As we move away in time from the tragedy at Sandy Hook, I read a lot about what should be done about schools where children are obvious targets for anyone wanting to make them targets. Because children are vulnerable, we want to do something now…after the fact because, we, as a well wishing nation, failed. Without malice intended for anyone, we want to lock the door after the horse has gotten away.

I think more than anything else, sense and sensibility has to govern us here. Knee jerk, I told you so, peace platitudes, and the get tough attitudes just look ridiculous at this point.  When you look at the big picture of what happened, you see that the crime was committed out of youth, mental illness and anger.

So how do you stop mental illness and anger? You don’t. So what do you do to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. You can’t.

What happened at Sandy Hook is a byproduct of our culture or what’s left of it, and here’s what I mean:

Look at our entertainment. We listen to one comedian after another who pulls our very foundations apart and we laugh hysterically. Religion, family, marriage, home, children, schools, courts, are all made fun of day after day until we are so numb to it, we have lost a sense of righteous balance. Our television shows are crime, crime, crime, and our sitcoms are poisonous towards the same things the comedians are lambasting. We tune in day after day to hear the metronomic insidiousness of what amounts to hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.

Our music follows suit.

Our heroes follow suit.

At the same time, when the hate manifests itself outside our favorite tech unit, we are all shocked? Really? What should surprise us is that more Sandy Hooks don’t occur.

We are desperate to give our criminals a hundred chances…to what? Play it again, Sam? We can’t stand our poor limited power to understand what  justice might be about. We despise punishment of any kind, and we have decided that what we used to call correction and admonition is great as long as we are not called to correct anybody or admonish anyone…ever! That’s because we can’t be honest about crime, offense, or bad behavior, because in the great new scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter…until it kills 26 people…then it matters…for a while.

A great and responsible culture leads…because it’s a great culture’s responsibility. But that doesn’t mean giving over the power to lead to those who say they will do it for us or  “buying professionals” to do it. Responsibility begins in every American home with every American. A fully responsible grown up has a duty to care for himself, his family and his community – that’s what it means to be a grown up in America!.

And that means teaching our children the same lessons of responsibility even if it means saying “no” to popular culture of hate, crime, and the love of negative behavior. Even if it means saying “no” to our friends and relatives who indulge in things that continue to crush the culture…even if it means publicly saying “no” when called to do so.

Last week, six hundred and fifty thousand people came from all over the country to march for life in the freezing weather to say “no” to abortion.  It was ignored by the news media. This March for Life was not about death, crime, or negative behavior. It was about a particular love for life…and the media response was to ignore it. That says a lot about what we as a nation are willing to accept docilely about the culture. It’s legal to starve the elderly to death in six states, yet the hue and cry about killing animals can not be silenced. It’s OK to kill some but not others…and we can learn who’s a target and who is not from the media. Is that good enough for you?

Can we really stop Sandy Hook from happening again by say, putting guards in our classrooms? Is that the answer? In some places perhaps that’s what it will take. In all places? I doubt it. Are more guns in more people’s hands going to stop anger? Probably not. What we can do is make a concerted effort to remind ourselves of the foundation of goodness most of us were instilled with from very early childhood and promise ourselves that if it’s not going to lead to goodness…then we should probably leave it alone. It means reflecting on what is good and what is not. It’s a simple policy, an easy, grass roots way of taking charge of self. That includes what we allow into our homes on TV, in movies, in music, video games and people who are vulgarians who only want to smite what is left of what we believe.

By letting others, and that includes the media and the government have the final say about our children, our homes, our rights, what we are doing is putting down our responsibilities at the feet of our keepers and returning to a kind of desperate childhood that makes us less human rather than more human.

While cleaning out a dozen places where I have stored everything from old stamp collections and Boy Scout paraphernalia  to dozens of stuffed toys and and doll houses and their furniture, to my own novels run off on tractor feed paper, every kind of craft supply and even clay sculptures made by someone…well you get the point; I wondered again just why I was doing this when it made me so sad. I guess it’s the general way I view being in the world.

I’m a big picture gal. I have kept this stuff year in and year out…some of it for thirty-eight years simply because I have the room to store it, and the big picture was a kind of youthful status quo – they aren’t THAT far from the nest…but they are. The status is changing now with my age, so the “quo” must go, go, go!

As I add years to my sixty, I am realizing that no one is going to claim this stuff, and although it’s cute and has a memory attached to it, it makes the “bigger picture” all that more difficult to manage and to care for. The bigger picture is, quite frankly, a home that’s manageable in my later years that no longer looks like a store house. A home I can share with Terry that we will enjoy and not feel burdened by. How lovely it would be to open a dresser in one of my three guest rooms and not find it crammed full of non usable stuff. How nice to be able to vacuum a carpet and not have to move six boxes of 35 year old Halloween costumes!

As I was sorting and pitching and gathering for M Teresa’s, I realized that I have always been a big picture gal. I have always lived not by the moment, or the day, or the week, but for the greater good. At any point in time, you could ask me why I was doing what I was doing, and I would stretch out to star depth and probably say, “because it will eventually help my children to get to heaven.”

It’s no different with the Garden School…we, as a faculty, as a place, are helping the next generation get a good start that will make them good people and great parents! I want to give them something that they can take with them when they leave the Garden School that has become part of their personhood..their formation. Formation is a big big word for me.

That’s why our program at the Garden School must be more than one moment by moment activity after another. It must be about more than what is happening now or in five minutes. It can’t be flight by the seat of our pants or made it up as we go just to get by the moment. The whole program from the beginning has been a concept in early child care, and as it continues to develop, we need to remember our roots and remember what we must be about!.

First premise: safety.

Second premise: formation of body, intellect, and social awareness

Third premise: Activity!

The whole concept of the Garden School is to be a “little school for little people.” And that is no simple task. Approaching this concept from a big picture point of view means asking, “How much CAN we do; what are the possibilities in everything we do.

So when planning a calendar, an event, a play, a reading class, a menu, a summer program, an art program, the big question is, “How can this create a kind of positive outcome that will not only serve the child now but later, and serve the teacher with success?”

Does everyone come from a big picture point of view? Not by a long shot. Most people come from a much shorter perspective, and that’s not a bad thing altogether because too many big picture people would never agree and chaos would ensue. But at the same time, one person’s big picture perspective must be in a position to guide the shorter perspectives, because shorter perspectives will often dangle in space and time without continuity, without a reason to be and another kind of chaos is born and reborn.

Who has a big picture point of view? People who look at all the gathered moments for the greater good and continually ask questions about how it all fits together. How does this reading class fit into the general idea of what we are trying to do here…will it make them independent and stronger? Will reading propel them into their future with joy and understanding? How do the plays bring the social elements of the school into a focus that will build cohesiveness, trust, and group behavior while bringing out the star in all of us?  How does the afternoon class gather the activities of the whole day, the week and the month together and render a “picture,” through art, of what we are continuing to learn together? How does a summer program teach and build and establish the trust needed to teach the next school year while it is fun, and active?

It takes a lot of planning; it takes a lot of think time outside of school; it takes a lot of maneuvering and changing up and realizing that the status quo is not a safety zone, but a war  zone.

Everyone is going to have their own opinion about food simply because food is such an important part of being alive. For most of the population, eating is a pleasure. Yes, I said most of the population. There is one “body type” according to William Sheldon, that does not enjoy eating…the ectomorph. The ectomorph body type is small head, small hands and feet, usually introverted rather than extroverted, and who builds muscle less fast than the other two body types, namely the endomorph and the mesomorph.

The ectomorph thinks about food less often than most…can’t seem to finish a whole serving of anything, is naturally enviably thin and sometimes lives on high calorie, extra sweet foods because they don’t have to chew as much. Eating, after all, for the ectomorph, is a chore. One ectomorph told me once, “If I never had to eat again, it would be great!”

But getting back to the whole concept of opinions about food, most people have them, and they come in all flavors! As someone who has been interested in food most of my life, I’ve gone through a metamorphosis more than once and changed the way I think about food on many occasions.

As a young mother, I was interested in bringing to my home the very best food I could. It was much different than what I had grown up with, because my parents were restaurant eaters…if my mother was not taken to dine at least five nights a week, we all knew it,and so, I had to start from scratch – no pun intended. I had to either buy or make everything we ate. I learned quickly that “store bought” foods like cake mixes, Hamburger Helper and frozen and canned foods were MUCH more expensive than scratch and fresh. With an extremely short budget, and lots of mouths to feed, I worked tirelessly to find the best and the most abundant food I could.

There was the shift from white flour to whole grain…from buying things like noodles and bread to making my own. I’ve made just about everything over the years…from jam, yogurt, bread, refrigerator biscuit dough, yeast, wild bird food, to grinding my own flour and making my own mayo.

When I started offering day care in my home, I began to be interested in what other people’s children needed to eat. I was appalled by children’s preferred diets and their willingness to go hungry rather than eat. One family came in and said, “She only eats Barbie cereal.” One child ate only ice cream. One child vomited everything he ate…he ate only oatmeal.

By the early 1980’s, I began to read extensively on different foods, what each would contribute nutritionally, how foods worked with the body, what a child needs for good health, how many calories, from what food groups they are needed, how to make things children actually want to eat, who will be the eaters, who will be the dissenters. It occurred to me that since my day care children ate most of what they would eat at my home, then morally, my home better offer those children enough quality calories to not only keep them healthy, but make them healthy as adults. Food, after all, is an investment in our health forever.

The biggest problem I encounter both past and present is a general lack of support – a real boredom when the topic of food is even brought up. There is generally little interest from young parents just getting their feet wet with nutrition and feeding their first child simply because it is all so daunting. The world of food seems huge and unsafe and so failure ridden, many parents run screaming into the night rather than face anything more complicated than the packaged food section of the grocery store, the stove, and the table.

And the working parents of multiple children are generally so exhausted from all they have to manage, they usually look for the easiest “something to eat” which as often as not, is filled with empty calories.

Feeding other people’s children and teaching good table habits is not easy. It takes years of trust and habit. Feeding children takes understanding of the human conditions balanced with compassion. OK, most people are not going to go home from work every single evening and make a big scratch and nutritious dinner for their family. First, there is no time, and second, the children are too tired to eat by the time a big dinner is put on the table. Most children will eat ninety percent of what they are going to eat by 4:30. That’s where good child care comes in…and that has been my focus for thirty years. What will they eat balanced on a scale with what should they eat is the constant push-me-pull-you!

It’s no longer my job to make the food that my school children will eat Monday through Friday, because I’ve passed the baton to my daughter Molly and Miss Lisa. It’s time for the younger women to try their skills and knowledge. But that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped thinking about the kitchen, reading, writing, and experimenting with different foods and ways of preparing those foods. Will I ever gain respect from my work and interest? That’s left to be seen, but I will always be interested in food as not only a gift from above, but a means of health, a natural delight…and one of life’s entrusted pleasures!

“You don’t listen to me,” is a most offensive statement – both coming and going. But the truth is, few people really listen. I once made the statement that “He listens like a man…for yes, and the dinner chime.” But the statement fell on deaf ears.

Being able to listen is a skill. Animals listen. Every morning when I pull into school, the barn cats hear MY car and come running. When I pull in in my husband’s car, they are not near as attentive. My car means food…they can hear the difference between the engines, and they can hear the difference because they listen.

“What did I say?” is a perfectly legitimate question in any argument. A good listener will be able to repeat what the other has said, because he has listened. It means that somebody has put someone else first. Letting someone else have the floor to say out loud what it is that is important to him or her is the hard part. Few people are generous enough, or well meaning enough to really WANT to stop, look and listen to someone struggling for a say.

A poor listener is like talking to an uncaring stranger. You can say the funniest thing, the most apt thing, make a statement that should be printed, and the poor listener will simply say, “Uh, huh,” and either change the subject or end the discussion. This poor listener is called a bore. This poor listener never remembers what you tell him…can’t remember to do the things you’ve asked, and never seems to really want to talk about much of anything except himself.

We can go on and on about listening, but the object of bringing all these things up is simply that the lack of listening power begins someplace and interestingly enough, it begins at age three. At three, a child begins to listen because he or she has discovered that other people are interesting.

Children who don’t listen are probably absorbed in their own little world. That could come from several things. On the down side, abuse, lack of feeling safe, too much parent time and not enough child time, and on the upside, repairable developmental delays and selfishness. As a child who grew up in an abusive home, I know that not listening meant I was safe – even for a few moments. As a child who grew up with all parent time and no child time, I developed an extraordinary imagination which had to have a place to go, so I blocked out the world. I could block out just about anything and it helped that I was strongly hard of hearing only able to get about three words in a sentence without lip reading. I grew up not listening as a formula for emotional, physical and moral survival…but that’s not the plight of most children.

Most children who should and don’t listen come from loving homes where mom and dad just don’t realize that they should be demanding about conversation, and this is how it happens:

When the same basic care a child receives as an infant is still going on at age six, you can bet that there will be some delays.  Mommy and daddy are still carrying junior, still chasing after him without dialogue, still telling him everything he needs to know…silently dressing, feeding, bathing, and junior is in his own little world, and mommy and daddy don’t even notice it.

By the time a child is two, language skills should be taking place with a fever. A two year old should be able to have a relatively in depth conversation using hundreds of words. That only comes about when constant and comprehensive conversation takes place. Conversation isn’t telling junior, but asking junior questions, and junior responding in full sentences. Language is a practiced skill. People talk TO a baby, but people should talk WITH a toddler. Talking WITH a very young child allows the child to understand that other people are interesting, that what he or she has to say is also interesting and valuable and there is an exchange.

At age three, the child who understands the give and take of language will be able to listen to learn. He or she will understand concepts quickly and with a broader world view simply because he knows how to listen.  The child who has not learned to enter into a conversation will not learn with the same energy or the same desire. He or she has instead developed the habit of self absorption and learning…giving someone else the floor… is on the far back burner.

Re-training a child means an all out effort to engage the child in conversation – a lot.  Quiz, quiz, quiz, and then STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN for the answer. Prod the answers…demand response, and in your spare time…sing with your child.

Give your child sequencing activities:

“Go to my dresser and get my red sweater and bring it to me.” A two year old should be able to do this.

“Go into the kitchen and bring mommy a spoon.”

“Go into my study and get me the red box on my desk.”

Children who listen can sequence activities.

More important than reading to a child is a lively conversation around the dinner table that engages a whole family. It’s not JUST about the child; it’s about the whole family. “I’ve told you about my day, Johnny, now what toys did you play with at school?” Then wait for an answer…a whole answer in a whole sentence.

When a child shrugs and gives a one word answer, repeat slowly what you want. If he does not listen and refuses to engage, send him away from the table. He’s escaping what he should be doing, and that won’t correct the problem. Be sure to ask questions a child can answer. Don’t ask “why” questions. A child under seven can’t answer them. Don’t be too general…ask about specific people or things. “Who is your friend?” What toy do you like best?”

Increasing listening skills is not hard. It takes about three months of work. And when those three months are over, I will promise that you will see a remarkable new little person emerge; one you will treasure.