We talked about the five senses again on Monday and actually did a taste test with the kids. We do this about every year, and the funny thing is, every child is delighted to taste the most egregious stuff to do the test, and at the table, they are as shy as sheep.

We put salt, sugar, cocoa, lemon juice and baking powder into 2 ounce cups and had the children poke their finger into the substance and tell us if the taste was salty, sweet, bitter or sour or nothing like the baking powder. Most of the children knew the vocabulary words. A few had trouble with the word bitter, but we explained it.

Our theory is that children who eat anything don’t have a regard for the precise taste, and those children who eat nothing know the sense very well. This theory evolved with my grandchildren who are the pickiest creatures in the universe – I’m sure because they don’t even eat much candy. They eat perhaps three kinds of candy. Let me tell you – they are a joy to feed. Both Bill and Jack were eager to take the test, and both of them knew each taste without hesitation. I was really surprised, and began to look at our other kids and realized that the pickiest eaters were the ones most knowledgeable about tastes. Interesting. Here are some of the other results:

Our vegetarian who eats no fruit, no vegetables, no noodles, no meat except chicken nuggets at fast food restaurants, no eggs, no bread, and no dairy could only recognize the sugar. Tells you something about his general diet.

My grandson, Bill, got them all on the first try, so did Alyssa.

Our youngest food champion, Zoey, could only identify salty.

Brady, who’s a good eater too could only identify salty as well.

Kamden, who eats anything, could only identify sour.

Austin, Luke, Kanin, Alex, Isaac, Javeon who all struggle with new things and whose diets are single minded — old and trusted why experiment, each knew tastes.

Most of the kids could identify about half the tastes and that’s what we expected. The children who bucked the theory were Bryce, who’s an eating machine and Skylar and Alexis who are especially good eaters. All children knew all the tastes. Dax,who is a poor eater knew them all too. Mara, on the other hand is picky and didn’t know a single taste. Zoe, knew all the tastes and eats nothing.

Now, regarding tastes – yesterday I made myself an omelet with goat cheese. I sat down with the kids and they all asked, “Miss Judy, what are you eating?” I said “I’m eating an omelet – that’s an egg and milk with goat cheese.” Half the kids tried the omelet (should have made 2) and they all liked it even the picky eaters! It must have to do with the adult plate.

Now today, we are having cradles with ground sausage, eggs and cheese, and although they love this, they would not like to eat goat cheese in theirs if I made them that way – for them – but they loved the taste yesterday.

Yesterday, our vegetarian wanted more applesauce. I told him he could have the applesauce if he ate his corn. He balked. He finally ate the corn and loved it. He had never eaten corn on the cob before. I keep telling these kids to try things, and sometimes it works. Kids are funny.

Good Morning!

It’s been a while since I posted – lots to do these days.

Today calendars for May go home. We were supposed to be sending home summer information as well, but we are still trying to figure out what to do in the event that gas goes over $4.00 per gallon. We talked about this at the faculty meeting on Sunday, and kind of decided that in the event that gas goes too high, we would cut two of the really long trips and go swimming. That would even things out a bit financially.

We have three super long trips scheduled this summer and two of them include gate fees. We want our kids to have the very best summer possible, and we are trying to find some alternatives. One possibility is a canoe trip for children 4 and up, but that’s a bit of a long shot.

Anyway, information should be out in about a week. Sorry about the delay.

We are starting a new reward system. Please look at the clothespin chart. We have changed the clothespins from “what have I eaten today” to a recognition of good behavior. Every clothespin a child receives means he’s been the best in the group for any activity. When he gets 10 clothespins, there is a special reward.

The books are finally out of Kelly’s classroom, and we can go back to class. It’s going to be another cool one today, so we’ll be indoors most of the morning.

We sold $1000.00 worth of books this year, and that means we will receive $400.00 worth of books for the school. Thanks so much for your support. It means a lot to us.

This month should fly by. Please look at the calendar and mark May 23 as Awards Day. This is a special event for families. Children receive academic and character awards as well as achievement awards that day. A picnic follows. Information is on the calendar going home today.

We will most likely take one more field trip to the park this month. The kids are really enjoying it. It’s a good way to get ready for summer!

I will be absent from school on Thursday and May 1,2 and 5. I’m going to Florida for my son’s graduate school graduation. On top of everything else he does, he managed to pick up an MA in business administration.

Edith will also be away starting May 5. She will be going to New York to see her latest granddaughter who was born a week or so ago.

So it’s been, and will continue to be a busy busy time.

It’s been a really crazy week. It’s Spring Sing week and that means one of our classrooms is tied up with books, books, books. We’ve been getting the kids outside a lot because now is the time to tone up the skin. You can’t take kids out in the sun all day after keeping them inside all spring. The gradual skin toning is an absolute must with the kind of summer program we do.

Please consider sun screening your child before he leaves the house. We’ve been using it on the playground, but a good screening at home can’t be beat.

Spring Sing is the introduction to our big book sale. This is an important part of our spring program. Books for the summer for parents to read to kids, for kids to read, to have something to bring a child down from a play high so that they can really sleep is a first class must have for parents. Please look at the selection. There are Mommy and me books; Daddy and me books; solo books; discovery books and keepsake books. The prices are all pretty nominal and the quality is Scholastic which you will be involved with for the entirety of your child’s school career.

Please think about rewarding your child for having his medal at the end of the day. This is a big deal considering what he has to remember and actually do during the day to keep that medal. It’s a prize every day that he keeps it.

Today we will be practicing music and doing a lot of group activities including water play.

This Sunday is teacher staff meeting. If there is something you’d like us to consider for May, now is the time to voice an opinion. Summer is getting close and this summer should be one of our best.

Comment: This is what we have always believed at the Garden School.

Size alone makes small classes better for kids

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY NEW YORK

Breaking up large classes into several smaller ones helps students, but the improvements in many cases come in spite of what teachers do, new research suggests.

New findings from four nations, including the USA, tell a curious story. Small classes work for children, but that’s less because of how teachers teach than because of what students feel they can do: Get more face time with their teacher, for instance, or work in small groups with classmates.

Small classes are more engaging places for students because they’re able to have a more personal connection with teachers, simply by virtue of the fact that there are fewer kids in the classroom competing for that teacher’s attention,” says Adam Gamoran of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who analyzed the findings.

The data, from the USA, England, Hong Kong and Switzerland, were presented Monday at the first day of the American Educational Research Association’s annual meeting, the world’s largest gathering of education researchers.

The findings are consistent with what researchers already know, Gamoran says. “There is not good evidence that teachers modify their instruction in response to changes in class size. Some teachers are taking advantage of small classes and others are not. There’s a lot of variability.

Though two of the four studies were inconclusive, some point to promising trends. In one study, researchers closely watched students’ behaviors in 10-second intervals throughout class periods and found that in smaller classes in both elementary and high school, students stayed more focused and misbehaved less. They also had more direct interactions with teachers and worked more in small groups rather than by themselves.

But overall, Gamoran says, teachers didn’t necessarily take advantage of the smaller classes, often teaching as if in front of a larger group. In one study, researchers found that few teachers took the opportunity to incorporate motivational activities or demonstrate to students what they wanted them to do as they introduced a lesson.

It’s not like you reduce classes so teachers do something different and achievement is higher,” he says. “That neat little package doesn’t exist.

One of the teams, led by Ronald Ehrenberg of Cornell University, notes that the potential benefits of class-size reduction “may be greater than what we observe” if only a few teachers change their teaching to accommodate the smaller group.

For more than two decades, class-size reduction has been a key improvement strategy in several states, most notably in California, which since 1996 has spent billions of dollars to ensure that students get small classes in primary grades. Smaller classes also have been endorsed by teachers unions, but recent findings have cast doubts on the idea, in California and elsewhere.

This month, researchers at Northwestern University released data from a long-term class-size reduction effort in Tennessee showing that smaller classes improve achievement overall, but they seem to benefit high-achieving students more than low achievers. Because low-income students are more likely to be low achievers, researchers say, the effort is doing little to reduce the stubborn “achievement gap” that it intended to eradicate.

Average class size for primary grades in seven countries in 2004:

Russian Federation: 16

Italy: 18

Germany: 22

France: 231

United States: 23

United Kingdom: 24

Japan: 29

1 — Reference year is 2003 rather than 2004 (Data include public and private institutions to ensure comparability among nations. Special needs programs have been excluded.)

Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

Comment: A good insight into when and why to start preventative tooth care.

Early Childhood Tooth Decay

Sam Hogan is two years old and has 20 teeth.

He went to the dentist when he was one just to get his teeth counted,” his mom Rebecca said.

At Sam’s next dental visit, they found six cavities. Sam likes juice, but that could be a problem in causing his cavities.

Kids that run around with sippy cups and every 15 minutes pick it up and put it down are at higher risk,” said Jeffrey Karp, a pediatric dentist.

While oral health is improving for most Americans, tooth decay is on the rise among preschoolers.

A disease called early childhood caries, or baby bottle tooth decay, can destroy the baby teeth before age three. It’s now being recommended that children have their first dental visit by their first birthday.

Sam was very cooperative and got a new toothbrush at his dental visit. He’ll also have something new in his sippy cup — water.

This is an article I found on Wise Woman, a site I go to to understand more about the properties of nutrition through herbs, spices and weeds. For someone like me who cannot take medication, it has been a really good investment in my time. Herbals are not like medications. They don’t strike like a sledge hammer; they are gentle and the time to take them is not when you have gotten sick, but all the time so that you don’t get sick. It’s a whole new way of looking at the world – a fun way, and something kids should learn about as well.

This spring, Mr. Tom is taking the children out to the garden one at a time to teach them about the art of gardening. We will also teach them about the properties of weeds! It’s a must do!

The article by Susun Weed:

HERBAL VINEGARS
AROMATIC DELIGHTS FROM YOUR GARDEN

Spring is in the air. Buds are swelling, sap is running, the night is alive with sounds after winter’s long silence. It’s too soon to plant anything in the garden; there’s still deep frost in the ground. But the snow is gone and the weeds are green and my supply of herbal vinegars is low, so I’ll spend the morning harvesting.

A pantry full of herbal vinegars is a constant delight. Preserving fresh herbs and roots in vinegar is an easy way to capture their nourishing goodness. It’s easy, too. You don’t even have to have an herb garden.

Basic Herbal Vinegar
Takes 5 minutes plus 6 weeks to prepare

You will need:
glass or plastic jar of any size up to one quart/liter
plastic lid for jar or
waxed paper and a rubber band
fresh herbs, roots, weeds
one quart/liter apple cider vinegar

Fill any size jar with fresh-cut aromatic herbs. (See accompanying list for suggestions of herbs that extract particularly well in vinegar.) For best results and highest mineral content, be sure the jar is well filled with your chosen herb, not just a few springs, and be sure to cut the herbs or roots up into small pieces.
Pour room-temperature apple cider vinegar into the jar until it is full. Cover jar with a plastic screw-on lid, several layers of plastic or wax paper held on with a rubber band, or a cork. Vinegar disintegrates metal lids.

Label the jar with the name of the herb and the date. Put it some place away from direct sunlight, though it doesn’t have to be in the dark, and someplace that isn’t too hot, but not too cold either. A kitchen cupboard is fine, but choose one that you open a lot so you remember to use your vinegar, which will be ready in six weeks.

Apple cider vinegar has been used as a health-giving agent for centuries. Hippocrates, father of medicine, is said to have used only two remedies: honey and vinegar. A small book on Vermont folk remedies–primary among them being apple cider vinegar–has sold over 5 million copies since its publication in the fifties. A current ad in a national health magazine states that vinegar can give me a longer, healthier, happier life. Among the many powers of vinegar: it lowers cholesterol, improves skin tone, moderates high blood pressure, prevents/counters osteoporosis, and improves metabolic functioning. Herbal vinegars are an unstoppable combination: the healing and nutritional properties of vinegar married to the aromatic and health-protective effects of green herbs (and a few wild roots).

Herbal vinegars don’t taste like medicine. In fact, they taste so good I use them frequently. I pour a spoonful or more on beans and grains at dinner; I use them in salad dressings; I season stir-fry and soups with them. This regular use boosts the nutrient- level of my diet with very little effort and virtually no expense. Sometimes I drink my herbal vinegar in a glass of water in the morning, remembering the many older women who’ve told me that apple cider vinegar prevents and eases their arthritic pains. I aim to ingest a tablespoon or more of mineral-rich herbal vinegar daily. Not just because herbal vinegars taste great (they do!), but because they offer an easy way to keep my calcium levels high (and that’s a real concern for a menopausal woman of fifty). Herbal vinegars are so rich in nutrients that I never need to take vitamin or mineral pills.

Why vinegar? Water does a poor job of extracting calcium from plants, but calcium and all minerals dissolve into vinegar very easily. You can see this for yourself. Submerge a bone in vinegar for six weeks. What happens? The bone becomes pliable and rubbery. Why? The vinegar extracted the minerals from the bone. (And now the vinegar is loaded with calcium and other bone-building minerals!)

After observing this trick its not unusual to fear that if you consume vinegar your bones will dissolve. But you’d have to take off your skin and sit in vinegar for weeks in order for that to happen! Adding vinegar to your food actually helps build bones because it frees up minerals from the vegetables you eat. Adding a splash of vinegar to cooked greens is a classic trick of old ladies who want to be spry and flexible when they’re ancient old ladies. (Maybe your granny already taught you this?) In fact, a spoonful of vinegar on your broccoli or kale or dandelion greens increases the calcium you get by one-third.

All by itself, vinegar helps build bones; and when it’s combined with mineral-rich herbs, vinegar is better than calcium pills. Some people worry that eating vinegar will contribute to an overgrowth of candida yeast in the intestines. My experience has led me to believe that herbal vinegars do just the opposite; perhaps because they’re so mineral rich. Herbal vinegars are especially useful for anyone who can’t (or doesn’t want to) drink milk. A tablespoon of infused herbal vinegar has the same amount of calcium as a glass of milk.

So out the door I go, taking a basket and a pair of scissors, my warm vest and my gloves, to see what I can harvest for my bone-building vinegars. The first greens to greet me are the slender spires of garlic grass, or wild chives, common in any soil that hasn’t been disturbed too frequently, such as the lawn, the part of the garden where the tiller doesn’t go, the rhubarb patch, the asparagus bed, the coven of comfrey plants. This morning they’re all offering me patches of oniony greens. Snip, snip, snip. The vinegar I’ll make from these tender tops will contain not only minerals, but also allyls, special cancer-preventative compounds found in raw onions, garlic, and the like.

Here where tulips will push up soon, in a sunny corner, is a patch of catnip intermingled with motherwort, two plants especially beloved by women. I use catnip to ease menstrual cramps, relieve colic, and bring on sleep. Motherwort is my favorite remedy for moderating hot flashes and emotional swings. They are both members of the mint family, and like all mints, are exceptionally good sources of calcium and make great-tasting vinegars. Individual mint flavors are magically captured by the vinegar. From now until snow cover next fall, I’ll gather the mints of each season–peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, bee balm, oregano, shiso, wild bergamot, thyme, hyssop, sage, rosemary, lavender–and activate their unique tastes and their tonic, nourishing properties by steeping them in vinegar. What a tasty way to build strong bones, a healthy heart, emotional stability, and energetic vitality..

Down here, under the wild rose hedge, is a plant familiar to anyone who has walked the woods and roadsides of the east: garlic mustard. I’ll enjoy the leaves in my salad tonight, as I do all winter and spring, but I’ll have to wait a bit longer before I can harvest the roots, which produce a vibrant, horseradishy vinegar that’s just the thing to brighten a winter salad and keep the sinuses clear at the same time.
And what’s this? A patch of chickweed! It’s a good addition to my vinegars and my salads, boosting their calcium content, though adding scant flavor. In protected spots, she offers year-round greens.

Look down. The mugwort is sprouting, all fuzzy and grey. I call it cronewort to honor the wisdom of grey-haired women. The culinary value of this very wild herb is oft o’erlooked. I was thrilled to find it for sale in Germany right next to the dried caraway and rosemary, in a little jar, in the supermarket. Cronewort vinegar is one of the tastiest and most beneficial of all the vinegars I make. It is renowned as a general nourishing tonic to circulatory, nervous, urinary, and mental functioning, as well as being a specific aid to those wanting sound sleep and strong bones.

Cronewort vinegar is free for the making in most cities if you know where this invasive weed grows. To mellow cronewort’s slightly bitter taste and accent her fragrant, flavorful aspects, I pick her small (under three inches) and add a few of her roots to the jar along with the leaves. I cut the tall flowering stalks of this aromatic plant in the late summer or early autumn, when they’re in full bloom, and dry them. The leaves, stripped carefully from the stalks, provided stuffing (and magic) for our winter dream pillows; they are said to carry one into vivid dreams and visions.

The sun is bright and strong and warm. I turn my face toward it and close my eyes, breathing in. I feel the vibrating life-force here. Everything is aquiver. I smile, knowing that that energy will be available to me when I consume the vinegars I’ll make from these herbs and weeds. As I relax against the big oak, I breathe out and envision the garden growing and blooming, fruiting and dying, as the seasons slip through my mind’s eye….

The air grows chiller at night. The leaves fall more quickly with each breeze. The first mild frosts take the basil, the tomatoes and the squash, freeing me to pay attention once again to the perennial herbs and weeds, and urging me to make haste before even the hardy herbs drop their leaves and retreat to winter dormancy.

The day dawns sunny. Yes, now’s the time to harvest the last of the garden’s bounty, the rewards of my work, the gifts of the earth. I dress warmly (remembering to wear red; hunting season’s open), stash my red-handled clippers in my back pocket, and take a baskets in one hand and a plastic tub in the other.
Then I’m out the door, into autumn’s slanting sunshine and my quiet garden. My black cat bounds over to help me harvest and, after a while, the white cat emerges from under the house to purr and signal her satisfaction with my presence in her domain this morning.

My gardening friends say the harvest is over for the year, but I know my weeds will keep my at work harvesting until well into the winter. In no time at all my deep basket is full and I’m wishing I’d brought another. Violet leaves push against stalks of lamb’s quarter. Hollyhock, wild malva, and plantain leaves jostle for their own spaces against the last of the comfrey and dandelion leaves. (I think dandelion leaves are much better eating in the fall than in the spring, much less bitter to my taste after they’ve been frosted a few nights.) The last of the red clover blossoms snuggle in the middle. Though not aromatic or intensely-flavored, a vinegar of these greens will be my super-rich calcium supplement for the dark months of winter.

My baskets are overflowing and I haven’t gotten to the nettles and the raspberry leaves yet. They’re superb sources of calcium, too. Ah! the gracious abundance of weeds, or should I say “volunteer herbs?” I actually respect them more than the cultivated herbs; respect their strident life force, and their powerful nutritional punch, and their added medicinal values that help me stay healthy and filled with energy.

The main work of this frosty fall morning is to harvest roots: dandelion, burdock, yellow dock, and chicory roots. I’ve been waiting for the frost to bite deep before harvesting the nourishing, medicinal roots of these weeds. With my spading fork (not a shovel, please) I carefully unearth their tender roots, leaving a few to mature and shed seeds so I have a constant supply of young roots. I love the feel of the root sliding free of the soil and into my hands, offering me such gifts of health.

Burdock I admire especially, for its strength of character and its healing qualities. I settle down to do some serious digging to unearth their long roots. For peak benefit, I harvest at the end of the first year of growth, when the roots are most tenacious and least willing to leave the ground. Patience is rewarded when I dig burdock. Eaten cooked or turned into a vinegar (and the pickled pieces of the root consumed with the vinegar), burdock root attracts heavy metals and radioactive isotopes and removes them quickly from the body. For several hundred years at least, and in numerous cases that I have witnessed, burdock root is known to reverse pre-cancerous changes in cells.

Dandelion and chicory are my allies for long life. They support and nourish my liver and improve the production of hydrochloric acid in my stomach, thus insuring that I will be better nourished by any food I eat. I make separate vinegars of each plant, but like to put both their roots and their leaves together in my vinegar. A spoonful of either of these in a glass of water in the morning or before meals can be used to replace coffee. Note that roasted roots used in coffee substitutes do not have the medicinal value of fresh roots eaten cooked or preserved in vinegar.

Yellow dock is the herbalist’s classic remedy for building iron in the blood. Like calcium, iron is absorbed better when eaten with an acid, such as vinegar, making yellow dock vinegar an especially good way to utilize the iron-enhancing properties of this weed. (It nourishes the iron in the soil, too, and is said to improve the yield of apple trees it grows under.)

And at that thought, I awaken from my reverie and return to spring’s sunshine with a smile. The white cat twines my legs and offers to help me carry the basket back inside to the warmth of the fire. The circle has come around again, like the moon in her courses. Autumn memories yield spring richness. The weeds of fall offer tender green magic in the spring. What I harvested last November has been eaten with joy and I return to be gifted yet again by the wild that lives here with me in my garden.

As many of you, I woke up this morning to my room quaking. It brought back a lot of memories as a kid. We used to feel the quakes in the San Francisco area on the way to and from school, while playing, or just climbing the island on our way home. Most people who experience a quake don’t know what it is right away, and then by the time it’s over, they realize (probably because someone told them) that they have been in a quake.

The old safety rule is go outside. Not a lot is going to fall on you if you are outside, and if it’s a bad quake, the gas lines won’t get you out side, but for most quakes, there is not enough time before the thing is over. And, no, in the history of the world, no one has ever been swallowed up by a ground fissure.

Many people are frightened by small earthquakes because the earth, which is normally stable, seems unstable and that’s a big concern to those whose normal life does not include quakes. The truth is, a small earthquake is just that – a big one is a whole lot different – duh.

We have to remember that here in Southwest Indiana we are on the largest fault line in the country. We can out snob the San Francisco area fault line like a high school senior snubs a freshman. If this place ever does go, it will look a little like waves on the ocean and everything will go – fall down, be rubble in a matter of minutes and it will take a long time for that shaking to stop.

So, collect your wits and think positively. It probably won’t happen again for years.

Today we are going out to the park on a field trip. The weather should be nice. We’re going to try a new lunch idea, so that should be worth reporting next time.

Yesterday was a lot easier than we expected. We had two teachers out for professional development. That’s a big expression for, they went to a big workshop in Indianapolis to learn the latest teaching techniques. Every teacher needs this gas tank occasionally, and this is the first time in a while that we have been able to send a teacher.

Locally, we have two workshops a year – one in the spring and one in the fall. Miss Judy has presented at these for a long time. This spring I gave a choosing the right calories workshop, and this coming fall I’m doing one on the importance of eating together.

Getting teachers and early childhood professionals together to discuss the problems and the new trends in childcare and teaching is important for the whole teacher. New ideas, exchanging ideas, being reassured that you are on the right track, and that what you are doing is working is a big plus in the job.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it’s also nice to know that you are covered. Mr. Tom and Miss Lindsay came in early and stayed all day to cover. They did a fine job – even on Monday.

Monday’s are sometimes really hard because children come to school with a lot of negatives from home. On Mondays we see the child “fresh from the house.” Often it’s on Monday that we can see what is going on at home that’s creating a problem. Children often come to school speaking too loud with an infant slant on their speech. This means to a teacher, “He’s not getting enough attention at home.”

Most children come to school on Monday not eating ANYTHING. That’s why we start Monday with cold cereal – it breaks that mold right away. Monday’s food is mostly throwaway. That means there are no food expectations going on at home. Usually on Mondays we serve something everyone likes. We see right away which families eat together and which ones don’t. One way of reading the home life is how children sit at the table during a meal. Many children can’t because they don’t at home. When meals are in front of TV, children don’t eat. TV dining has too many obstacles to encourage the good habit of eating well.

Good behavior is also a thing which is expected or not, and on Monday we can see who is expected to behave at home and who is expected to not behave at home, because on Monday every bad habit comes out to play.

Mondays are real eye openers for teachers.

Today we are back to regular shop. One thing I noticed is how much these kids want to learn and how much they enjoy school. I was really touched yesterday by their desire to be in the classroom and yet do something academic during play time. We looked at shells yesterday, and they really enjoyed that. There were a million questions as kids poured over the science table shells. “But what kind of shell is this?” asked nearly every child. “It’s a muscle; it’s a cockle; it’s a scallop; It’s a conch; It’s a snail; I don’t know; I don’t know; I don’t know,” were most of the answers.

Today perhaps we will get out the pine cones…

Mastectomy Petition

This is not a story, it’s a request to make some changes in the laws regarding health insurance companies.

From a nurse:

I’ll never forget the look in my patients eyes when I had to tell them they had to go home with the drains, new exercises and no breast. I remember begging the doctors to keep these women in the hospital longer, only to hear that they would, but their hands were tied by the insurance companies. Needing to take care of themselves, knowing full well they didn’t grasp half of what I was saying, because the glazed, hopeless, frightened looks spoke louder than the quiet, “Thank You,” they muttered.

A mastectomy is when a woman’s breast is removed in order to remove cancerous breast cells/tissue. If you know anyone who has had a mastectomy, you may know that there is a lot of discomfort and pain afterwards.

Insurance companies are trying to make mastectomies an outpatient procedure. Let’s give women the chance to recover properly in the hospital for 2 days after surgery.

It takes 2 seconds to do this and is very important. Please take the time and do it really quick! Please send this to everyone in your address book. If there was ever a time when our voices and choices should be heard, this is one of those times. If you’re receiving this, it’s because I think you will take the 30 seconds to go to vote on this issue and send it on to others. You know who will do the same.

There’s a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act which will require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It’s about eliminating the “drive-through mastectomy,” where women are forced to go home just a few hours after surgery, against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and sometimes with drainage tubes still attached.

Lifetime Television has put this bill on their Web page with a petition drive to show your support. Last year over half the House signed on.

Sign the petition by clicking on the Web site below. You need not give more than your name and zip code number.

Site

This takes about 2 seconds. PLEASE PASS THIS ON to your friends and family…and on behalf of all women, THANKS!!

Here’s an article from a blog called Crunchy Parent. It’s about the Waldorf School experience. Every school is different. Here’s what a parent said about her Waldorf school:

Waldorf vs. Public School: The Kindergarten Decision Looms

So I realized when we decided to have children that we would be taking on a fair amount of responsibility; there’s the whole part about needing to provide supervision and care for them around the clock for a couple of decades, the requirement that you buy them the right color tights for ballet class, and a whole buncha stuff in between. The part that I didn’t fully grasp was the overwhelming sense of responsibility that comes from needing to do all of those things the “right” way, or more importantly, fear of doing things wrong and having your kid call you out on the Maury Povich show in twenty years because you unwittingly bought them the lead-infused Dora the Explorer lunch box which sent them down a dark and winding path to wondering about the identity of their baby’s Daddy and inexplicably ripping off their shirt to signal “game on” in an argument.

My current inner struggle is prompted by the need to enroll Emma in kindergarten in the fall. Now, I should say that both Crunchy Daddy and myself attended public school for the majority of our lives. Actually, I’m 100% public school educated, right up through the PhD., and look how well I turned out. We both always assumed that we would send our children to public school as well. We sort of fell into Emma’s Waldorf school back when she was a toddler and I returned home to mommy full-time. I was looking for some classes in which to participate because I felt oddly negligent not properly honing Emma’s social skills through Kindermusik, Tumble Bears, or something of the sort. We took a few classes through the park district, but I was not terribly impressed with the age-appropriateness of the activities or the socialization opportunities among the children or adults in the class. Around the same time, a friend of mine out in California (where all of the hippest crunchy stuff abounds) told me that she noticed on the AWSNA website that there was a Waldorf school close to my home, and she suggested that I check them out as an early childhood class option. She knew that we were kinda crunchy-oriented in our parenting and thought that Waldorf education was very attachment-parenting friendly, so in might be a good fit. I went to the school website and noticed that they had an upcoming winter craft fair, which I thought would be the prefect opportunity for me to discretely check out the school.

The school was beautiful with its soft lazured walls and simple décor. There were no posters, splashy bulletin boards, or a barrage of overwhelming stimuli. There were simple displays of the beautiful student artwork in the hall, but that was it. The craft fair was heaven for me; hand turned or carved wooden toys, handmade pottery, soaps, Waldorf dolls, fibers, beadwork, the list went on and on. I made a few purchases and resolved to look into the school further.

As a next step, I called the school and arranged for a visit to their early childhood classroom, which served children ages eighteen months through three years accompanied by an adult. The whole morning was so different that any other class that I had experienced with Emma before. The day began with every adult and child (and any younger siblings, who were also welcome to come to the class) seated at a long table in the back of the room. We were each given a small ball of dough to knead and shape however we desired as we waited to greet the other classroom participants. Once everyone had arrived and all of the little dough balls had been set on a baking tray to rise, the children were dismissed from the table to play with the simple classroom toys; toys like a wood play kitchen, baskets of tree branches cut into blocks, a wooden doll carriage, several simple Waldorf dolls, dress up clothes, play silks, and a few wood rocking horses. While the children played, the parents remained at the table at the back, working on a handcraft project (I think that everybody was making a wool crown for their child) and keeping an eye out on the little ones; interacting with them as needed to provide comfort, connection, social guidance, or to nurse.

After the free play time, the adults helped lead the children through cleaning up and we all gathered for a circle time, in which we sang or spoke a number of seasonal verses and engaged in movement activities, ending with every child snuggled up with their parent on the rug (I think that we were sleeping birdies, warm in our nest). Each parent/child dyad was awakened in turn as the teacher brushed over us with a play silk, signaling us that we could go wash up for snack, which was being prepared by a parent in the back of the classroom (I later learned that all parents took turns providing the snack). The children helped set the table with cloth napkins and placemats and ceramic plates and small glasses. Food was set out family style, and we all sat together to say a little verse, complete with arm movements, before enjoying our snack “Earth who gives to us this food, sun who makes it ripe and good, Dear Earth, dear sun, thanks we give to you each one. And we say, blessings on our snack.” Watching even the littlest ones raise their voices to sing and move their arms along was so sweet. I was a bit anxious about the idea of toddlers eating with “real” plates and glasses (No plastic ware? No sippy cups?), but they did fine save the occasional spill. The snack was outstanding. Homemade hummus with fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, cheeses, homemade whole grain quick breads, and water to drink. The children happily ate the nutritious food as it was passed around the table and placed on their little plates, and I welcomed the opportunity to be nourished by the delicious and healthy snack, a rarity for a busy parent. Snack closed with another verse “Thankful, thankful, we are very thankful. Thankful, thankful, we hold our hands together (all hold hands now) And we say, thank you for our snack.” After the verse, children and adults helped to clean up the snack, scraping leftovers into a compost bin, dropping soiled table linens in a bag to be washed, and placing dishes to be washed in a basin. The children were all handed small sponges and rags to wash and dry the table, and then we all gathered together on the rug in the center of the classroom for a story.

Story time did not involve a book, rather a puppet show of sorts was being acted out by the teacher using wooden figure toys and play silks set out on a small table in front of the group. The story props were initially veiled under a play silk while the teacher sang a story-telling verse, and then she lifted the silk to reveal several play silks, a small wooden bridge, and three goats. The children sat in wonder as they listened to the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff, watching as the goats trip trapped across the bridge to brave the troll. The fable ended with the pieces being draped once again under the silk, as a closing story verse was sung. Children were then bundled up and the whole group moved outside to play until the close of the day. When the time came for the day to end, the group was called back together to sing the closing verse, and the warm, freshly-baked rolls that we had created at the start of the day were placed into each set of tiny eager hands, to satiate little tummies on the ride home.

I came home from the visit delighted and enthusiastic, singing the effusive praise of an early childhood program that seemed to perfectly preserve and meet the needs for wonder, simplicity, and comfort that are so present in young children. As I described the events of the day to Crunchy Daddy punctuating the simple toys, the wholesome food, the company of other moms who were nursing their soft shoe-wearing toddlers, and slinging their babies I recall his reply, “You found the mother ship,” and indeed, I think that I had. Emma and I enrolled in the class for the next session, and she continued at the school for their transitional preschool program (in which parents attend with the children for the first few months, and then transition away so that the children can begin their experience of being at school on their own,) and this year she has moved to the three-day (morning only) preschool class.

Our participation at the school has been wonderful for our family. It was through the school that we have met many other naturally-oriented families in the area who have served as a wonderful resource for us as we move down our path toward greater crunchy awareness. Emma loves her school and loves her friends. Her only sadness is that she does not get to ride a school bus, and I think that she will forgive us for that in time.

So now we are faced with a decision….Emma will be starting kindergarten in the fall and we need to decide if we will continue to keep her at her private Waldorf school or if we will enroll her in public school. There are compelling reasons to keep her where she is. She loves her school and we are well integrated into the school, which consists of a relatively small number of families. The close interpersonal relationships allow us all to meet the needs of the children more effectively and serve as a network for one another. There is a sense of shared investment and responsibility for making the school better. In addition, the teachers have a strong connection to the students and to their families, and the educational model of Waldorf schools is vibrant and compelling. I honestly believe that my children will receive a better overall education there than they would receive in a public school, which I really feel is increasingly pushing too much too soon on young children; depriving them of the spirit of childhood. Moreover, the like-minded crunchy community at the Waldorf school helps to support some of the values that we are trying to instill in the girls, making it less of an uphill battle than if we were swimming against a mainstream current in a public school.

All that said, I realize that children are resilient and that the girls would likely turn out to be bright, educated, upstanding citizens regardless of the educational environment. They might become more aware and steadfast in their own beliefs in the face of divergent thinking that they would likely encounter with greater frequency in a public school. In addition, Waldorf schools approach reading, writing, and math curricula at a different pace than public schools, which might make it difficult to integrate the girls into a public school in the event of a move or other change in life circumstances that would make a Waldorf education an unavailable option in the future. Oh, and then there’s the financial piece. Apparently private schools cost money and since that school voucher thing never found adequate support, we would be making a significant investment in the girls’ education over the course of their academic careers, the kind of investment that would otherwise change our family’s lifestyle. Money that might have been available for things like family vacations, “nice” cars, a “nice” home, more ample college or retirement savings, etc. would be slated to pay for elementary school and we just hadn’t planned on that.

So that’s the dilemma. Which is the right decision to make for Emma now? It seems overwhelming to me to make a decision about where all of my children will be educated forever, so I’m trying to just focus on where I think Emma should be next year, and we’ll make future decisions one year at a time. If you all have any thoughts or ideas about the matter, I’m all ears.