thirty-seven days. Good luck with that.

I don’t know what to make of the Fonzie structure in downtown Milwaukee. We are now honoring fictitious characters from sit coms? There aren‘t enough real heroes to worship? How pitiful is that. Surely we can find modern day real heroes to idolize. Maybe Clay Aiken or the winner of Top Chef? They wouldn’t have to be made of something as durable as bronze, we could make them out of wood or paper mache so when The Enquirer uncovers that they are actually scoundrels, their icons can be ripped out of the ground and destroyed.

Let’s just say we go with this make believe idol stuff. Can’t you just imagine bronze book figures scattered throughout Shorewood? It would be kind of fun; reminders of the good times. Maybe The Little Engine That Could would inspire people trying to find a place to park on Oakland Avenue, or Goldilocks in the porridge section of Pic and Save might encourage good breakfast habits. Clifford the Big Red Dog might look nice with raised leg outside the Vet’s office, Curious George looking down from the roof while the guy in the yellow hat is stuck and waving his arms on the island where Capitol and Oakland cross. Naughty little Junie B. Jones could be made to lie in the gutter of a loading zone, saving a place for bronze Harry Potter who stopped off at Schwartz to look in the potion chapter of the latest book in a series called How to Make a Fortune Off Little Kids and Getting Their Parents to Thank You For It. Everywhere we go we will see them, a bronze population giving us security in knowing they’ll never change and we shall be forever young. Think about the possibilities. Little Red Riding Hood in the reception area of the assisted living building going up where the Riverbrook once was, and a nice big wolf in one of the beds down the hall.

The Boomers might find amusement in the resurrected characters of oldie but goodie, TV shows. They would enjoy finding Lucy Ricardo at the Brit, dressed like a man, trying to speak with an English accent so Ricky, who is at one of the tables doesn’t realize she’s there for Karaoke night because she has to win money to replace a conga drum she accidentally dropped out of the apartment window. Ethel and Fred would be outside, listening through the window with a glass swearing they won’t get involved.

Shorewood High School could introduce their campus with a bronze Wally, Eddie Haskell, Lumpy and the Beaver. They would be sitting around a table-clothed dinner table with a wise suit-wearing Ward and domestic pearl-necklaced June, constant reminders of what a real family looks like. Okay, I know. This is a little bit out there and probably wouldn’t work out as cool as it looks in my head.

Know what I mean, Milwaukee?

Since the presidential candidates have to go through some sort of prime time religious vetting process in order to head a state legally bound to separate itself from religion, I started to wonder about this as a premise for all American hiring processes. Imagine being on a selection committee in search of a new kindergarten teacher. You have come up with two people quite qualified for the job, so you hand it over to the nun who will be running the forum over at the Shorewood Library. During that time, she will focus her questions on stewardship, leadership, worldview and America’s role in the world. Let’s see, how would that go?

“So, Miss Johnson, what have you done to improve the lives of people in your community under the age of six?” That would be a toughie. About all I’ve done for kids in my neighborhood is not yell at them if they run across my lawn. Oh, one night at about 11:00 I let some teenagers know that if they kept up the loud laughing and screaming someone would call the police. They didn’t need to know that the “someone” would be me.

“I see here that you were a Brownie Troop leader. Very good. Very good, indeed. How do you think your experience as a Brownie leader will help you when the bus shows up at school for a field trip you forgot to cancel? How does this kind of leadership help the school secretary who set the trip up and who is in charge of all the money you never gave her? What kind of food can you leave on her desk to make her understand how truly sorry you are?”

“Mr. Taylor, you always tell your class to learn as much as they can about the world, that there is a great big world awaiting them, but the music teacher is teaching them the song, “It’s a Small World“. How would you handle that hypocrisy? What third song could you teach them, so they understand that it doesn’t matter how big the world is or isn’t, what matters is that all people understand America is the best country in it. “

“Of course you are a proud American, sir. When you travel, how do you present yourself to others? Would you say you were the camera wearing, map reading, backpack lugging, loud speaking version of an American, or would you say you represented the quiet, thoughtful, still water running deep kind of American who speaks or hears no evil, who walks everywhere because they can’t figure the money out, and who keeps ordering the same food all the time because it’s the only one you know? What plan do you have to convince the rest of the world they should be like us, or at least put written stuff in English?”

The nun finishes writing her notes, closes the notebook, thanks the interviewees and looks at the rest of us. “Remember, tomorrow the candidates for the 3^rd grade spot will be interviewed by Rabbi Bernstein.

Can I hear a big Amen?

Okay parents; it’s time to think about what is soon to be another school year. There are things you need to do besides get supplies. You know you have to get supplies, right? Go to the district website, some supply lists are linked, as well as the calendar for the school year and other interesting information. If you’re new to Shorewood schools, keep the calendar that comes home on the first day. On it you will find everything you need to know about early dismissals, late starts, conferences, days off, menus, and you can connect to many teacher’s classroom sites, as well.

At home, make sure there is a place for your child to read, study and write uninterrupted. Make clear to them it is a workplace and make it look like one. Very young children will need an alphabet, number line, and a place to write new words or spelling words. This can be as easy as 13 papers stapled together with a letter on the top of each. Children can add words and it will become a handy pre-dictionary, without the alphabetical entries, pronunciation guide, syllabication, definition or past and plural forms. What’s in it for you? It will cut in half the number of times you have to hear, “How do you spell…? “ Have a place for your child to put a backpack that should be weighted with notebooks, assignments, and other communications from school. Please, teach your child how to put papers into pocket folders. They have no clue. This will make it more likely you’ll see the homework due the next day, field trip slips, and returned and graded assignments. Please don’t let them get away with jamming papers down to the depths of the pack. So many times people will insist we teachers didn't send something home or give an assignment to their child. Then two weeks later they find it when they’re cleaning up the homework packets and paper wads cushioning the fall of the empty, like new folders. Put an analog clock nearby and tell child that for the next 20 minutes it's worktime, even if they say the teacher didn’t give any homework.

We know that kids have done their homework over breakfast, in the car on the way to school and even outside on the playground before school. It happens, but it should be the exception and not the rule. Please set up a time of day that will be for reading and homework, and it can’t be right before bed. That really never works. Probably the biggest challenge kids have had with getting homework finished and handed in is lack of time. They go to lessons, or play on a sports team, or they have to go watch a sibling take lessons or be on a sports team. If there is any way to cut down the number of evenings little kids, especially, have to be gone the better it will be. Some children are so busy doing, the time for thinking about school assignments suffers. We get work back that clearly no one has looked at. You don’t have to give your child answers, but if something is wrong they need to be made aware of it. Children have actually handed in papers with their own names spelled wrong, which I guess is better than the pile of no-names given by children then referred to as “Betty”.

When your child is finished with work, make him or her put it in the folder, then folder in the backpack and pack leaned up against the door you leave through in the morning. It’s hard to forget something you fall over.

Well, Aaron Rodgers played his first game as starting quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. He’s following a legend. That has to suck. It’s hard to be the one coming after someone who was something more than you are whether it’s smarter, wittier, faster, stronger, prettier, and a long list of er words you may have of your own. I’m sure when Aaron gets his first paycheck, the pressure will seem a little more worth it. When you’re a kid following a sibling, it can either be like following Favre or following the family dufus, which is a whole lot easier.

Sometimes children are put in the weird position of being compared to one or the other parent, back in the day. It’s funny how many conferences come around to parents going on about how they learned and responded to school. One year a dad was taking blame for his child having trouble reading. This kid worked hard, but reading was a struggle. The parent told me in a don’t worry about it kind of way that he was just like that in school and that Roland was probably following in his footsteps. At this point, the mom leaned over and reminded dad that this conference was about their adopted son, Roland, and not him. There are also parents who make decisions for their children based on shoulder chips they’ve kept from their own childhoods. Usually this happens when a parent thinks their child gifted, and then remembers feeling bored in school because the teacher didn‘t realize what a genius he was. So in a tactical move against possible doldrums, parents push the teachers to push their children. This seldom works, incidentally. We are culminations of our own experiences.

It’s great when you get a sibling in your class, you already know the parents and they have a clear understanding that this child is not the other. This one may be the complete opposite, a composite of similarities and differences appreciated by the parents who just step back and watch life unfold.

So Aaron, although we love Brett and may accidentally call you Brett every now and then, be patient with us. We’re trying to see you as an individual just starting your career of a lifetime. When you drop a ball, we may inquire about what the matter with you is; when you get sacked, we may say something about our grandmothers being able to get rid of a ball faster than you, but when a pass is intercepted, we’ll go away shaking our heads saying, "Geez...he’s just like Brett.”

You cannot start early enough to make a child into an Olympian. Just to let you know, we teachers are doing what we can. Although it is done in combination with other school activity and studies, we have built in some gentle, but continuous cross and endurance training.

Swim teams can rest assured that our children are used to being in water. They begin very harmlessly, just learning how to drink hunched over a water fountain with feet dangling six inches over the floor. This builds strong-arm muscles and gets them used to having their faces covered in water. We then add another layer, which is cleverly disguised as hand washing. This gets them ready for holding their arms out in front of them while diving. When they are able to sing the entire A-B-C song while soaping and rinsing, they move to the next level. Since children in first and second grade don’t always take to being squirted in the face by a super soaker, training becomes more individualized and integrated into out of school activities. It cuts down lawsuits, as well. Until they can take having a water balloon burst in their hands and onto their clothes without crying, no such training should be initiated.

Some students show specific talent for diving. You can see them in the classroom reaching down through piles of trash, looking for something they saw in there that the teacher threw out. They show great flexibility also, springing off the chairs, stages, risers, or classmates who chose that unfortunate time to take a little breather and sit on the steps. We give them an annual reminder to yell, “DUCK!“ before leaping, of course.

Track stars have a couple Olympic-friendly talents. One is they learn to tell time quickly and keep track of its elapse even more skillfully, and secondly they can clear any hurdle, beat any last minute direction and make it out of the room, down the hall and out the door before the last aural remnants of the dismissal bell are gone.

From the time they are little, until they are five years more than little, children leap up to touch overhangs, banners, doorstops, posted signs and doorways. By the time they reach 6^th grade, most can do it and were it not for our great custodial staff, we’d have the years of wall plaque to prove it. Adding recycling bins has been of real benefit to the basketball dream teams to be, as well. They now have three different heights and widths to aim for. If you are observant, you’ll see them start with scraps from their snacks or a party or something and develop year-by-year into paper tossers, unwanted art project projectors, corrected homework chuckers and eventually someone else’s P.E. shoe flingers. Nothin’ but net. U-S-A! U-S-A!

There is so much more to teaching than meets the eyes. We are providing opportunities for children to find the Olympian within and then nurturing it by ignoring the otherwise unacceptable behaviors. Now, if we could just make school “LZR” suits like the swim team got, we could do it even faster. So to the little Michael Phelps or Shawn Johnson kindergartners out there…

We’re ready for you.

This year I’m going to start tough. When the first graders come in, the welcome lesson I’ll teach is that I’m no sucker. I’ve noticed a pattern over the years, certain behaviors and statements kids make when they are trying to manipulate a situation. Jumping on it first will take the power away before they realize they might actually have some. Yes, this will be the year of total classroom control.

When we have our introductory class meeting I’ll look them all straight in the eyes and tell them to not bother attempting a third or fourth chance at something, that the cute little faces that melt hearts of parents and grandparents won’t work with me. I’ve been in this too long. Looking up with crossed hands and hopeful eyes won’t make me let them do something I already said they couldn’t, and the four slurred measures of pleaseeeeeeeee…is just a lame and pitiful response provoking no emotional response from me whatsoever.

It takes us teachers some time to believe it, but we eventually learn what conniving little creatures children can be; little Lucy Ricardos, thinking up ways to get out of, or included in something all the time.

This year it ends. This year I declare victory over my own domain. This year, I’ll beat them at their own game before it even begins. Year after year, as though passed along like tradition, children do it, and do it everywhere. They play the “cute card” and not only from the bottom of the deck, but from decks made up of nothing but cute cards.

A discussion that took place last year clinched it for me. Somehow these little politicians got into sharing looks and phrases they used on their parents to get what they wanted out of them. We went around the circle, displaying money-face after money-face, guaranteed by the user to deliver. Some held simple pushed out purse lips on a head looking down with eyes looking up. Some were drama laden drops to knees, folded hands outstretched toward the heartstrings of the victim-authority who if not careful will be giving in to this slick little actor, saying “Oh, alright! Go ahead.”

You can beat them at their own games, however. Give them a list of choices they don’t really want, but would do. Add to it some real undesirables. My choices for kids become: reading, writing a book, doing a science experiment, playing math games, playing a language arts game called Suffixes and Prefixes, looking in magazines for things that start with J, and doing math flash cards. The last three, I have found to be real enthusiasm killers.

They choose and happily run off to a book they want to read, begin working with a friend to write and illustrate a book, take off to do a science experiment and a few want to do math games. They never saw it coming. They don’t understand yet that trumping the cute card is, and always will be, every teacher‘s game breaker,

The “Child Psychology” card.