Parents’ Homework at the Garden School

Today at school, our Kindergarteners were given a work bag. This work bag has their name on it, and inside, there are tools. Each child was given three folders – one for Reading/Writing, one for Arithmetic, and one for Parents.  Inside the bag, there is a box of crayons, a pencil and a pencil sharpener. The children were told that these things are theirs to take care of, to use in school, to use at home, and to bring back every day they take home their bag.

Tonight, there is a Reading assignment which parents can find in the Parent folder. Children are to learn the words the, an, a  for a spelling test on Thursday. We are fully emerging into reading and writing right from the beginning. This is not to get upset about. If this is WAY over your child’s head, he will either learn quickly, or be put back into the Littles – but not right now. If he does a reasonable job…he will feel such a sense of accomplishment. Our Ks have either been with us for a year or are turning five. This is not too much for them to do.

Tomorrow, we will look at our first reader. It is The, an, a .  This reader is designed for children to stretch, to reach, to learn to read quickly.

Tomorrow, our Ks will be taking home handwriting work. They will be practicing their names.

Please take time to sign your child’s calendar if you work with him today. There is a tiny line in the square that says August 13. Please initial or write your first name. Homework should take no more than 15 minutes.

On Wednesday, Ks will have Arithmetic homework.

It’s a little by little progression. There are many steps forward and many back  on the way to reading.

Balancing Children’s Diets

This week I heard from one of my beloved staff that if she were determining snack, it would be broccoli and carrots. Apparently, the whole grain homemade chocolate cupcakes were “junk food.”

There is a concern in an ever fattening world of little exercise, fewer family meals, and more women claiming not to cook, that children will not get what they need at the hands of loving adults. Having passed the forty year mark in caring for children, I’ve put a lot of thought into this and this is what I’ve come up with:

Because they don’t nap, and they run a good part of the day, our children need about 1400 calories a day. If you think about three meals and two snacks, you can roughly say that dividing the day into 300 calories for breakfast, 400 for lunch, 400 for dinner, and 300 for two or three snacks a day will keep a child fully fed and still on the lean side.

Here are some of the problems I’ve encountered:

Many children are not morning eaters; they are not dinner eaters; they are picky and only want the junk that is on the top shelf. When meals are served, they would rather play with the food than eat it, and when meals are not served, they want to play on the last nerves of parents who threw out the child’s last plate of food.

Finding a happy balance has always been my goal. I’ve fed hundreds of children in my life, and feeding children should be a happy occasion for both the children and for those making the food. Cooking and serving meals is an investment in the future of a child’s health in many ways.

Breakfast, according to the state must have a grain product, a fruit or vegetable and milk. Now this can be a happy occasion with a child’s favorite, or this can be a hideous occasion that begins the day in tears: homemade whole grain pancakes, muffins, waffles, coffee cake, sticky buns…orange juice, and milk  OR gruel, canned chickpeas and milk. You call it! Most parents put a bowl of questionable cereal, toaster pastries or a donut in front of children and call it breakfast. In any event, all three breakfasts are about 300 calories.

Now let’s talk about lunch. Lunch is the one meal that can captivate most children, teach the best nutrition, and encourage children to try new things than any other meal. It’s definitely the discovery meal!  That’s why I make lunch at my school into a delicious, nutritious occasion every single day. This is the meal where adults can make the calories go down…and all with smiles…if the adult in charge is smart.

Rules for lunch: make it kid friendly…don’t serve food designed for adults. Most lunches should be finger foods. Small pieces please…fun to eat foods…familiar foods…new foods that look appealing…food that smells good… If lunch is a bologna sandwich on white bread and a soft drink…the calories are there, but the nutrition went south…

At lunch a child should have two ounces of protein, a bread product, and two or more fruits or veggies. Let’s start by saying a sandwich is a terrible food for a child because of its size. Most children only like bread if it’s sweet…like cake and cookies. And when you consider the proportions of a slice of bread to an adult and then to a child, you are expecting a child to eat what looks to him to be the half the size of a crib mattress! If you must make a child a sandwich, cut it in half, and then half again, and only put half of the whole on the plate at a time. Children only need an ounce of bread at a meal.

Best lunches for most children are homemade pizza, tacos, nachos, spaghetti, baked ham, meatballs, baked or homemade chicken nuggets, and breakfast for lunch.

Working whole grains around these meals is easy. Pizza is made with whole grain flour. Tacos are always whole grain and so are nachos. Corn is the best grain going – more nutrition than any other grain. Spaghetti noodles that are whole “grain” rather than whole wheat are much more palatable to a child. Baked ham, meatballs, chicken  can be served with whole grain noodles, brown rice or even whole grain fun bread.

Now for the fruits and veggies. I always put three fresh fruits or veggies on the table every day for my group of forty children. If I serve a canned fruit – and I usually only serve applesauce from a can – I make sure that everything else is fresh. Ninety percent of what we serve is fresh. If I serve applesauce, I might serve it with carrots, either cooked or raw, and melon…so there are two fruits and a veggie. If I serve potatoes, I might serve it with grapes and apples. This way, children can choose from cooked, fresh, fruit and veggies every day. If a child eats a good lunch, if it is served like this, he will easily consume 400 calories when you include milk.

Now let’s get down to the original question: snack.

If a child has had 300 solid calories for breakfast, and another 400 for lunch, he’s only had 700 calories for the day. That’s half of what he needs for the day. Many children are not dinner eaters, and will do anything in their power to escape dinner…so it’s time to think big and get the calories into the child best we can.

Human beings love sweets. It begins with the super sweet taste of breast milk, and continues through life with the treasures of sugar and confections and treats. Now, here’s the rub: sugar is touted as a bad food even though if it’s not a protein, it’s a sugar. Sugar is only a bad food when we indulge in it.  In a world where we indulge in just about anything, it’s no wonder we are at odds with this very natural and delicious substance known as “sweet.”

So the idea is to make the sugar snack into the best thing the child ate all day…both by taste and by nutrition. Is it possible? Possibly.

Our teachers bake for our kids every day. We make cookies, cupcakes, brownies, and a host of incredible tasting food kids just love and need! And I believe children need the calories of a fun snack at the end of a long and work filled day. That’s why I don’t serve broccoli and carrots for snack. Children need a snack that will carry them through to dinner, and after a lunch of fruits and vegetables, children need something different.

So what’s in the home baked snack? Whole grain flours, sugar, real butter, fresh farm eggs – I have an egg lady – milk, baking soda and powder, cocoa, spices, cheese, salt. There are no chemical lists on our home made food…so the only hitch is the sugar. I make a lot of my own brown sugar…using sugar cut with date syrup…the calorie count on one of our snacks is about 300 calories when you add the milk…and that brings us up to 1000.

If children go home, they will most likely take in at least another snack or maybe a light dinner and that will complete their calorie day. If they go to fast food and eat a quarter of their greasy meal, it’s still about 400 calories, and that’s still not a bad calorie take on a day.

And as they go out the door, we know that they have had three glasses of milk, four fruits and veggies, at least one protein, and three whole grain products. They have had a lot of fun with their eating and they may have learned something new or tasted a new food.

 

 

Getting Ready for School…

Here in the Midwest, we go back to school really early. This year, our start date is August 13. As we begin to count down the field trips and continue to gut the school of old stuff, clean out bookcases, reduce the stockpile of “can’t do withouts” in the bathrooms, paint walls that are dusty and ready for something new…buy new furniture, move old furniture, and approach constant problems from new approaches…the call to overhaul tired classes for something new is now screaming in my ear.

Today I bought cream cheese boxes for crayons. I bought pencil sharpeners for every kindergartner, I have folders donated by a dear friend…she also donated the crayons and the glue sticks. I am planning the tool bag that we will issue every kindergarten student. This is an important part of starting school…new stuff…and the delight in knowing that “you can handle all this new stuff all by yourself.”

As the reading teacher, the daunting job of teaching 4,5,and 6 year old children to read, to write, and to take care of their belongings is a huge project. Most kindergartens begin the year with children who don’t know anything to children who can read. It’s no different at the Garden School. Giving every child what he needs is the trick. That’s why I am always delighted to present to parents the smallness of our classes and the determination of our teachers.

As I lovingly collect great tools for the children, and look through the books that we have, and the books I’ve written for class, and the games I’ve created for the kids, the wheels turn into the possibilities of all we can do this year. My goal is excellence in all things child related…no shyness there…

I will be teaching music and geography and circle time this year. My goals for music include a repertoire of songs children can sing, instruments they can play, and a new start in listening to the great masters.

Circle time will include a few minutes every morning about something new…a topic like mummies…the life cycle of a leaf…the body parts of a worm…how you digest food…colors…the story of Adam and Eve…you know…the fun stuff most kids love and most teachers don’t know anything about…it’s an outlet for years of collecting information that has no place to go…what can I say?

As I rearrange my classroom, clean the windows, polish the tables, make properly written name tags, find just the right paperwork, books to read, games to play…I can honestly say I’m excited…

 

Summer Blues…

It’s been an incredibly difficult summer. Following a magnificent spring, our summer turned south with a day after day menu of temperatures in the 100s. We swim as a group twice a week…just getting there was impossible on some days. It’s just too hot to expect very young children to say, “I’m in trouble…I’m thirsty…I’m going to faint…” Field trips have had to be canceled because the lakes are soupy and even closed, the temperature in the bus for hours is just too hot, and snakes are “on the lose” because of the drought.

With grateful thanks to a fantastic staff, we have solved most of our problems with quick thinking, fun substitutions and lots of on premises extras that have turned out to be a grand exchange. But it takes a dedicated staff to not only come up with the substitutions, but the energy in this heat to take charge and lead on…McDuff!

We have four more weeks of summer trips, and three trips have been planned…looking for something exciting for one more trip. I’m not thrilled about repeating a summer trip, so I’m looking for something new and sure and doable if the weather is back into the 100s. It’s a challenge, but I am sure we will rise to this occasion.

Planning summer -out of city-out of state- trips is always a challenge. We don’t want them too long, but there is really nothing exciting to do within a 120 mile radius…so we have often gone to St. Louis, Louisville, Nashville, to explore those cities, and it’s been enormously successful. The kids love the St. Louis Zoo, Bush Gardens, the Arch…Nashville’s Science Museum, Mammoth Cave, the Louisville Zoo, The Exotic Feline Rescue Center near Terre Haute.

What I would love to do, and I can’t find this…is a real train ride. The one in French Lick is as dull as it comes. I would also like to find a boat ride…but that has been limited to the Blue Springs Cave…might try that again this year. I would love to get the kids out on the Ohio…but finding a possibility has not been achieved yet.

Field trips at the Garden School are not meant to entertain as much as they are meant to teach. I want the learning and seeing and exploring new things to be the fun part. I want the questions children have to be their entertainment. So we plod on…

Hoping the end of the summer makes up for the beginning…

 

Owning the Small Business of Childcare

All my life as a child, I heard my father and his friends talk about the wonders of owning a restaurant. What they would buy as a building, the food they would serve, the wine, the clientele…how wonderful to “work for yourself.”  And no matter the conversation, the dreams, the ideas…it never materialized. It was too big to handle, after all, and too much risk – even for a man with a truck load of money and all the ideas possible.

I’ve thought a lot about why people dream, and others actually make dreams a reality, and I think it has to do with something my lawyer once said about me, “Judy, you don’t know that the things you do….you can’t do!!!!!!!”  Some people just don’t believe that a good idea should go to waste, while others are afraid of their dreams becoming a reality. My father never owned his restaurant, and I doubt he would be pleased to know that I own a restaurant license…it would be a matter of jealousy…but the difference between us is that I took the plunge and he didn’t.

I started my own business of “day care” when I was pregnant with my fourth child. It was a way of making enough money to supply a new furnace and Christmas for the kids.  I began to care for the two boys down the street before and after school in my home. In eight years, I was serving sixty-seven children on a weekly basis. I provided breakfast, lunch, preschool, after school snack, and a busy schedule of learning. In the summer they all loaded in the car, and I took them swimming.

When my youngest went to Kindergarten, I moved on to building a preschool for my parish, and then with my best friend, I built my present situation…a little school for little people called The Garden School.

For most female personalities, building a business means an active amount of talking – phone, Saturday mornings at the dog-nut house, visits, activities and pretty much your whole life. This talking is an important part of production because a lot of the talking is about goals, avenues to meet those goals, sharing experiences, commiserating, and working problems out. This means having a partner or someone equally interested in your business adventure. People choose partners for many reasons including compatibility, similar goals, similar work ethic, similar beliefs. People choose a partner on the grounds of honesty, and the belief that he or she is not going just quit – either at once, or worse, in stages.

But more than any other trait a good partner should have when creating a business from the ground up is a finely tuned work ethic.  A small business work ethic always says: “This is MY work for ME to do.”  Someone with a genuine work ethic rises to the occasion of daily chores, problems and necessities that make the business work…every day…seven days a week. A work ethic dictates that someone always be busy with improvements and additions that help build the business…that push it forward into excellence.  And what active people learn quickly about a small business is that it IS demanding every single day – not just when it’s convenient or when you want to. You don’t turn out the lights on Friday and then not show up again until Monday. A business that works or continues to thrive is a business owned by someone who really cares and is willing to not only say, “This is MY work for ME to do,” but also says through their work, “I am proud of what I am doing.”

In the child care business, there are a host of behind the scenes preparations for the business to run well. They include: writing — curriculum including some school texts, developing a website or blog so families moving into the area are attracted to your place first. There is the interior development of school policies, menus to make and  and food policies and food licenses to create, maintain and record. There are food records, buying and planning, and recording receipts. There are school handbooks, faculty handbooks, calendars, the never ending notes home, thank you notes and announcements meeting parent, state, and finally your own expectations.

There are parent interviews and enrolling new children, health forms, food forms, enrollment forms…and there is the constant hiring of teachers which means teacher training, developing pay scales, perks, and creating a work environment that makes people want to come to work. There is a constant organizing of teaching staff…and teaching,

In the daily running of the school, there are classes to teach, meals to create, hours to manage, plans for activities to create and carry out. There are summer trips to plan for and execute. There are summer expenses to manage. The year holds occasions like Grandparents’ Tea, school plays, Christmas programs, Holiday occasions, dances, sings, and picnics.

And in ordinary time there is the the feat of paying bills, issuing pay checks, managing accounts, there is the never ending shopping for supplies, toys, project materials, paper products, food, milk, and all the extras that make it count.

Then there is the cleaning, the carpet washing every week, the floors, closets, toys shelves, keeping the kitchen inspection ready. In our case there is the zoo room and remembering which animals require what food and extras and procuring all that – and doing that every single day without fail.

Then there is the garden, food garden, and landscaped garden, the watering, the feeding, the pruning, the purchasing…

It’s too much for one person to do well. It takes a staff. I’m grateful that our staff is as competent and as dependable as they are. It makes a school like ours work. But ultimately, there is a certain work load that is dependent on the owners, and this work is the never ending story.

Starting your own business and doing it well demands that It’s my job for me to do attitude and work ethic. Because when you pass the buck, to whom are you passing it? If you expect that someone is going to constantly rescue you from your work, you’re not meant for owning your own business. It’s not about vacations or huge pay checks or what the next perk is…it’s about my job for me to do for the survival of the business.

So as we turn the corner on this summer and gallop into the August stretch, it’s time to start working on the next season…the start of school…new students…new parents…rules to learn…then it will be time to buckle down for learning…then before long it will be time to work on the holidays…then the inclement weather…and these aren’t dreams talked about on a lazy Sunday…it’s daily work-filled reality if you own your own business.

 

Imaginations from Education Week

This is a good article about the reduction of play and the increase of imaginations. It shouldn’t make sense because of the idea of play and all the groaning parents have made about fewer recesses and fewer “play time” in school. But that, apparently, is how it’s working.

A good article at: Imaginations More Active Despite Less Play Time, Study Shows

Education Week has a lot of great articles for students of all ages. It’s worth checking out.

 

Teaching a Child to Swim!

I was reminded on Tuesday, on a very very hot day at the pool, how there is a clear division between “letting kids play in the water” and “teaching them to swim.”

Letting children play is a nice strategy for children who are not yet ready to put their heads under the water and try to swim. Letting kids “splash about” is the best way for them to discover water and how water can be easy, friendly, and enjoyable.

But when a child is going under the water and trying to keep him or herself up in the water, it’s time for the adult to step in and participate so that the child can easily make the transition from splashing about to really swimming.

I’ve been a swimmer for fifty-seven years. I learned by inching my way into the water until my brother and his friends decided to take me out to where the big boats were docked and throw me in. I knew enough to put two and two together and make my way back to the dock.  I know that there is a clear separation between those who can keep themselves up in the water and make their way to safety, and those who will sink and die. The whole concept of taking children swimming every summer is to put more kids on the “make your way to safety” than sink and die.

When you make the step toward swimming fun and exciting…a game…children respond well. The whole idea is to find a space in the swimming pool that is too deep for the child to touch, but shallow enough for the adult to be able to stand comfortably with head and shoulders above the water.

When children delight in standing on the side of the pool and jumping to an attending adult, they forget their fears, and simply engage in playing at jumping farther and farther to the adult and then tackling the huge task of swimming back to the wall where they can climb out and jump again. What they are not putting together is that in the shallow end, they can keep themselves up for three seconds, but while they are jumping to an adult, the swim from the adult to the wall is much farther than three seconds worth of swimming.

If the adult is as sneaky as this adult, the game begins with a five feet jump, and ends in a fifteen feet jump. There’s a big difference. For a child to swim five feet, he has to paddle about three seconds. For a child to swim fifteen feet, it’s more like fifteen seconds. There’s a big difference.

Once a child jumps to the adult and turns on his own to go back to the wall, the game is up, and he or she is really swimming. Next step….the diving board. If a child can hurl him or herself into space, and go down deep in the water…and come up and casually swim to the side of the pool…common…he or she is swimming FOR REAL! And that’s the way we do it at the Garden School.

What Makes the Garden School Unique…

The Garden School has three unique ongoing projects that other schools in our area simply don’t have. The first is our zoo room, the second is our swimming program, and the third is our long field trips.

These projects grew out of a philosophy about “possibilities.”  When we started with animals, we bought a pedigree rabbit we called Abbey. We gave her the run of the school, and the children loved her. When Oreo came our way, he and Abbey would curl up together and it was really something to see. Oreo was a guinea pig. We also got a hamster that we named Hamlet, and Hamlet wore a collar and was taken for walks to the playground where he would enjoy eating anything green he could find.

These animals prompted us to build a zoo room when we finally built our own building. We centered the zoo room between our two classrooms. At this point in time, we have gone from a mainly rodent room with rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, degus and chinchillas, to an aviary housing finches, diamond doves, cockatiels, Quaker parrots, and love birds. They all live together in harmony and peace without cages. The children can visit and feed carrots to those animals daring enough to come up to them.

The zoo room is a work in progress. I clean it every weekday, and I spend a great deal of time on it over the weekend. I have to…they are animals and they make a mess. Their litter has to be changed nearly every day someplace in the room, and they always need to be fed. The walls need to be wiped down, new bedding needs to be replaced, sick animals treated, dead ones buried, and new appointments need to be carried in and things generally need to be moved, cleaned, changed, and managed at least twice a day every day because the zoo room needs to always be inviting and always cheerful.

It’s truly a labor of love. So when it’s icy and cold, or a tornado is pending…Judy is over making sure the animals have what they need because that’s my job. It’s MY project. It’s a project I’ve developed for the children so they have something special to enjoy on a daily basis and they can’t enjoy something dirty, smelly or just hanging on.

Swimming is also an oddity about the Garden School. Twice a week the children change out in matching suits and we take them to a beautiful pool in Newburgh where they actually learn to swim. It’s a project we developed years ago when we first set up shop in an apartment complex with a pool. Swimming is something many full time childcare children simply don’t learn to do until they are older. The longer a child waits to swim, the weaker his swimming will be all his life. Swimming is a coordinating activity, a test of independence, a bravery issue, and it’s something nearly any four year old should be able to do as a safety issue. So we do it.

We introduce swimming as play. Then we encourage children to see what the pool looks like from under the water. When they can do that, and enjoy it, we take them to the deeper end and have them jump to us. We catch them over and over until one time…oops…and they find themselves bobbing in the water under their own steam. At this point they learn to doggy paddle to the edge. When they are swimming twenty-five feet, they are ready to go off the board. When they have successfully gone off the board, they are swimmers – and nothing can stop them…

The last unique part of the Garden School Plan is the long field trip. We actually travel with our children all summer long. For ten weeks, we take our children to the surrounding cities, parks, lakes and points of interest within a three hour radius. There really is very little to do in our immediate area, so years ago, we thought it was possible to “travel.” Parents loved the idea, because it gave children of lesser means a real summer vacation. A vacation they can brag about when they go off to big school. “I went to the Louisville Zoo, the Nashville Science Museum, the Cincinnati Aquarium, the St. Louis Zoo, Mammoth Cave, and parks and lakes and even to the Exotic Feline Rescue Center.”

Traveling is difficult at times, just ask any teacher. Traveling means taking the responsibility to put very young children on a school bus and go many miles from home. It’s about toileting, and lines, and obedience and carrying enough lunch with you to satisfy fifty people, and that lunch needs to packed to stay fresh by 7:00 a.m. It means being watchful all day in a strange place. It means counting heads a hundred times.

When you weigh the pros and cons of traveling, many lesser places have decided it’s easier to just stay home, and if children don’t get to travel with their families, well that’s too bad. It’s hot, after all, and it’s long, and it’s filled with problems from the start to the finish, and it’s expensive. The real question is: “But what do the children get out of staying home versus traveling?”

Children who participate in our unique summer program go back to school with the idea that someone cared so much about them that “Our teachers were willing to reach as far as they could reach for me.”  This willingness strengthens the teaching bonds and allows learning during the school year to climb to new heights. Traveling allows children to see, hear, taste, touch and feel new things. They get to explore a bunch of new ideas and new experiences. They get to do more than play with the same old toys, in the same old four walls, in the same old place…

So…in future…what are the things I really want to do with them?…boat ride on the river…horse back ride…candy making plant…hatchery…and it will come…one step at a time, because we’re a unique place and the sky is the limit.

Religion and Children

According to the dictionary, religion is a set of beliefs about the purpose of the universe. Everyone, quite frankly, has an idea about the purpose of the universe. Some people make it up as they go, and others believe theologies, philosophies, theories developed over time.

Every family has the right to bring up their child or children as they see fit and that includes religious or non-religious freedom — provided that upbringing is not abuse.

Teaching religion or not teaching a set of believes is the job of parents. It is not the job of government or government schools. But that doesn’t mean that belief in general has to be hidden in the public forum. Our Constitution separates Church from State…it does not give credibility to any one faith, prevent any faith from existing or practicing, or favor one set of beliefs or lack of them.

In a private religious or parochial setting, parents pay for their child to be educated in their own faith. They expect it. In other private school settings, religion is always a little controversial.

My job, as a school owner, is to find the common ground among parents while I balance what I think children should be aware of without teaching religion.

As a Catholic, I belong and believe the tenets of a church that’s been around for two thousand plus years – and man, we’ve seen it all.  One of the tenets of my faith is that one must revere all that is true and holy about another faith. That’s the easy part. The hard part is trying to exist in a world of early childhood without offending nearly everyone in sight.

My personal philosophy is that for the sake of being well rounded, a child needs to experience prayer, hear Bible Stories for the sake of reference, and know what to say, should he or she be so inclined at the moment of crisis or need.

I invite our children to pray before and after meals, and I enforce quiet during our very very brief prayer time because those who come from faith should have the time to pray if they choose. Those that don’t can be still for a minute.

At the Garden School, we have a prayer mission for the ill. We pray for lots of people who are ill and who have asked for our prayers. I think this teaches children, even of no faith, that we are all connected and should care about one another.

I teach the Our Father because it is the most universal prayer I can think of. I teach the Catholic version because that’s the one I know.

Bible Stories are a wonderful teaching tool. They teach obedience. Obedience gets a bad rap these days, but obedience is key in the behavior of a child who wants to do well. It teaches good study habits, trust of parent, and trust of authority, order from chaos, good civil tactics, fairness and affection. Of course I like to tell Bible Stories with great flair and over the top details. Kids nearly always get absorbed in the stories, and that gives them something to think about. My favorite Old Testament book is the book of Judith and my favorite part is when Judith cuts the head off Holofernes and hangs it on the gate…then quietly goes home to make breakfast for her family. Such a story…such a woman…such an exciting time…

Fairy tales are unique for lessons too, but fairy tales have no platform, so they fade away quickly…like the seed that fell on the poor soil. But they are fun, and can be exciting and are a good tool to act out.

But the teaching of religion is a thing I wouldn’t touch out of respect for my families. It’s not my job. My job is to educate in the areas that are appropriate to the ages of the children I teach and will lead children to thinking, behaving well in a group and learning about the world. My job stops there.

Sometimes parents want more. At one time, I had a parent ask me to spank a child…not my job. I wouldn’t presume to discipline more than taking a medal or offering a stern opinion. My favorite discipline tactic, if the behavior is rotten, is to return the child to the parent…it’s a parent’s job to rear his own child. My job is to add a broad spectrum of experiences and ideas that lead children to think.

Offering a space and time for prayer, exposing children to the stories from which many many references are made in common dialogue, books, news and movies, and something to say, should they choose to be believers is the most religious thing I can offer in fairness to those who don’t believe.

My own tradition is not to push my faith on others. My tradition teaches me to behave in the world as a believer, and if someone likes what I do…and asks…then I tell them what I believe. It’s a simple concept that has worked for two thousand plus years…I’m just one of the faithful…

 

Responsibility

Every once in a while, a word sticks in my mind and I evaluate the word for what I know about it. Sometimes I look it up in the dictionary or the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) that offers both the word’s history with examples of who used it when, and the first time it was used and by whom. Words are important to me because it’s through words that we are able to learn more.

The word responsibility has taken a beating in the last ten years or so. It used to be a “me” word, and now it’s a “you” word. What I mean by this is that years ago, we had this Latin saying, “mea culpa” meaning my fault, and I will take responsibility for what has happened…good or not so good. Today, we never hear that any mishap, injury, occasion of hurt is mea culpa. It’s never my fault. And because it’s not my fault, I don’t have to ever say, “I’m sorry,” which lets me off the mea culpa roles and the general hook for apology.

There are all kinds of responsibilities today that we run from like thieves in the night…we simply don’t want to take care of ourselves or anyone or anything in our lives that will take us away from recreation, a focus on self, and return us to a life of work and remorse.

Now where does this take us in building a child’s life? If we are the primary educators of our children, and children are watching us for example, we are teaching our children that responsibility is a bad thing…don’t ever take any…admit nothing…and pass the buck as often as you can…and never ever say, “I’m sorry.”

I work with a team of men and women. It’s always interesting to watch who will step forward and do what needs to be done without being asked. The other day at the pool, I was awed by two young teachers who wrapped up the lunch remains, packed the coolers and then carried it all to my car. It has always been my job, and these wonderful young girls took the responsibility on and finished the job. I can’t tell you how much this meant to me.

On the same occasion, I watched two other teachers get into the very chilled water at the pool and take on the responsibility of teaching our kids how to swim. This is a big job, and on more summers than one, I’ve had to push teachers into the water…but this year, two of our youngest have stepped forward and are working very hard so that every child swims. I am so proud of them. This allows the other teachers to monitor the very youngest child who is emerging as a “jellyfish.”

Creating a great program means at one time or another, everyone has to step forward and take responsibility for not only what needs to be done, but for projects and activities that go astray. Self reflection helps. It’s hard to admit that something didn’t work, that a project was a mess and the children learned nothing. But that errant project is not the end of the world. It’s a lesson well learned, and being able to admit that it was flawed, that the flaw was my fault, and I’ve learned from my mistake is a good thing…not a bad thing.

We know while teachers are stepping forward, the kids are watching and learning what it means to be a responsible person and a participant in the game, and that excuses for not participating and not accepting responsibilities won’t cut it in the active world.

It’s our job to teach our children how to step forward and grab the moment and thrive and some children do this very well. Hands go up to volunteer…not by all, but by some, and as a child grows older and wiser, and bolder, his hand is up to volunteer an answer, for a job and to offer an opinion. This is our gold. This is what we should be about.

In a media centered world, a very selfish place, a narrow and unlending place, one of our most important lessons in the sheltered place we know as the Garden School, is to teach our children that sometimes a failure is our fault, and sometimes our job has not been done by us the way it should be, that we make mistakes, and there are no excuses. And at the same time to reward, to compliment, to praise a job well done and a child who has learned to step forward.