When my world traveling son arrived home last week, I asked him if he missed his travels which have been put to rest for a while. He said yes and no. He said while he was traveling how grateful he was to be an American, to have that American passport in his pocket. He said he was grateful to be able to come home to a place he knew he and his family would be safe.

In this country we have so much to be thankful for.

Russian doctor pleads for better quake child care

CRISIS PROFILE: Death and displacement in Chechnya
MORE By Suzanna Koster

ISLAMABAD, Oct 21 (Reuters) – The septuagenarian Russian doctor raged against the world as he emerged from the operating theatre of a Pakistani hospital where he’s worked tirelessly for days to save the lives of earthquake victims.

Slumped on a bench in a corridor as a young boy was wheeled into the theatre sobbing, Leonid Roshal asked why there weren’t enough doctors to treat the children.

“We don’t have a good global system to help children during disasters,” said the 72-year-old paediatrician, who has made a mission over the past two decades of getting to disasters as fast as he can.

Roshal has been there for the victims of earthquakes in Armenia, Georgia, Egypt, Japan, Afghanistan and India. He also mediated with Chechen separatist rebels who held an audience hostage at a Moscow theatre in 2002.

The earthquake struck Pakistan on Oct. 8 and Roshal and his team of seven doctors arrived just two days later.

“We need more special paediatrician teams that can quickly arrive in times of need,” Roshal pleaded.

“Everyone in this world only thinks about the first two stages of disaster — getting the people out of the houses and giving them first aid — but nobody helps out with operations.

“If you don’t give good hospital care the child will die, no matter how good the first aid,” says Roshal, who heads the Moscow Children’s Clinical and Research Institute of Emergency Surgery and Trauma.

British and Korean teams have joined the Russians helping local surgeons at the Pakistani Institute for Medical Sciences, the Islamabad hospital where hundreds of children evacuated from the most stricken areas have been sent for treatment.

The pressure on the hospital has been enormous, but after initial chaos some sense of order has returned, although wards are crammed and patients have spilled out into corridors.

CHILDREN HIT HARD
About 1,200 children have been operated on, a large number of the procedures handled by Russian surgeons.

The ones in a stable condition are sent to make-shift hospitals at a sports complex and a hostel.
When the quake struck, classrooms were full, while very young children were mostly at home with their mothers and women relatives, in keeping with the traditional values of the conservative Muslim communities in North West Frontier Province and Pakistani Kashmir.

Consequently, casualties among children were probably disproportionately high in a country where under-18s make up close to half the population.

The death toll from the quake is close to 50,000, while estimates of the injured are put at 74,000.

Both figures are expected to rise, as many isolated villages in the Himalayan foothills have been cut off by landslides and have still to be assessed, let alone reached.

With winter closing in, the United Nations Children’s Fund has warned that 10,000 more children could die unless they get food and shelter soon.

Many casualties’ injuries became infected because they were unable to get medical attention for days, leaving doctors little choice other than to amputate limbs to save lives.

Roshal agonised over just such a dilemma during his brief break from the operating table.
The feet of a six-year-old girl whose legs were crushed have turned black due to lack of blood circulation.

Amputation appeared inevitable, but the girl’s father begged him, saying her life would not be worth living without her feet.

“I am still trying to find another way for her,” he sighed. “I only decide to amputate if I am 100 percent sure it is impossible to do it another way.”

Mrs. Schulte is right. Teaching to the test has ruined our schools and limited what we call academic freedom and reduced the talents of talented teachers to drone work. Teaching for tests and reducing things like art and music will not make the classroom a better place but a dry, lifeless hole kids will continue to hate.

Preschool classes
Letter to an Editor

In the Oct. 16 article “Charter schools fall short in testing,” an accompanying photograph of children doing origami says it all. Many low achievers lack basic spatial skills that are precursors to reading.

Rather than closing charter schools, how about making preschool more widely available?
Claudia Gellert Schulte
Philadelphia

As a monitor for the USDA Childcare Food Program for many years, I visited homes across seven counties in the state of Indiana. It was rare to visit a home that should not have been in business. Perhaps three homes were poorly run.

The problem is not a paternalistic government with too few rules. The problem is that government doesn’t know what to do in the private sector. When the government tries to “rule” in the private sector, they nearly always get it wrong.

One of my chief difficulties with government in day care is their desire to focus on an uncovered garbage can at one licensed home with a preschool program and ten children while they ignore the unlicensed house down the street where the provider is burning trash in an open fire in the living room and fifty children who run the neighborhood.

Mullen: Quality child care a crapshoot
By Holly Mullen Tribune Columnist

Ouch.

Legally, regulators can exempt day care programs that employ people convicted of misdemeanors such as drug possession or petty theft, but must get clearance from the health department director to do so. But in all these cases, regulators either granted exceptions to providers or weren’t told of any misdemeanor records. And the most egregious case ended with the sexual abuse of a 5-year-old child by a man whose wife ran a home day care center. Even after the man pleaded guilty to sexual abuse, the license remained intact.

Burdensome regulation of child care seems to be the least of this state’s worries. Certainly, the audit showed that some providers were nicked for minor infractions such as too little cushioning on playgrounds. But more than anything, the audit reinforces one fact most parents already know: It’s a Herculean task to find quality child care you can trust and afford. And when you do find that place, sending your child there is too much of a crapshoot.

Some of the lax licensing can be blamed on a paternalistic sense many legislators still employ: that too many parents, specifically women, choose to work outside the home. This, even when 2000 figures from the Department of Workforce Services reveal that 54 percent of Utah’s married couples with children work to survive. Seventy-four percent of Utah mothers with school-age children are in the work force. And 59 percent of Utah moms with preschoolers work outside the home.

The numbers exist, but judgments about who works and why, and who should and shouldn’t, float in the subtext of every child care discussion at the Capitol. The schizophrenia around the topic is clear: The statistics are there. Parents work. Are politicians going to keep fighting that reality, or create ways to support the hard-working families who elect them? The most misguided move of all would be to further deregulate an industry that parents depend on to protect the most vulnerable.

Marc Babitz, a family practice physician appointed in May to head the health systems improvement division at the health department, told me on Friday “absolutely no more exceptions” to the licensing law would occur under his watch. His department has sent letters to all providers warning that anyone living or working within their business with a felony record must permanently leave the premises. They have one year to comply or lose their license. He vows the action will be swift and firm. Is that aggressive enough?

In some ways, Babitz’s hands are tied. The providers in question, he said, have operated with the understanding they had a proper variance to the rules. It doesn’t make him any less queasy. “We have 2,700 providers, five categories of licensing and a separate file on each provider,” he said. “I just wish I had a button to push and take care of all this.” hmullen@sltrib.com

Central Jersey
COOL TO BE IN PRESCHOOL
Old Bridge class trains teachers
Home News Tribune Online 10/20/05
STAFF REPORT
OLD BRIDGE — Eleven youngsters on Monday discovered the joys of preschool: Cookie Monster, rainbow-colored paint, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.Through various orientation activities, including a scavenger hunt and T-shirt painting, the youngsters — and their parents — had a chance to explore their new learning surroundings at the Knights and Tykes Preschool. The preschool program started Tuesday.

Located at Old Bridge High School, Knights and Tykes Preschool is a free program run by students enrolled in the district’s Child Development II class. Those students, according to teacher Lynn Birsin, have an interest in education or youth-related careers such as child psychology.More than 70 high school students helped out with orientation, either passing out snacks, talking with children or playing games with them.”

We have a really good, really strong program,” Birsin said. “The students actually teach the children, which is great.”The students are supervised by district teachers, Birsin added.

Knights and Tykes is available to Old Bridge children ages 3-5. Registration is in the spring, and the program is offered on a first-come, first-served basis.

Interested parents may call the preschool at (732) 290-3858 for more information.

At Helsinki’s Finnish-Russian School they also teach English
Political stereotypes still hound 60-year-old institution
By Kari Kiuru
Helsingin Sanomat

According to a resilient perception, the Finnish-Russian School of Helsinki is a place of socialist indoctrination from the preschool level.

The school’s head teacher Liisa Pohjolainen says that while there may have been some truth to this in years past, it is no longer the case.

“Sometimes in the 1970s or before that, children may have been sent to the school for political reasons. The history of the school is linked with the 1950s, when the Russian Cultural-Democratic League had a say in the establishment of the school. There was also support from the Soviet Union, when it first began at Neitsytpolku 50 years ago. However, now things are different”, Pohjolainen says.

The Finnish-Russian school has not managed to completely shake off its old reputation. The present school building on Kaarelankuja was built in 1964. Some of the architectural influences would seem to have come from the Soviet Union or the former East Germany.

“We follow Finnish curricula, and the success has been reasonable, to say the least. Although it is relatively easy to get into our high school, we are among the top 30 in the country in matriculation examination results. For instance, in English language skills our school has done quite well”, Pohjolainen explains.

She attributes the pupils’ good results in English to the fact that the children get a feel for a foreign language already in preschool. “That means that learning comes more naturally than if they started in the third grade, for instance, when pupils usually choose their first foreign language.”

The pupils of the Finnish-Russian School constitute a small minority. Only one or two percent of Finland’s upper secondary school pupils have Russian as the first foreign language. About 40 Finnish-speaking pupils each year have Russian as the main foreign language in their matriculation examinations.

Pohjolainen says that the Finnish-Russian School provides a solid background in Russian.

“Between 25 and 30 percent of the comprehensive school pupils achieve the level of an independent user of the language. They understand Russian and are able to use it fluently.”

The head teacher says that the Finnish and Slavic cultures are both evident in the school. “The Russians are, after all, more emotional than we Finns. Contacts are also established in connection with school camps and summer courses. In them we have also helped other Finnish schools and educational institutions.”

However, prejudices die hard. “Someone might say something like ‘oh, so you’re some kind of a Russian’, when the school comes up in the conversation”, says Jenni Ruotsalainen, who speaks from experience. “It’s no real problem though”, she adds.

“This is a good school. The teachers and pupils know each other. For me, the choice of schools was dictated by circumstance. I came to Finland nine years ago, and I couldn’t really speak Finnish then”, says Illya Rushailo.

Even if an applicant for the school is a native speaker of Russian, it will not guarantee him a place in the school. Pupils also need to learn Finnish, and for many families of Russian origin who have lived in Finland for many years, Russian-language skills have also deteriorated.

Statesman Journal
Salem Oregon
Training offered to child-care givers
October 18, 2005

Local child-care providers can attend a free training session at the Salem Public Library.
The session, called “Creative Concepts,” will present picture books, finger plays, music and other story-time enhancements that can be used to teach preschoolers about colors, shapes, numbers and the alphabet. The workshop is from 7 to 9 p.m. October 26 in Anderson Rooms A and B at the library, 585 Liberty St. SE.

Preregistration is required, and seating is limited. To register, visit the library’s Youth Services Reference Desk or call (503) 588-6088.
— Sarah Evans

The storm clouds cameth. When there is a weather condition moving into the area, the children’s behavior is terrible. By terrible I mean chronic disobedience. When a teacher rings a bell and no one stops to even recognize that a teacher is trying to get everyone’s attention, there’s a safety issue.

When the rule is walk in from recess quietly, hang up your coat or jacket, wash your hands and sit in circle time quietly, and there is a general chaos as if no one has ever come in from recess, there’s a safety issue.

Every school establishes routines and ways of doing things that make the day go smoothly. If coming in from outdoors takes an hour to do, then the routine is at fault. If coming in from recess takes seven minutes, it’s a good routine.

It’s like that in everything we do. We have a little set of rules about circle time: We cross our legs, and keep our hands in our lap, and don’t talk unless we are called on or are singing.

Play ground: We don’t throw pebbles, sand or toys, we don’t climb on the play houses or the fences and we don’t make others cry on purpose.

Class time: We do what needs to be done without making a mess.

Story time: We sit politely and listen.

Lunch: We stay seated AT the table, not five feet from it, and keep our cup above our plate (cuts down on spilling) and we keep our food on our plate. We use our fork, and we use indoor voices.

Lines: Lines are quiet places.

Bathrooms: are quiet places. Four children in the bathroom at one time, one child uses the sink, no visiting in the stalls, and we wash to the elbows.

We try to achieve an order that brings sense to nonsense. When the kids refuse to comply, there is a safety issue. And then there are the few who think the rules are for everybody – else. These few are found doing everything but what they are supposed to do, and because they do – chronically – everyone else has to wait to get these kids in order.

Beginning Monday with a review of the rules, there will be a lot of medals lost for this time wasting chaos. It’s really disobedience, because every child knows every rule. This becomes disobedient anarchy, and that’s a crime against the state. So beginning Monday, there will be no “earning back” a medal for good behavior once it’s lost. If it’s lost at all, it’s lost for the whole day.
Not fair? Think about fairness. If a child has three chances, the first two don’t mean anything. How fair is that. What are we doing, revving up for reality? If the rule is “no jumping on the sofa or the TV is turned off,” letting a child jump twice and then turning off the TV on the third jump just tells the child the parent is unreliable. The true fair act is turning the TV off after the first jump. It’s a rule. If parents encourage a child to break the rules by letting him do it twice, why not three or four times or all the time?

There will be a form sent home to explain why a child has lost his medal. Please help your child understand that rules are important for everyone. Poorly behaved children will not be allowed to participate in regular school activities any more. Now parents should remember that this is a very small minority – perhaps three children out of thirty.

Today, the search and rescue dogs came to play, but the children were so badly behaved, they left about as promptly as they came, and I am sure they will not be back.

Highlights?

We did a fine arts class today, and we looked at a set of books that cover the masters from the Renaissance to the Modern period. The children enjoyed looking. They liked the modern art as well as the more traditional styles.

We played with space mud today in a most egregious shade of purple and a lesser kind of brown. The children like this borax chicken liver stuff.

We had pizza for lunch and played a lot outside.

Monday is our last toy day. We will finish testing the toys and then we will settle down to our regular routine.

Day Care and Colds
By Henry J. Fishman, M.D.
ConsumerAffairs.Com
October 17, 2005

Dr. Henry Fishman• New This Week• Previous Topics• About Henry Fishman• Radio Features

Kids in day care have more colds early in life and fewer later on, according to an article published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

Doctors studied 991 kids. They found that kids in large day care centers had almost twice as many colds at age 2 as kids who stayed home.

However, later on, elementary school kids ages 6 to 11 who attended day care as toddlers had one third as many colds as kids who did not attend day care.

By the age of 13, day care and home kids had about the same rate. How come?

Well apparently, exposing toddlers to germs led to colds but also stimulated their immune system to fight infection later on.

In other words, they developed some immunity. These results support the idea that exposing kids early in life to germs helps prevent infections and allergies later on in life.

While experts don’t all agree with this, and you don’t want to purposely get your kids sick, going to day care early may, over the long term, help your kids stay healthy.

Gretchen Wright
October 14, 2005 202/371-1999
Lights On Afterschool Is On BaseAfterschool Programs on Military Bases Join National Rally

This month, military installations across the country and around the world will host events as part of the sixth annual Lights On Afterschool, the nation’s largest rally for afterschool.

Programs will open their doors to tell their communities about the academic and enrichment activities they offer children. The JCPenney Afterschool Fund is the National Presenting Sponsor of Lights On Afterschool, which is organized by the Afterschool Alliance.”We are proud to play a leading role in our nation’s largest rally for afterschool,” said Wynn Watkins, Chairman of the Board of the JCPenney Afterschool Fund.

“Each year more and more of America’s families turn to quality afterschool programming to keep their children safe and constructively engaged during out-of-school hours. Consequently, the Lights On Afterschool annual events continue to build in terms of participation and impact.
Our organization is honored to support Lights On and pleased to see the growing attention it brings to this very important issue.”

Lights On events being held on military bases include:U.S. Army Bennett Youth Center on the Schofield Base in Hawaii will hold an open house with a carnival theme on October 19 from 3:00 to 5:30 pm to promote the Center’s services with the families on the base. The open house will feature information booths, as well as face painters, bouncers and carnival games.

For more information, contact Sam Thompson, US Army Bennett Youth Center, 808-655-4641.

Hanscom Air Force Base Youth Center in Massachusetts will hold an open house on October 20 from 4:00 to 6:00 pm that will feature arts and crafts, cooking, dance and Ultimate Basketball. The children will earn “Power Points” for each activity they complete and use those points to buy prizes at the Power Point Prize Fair.

For more information, contact Julie Fredrick, Hanscom AFB Youth Center, 781-377-o226.

Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota will host an open house on October 20 at 4:30 pm at which afterschool students will make presentations addressing why they like their afterschool program and program staff will speak about the importance of afterschool.

For more information contact Amy Cook, Ellsworth AFB Youth Center, 605-787-9176.

On October 20 from 3:30 to 5:30 pm, the Lackland Air Force Base Youth Programs in San Antonio, Texas will celebrate Lights On Afterschool by kicking-off “Fit Factor,” a program for youth ages nine to 18. Afterschool students will receive achievement awards and parents and others will have an opportunity to learn more about afterschool activities at information booths.

For more information, contact Joanna Rios, Lackland AFB Youth Programs, 210-671-2510.

“That such diverse communities come together to celebrate Lights On Afterschool is a tribute to the reach and power of the issue,” said Afterschool Alliance Executive Director Jodi Grant.

“On military bases and farming communities, in small towns and big cities, people are coming together to say that our children need more of the afterschool programs that keep kids safe, help working families and inspire children to learn.”

Lights On Afterschool began in October 2000 with 1,200 events across the country. Last year, more than half a million people rallied at 7,000 events to show their support for afterschool programs. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is National Chair of Lights On Afterschool, a position he has held since 2001.

A complete list of Lights On events is available online here

The Afterschool Alliance is a nonprofit public awareness and advocacy organization supported by a group of public, private, and nonprofit entities working to ensure that all children have access to afterschool programs by 2010.

More information is available at http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/.

The JCPenney Afterschool Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that supports programs designed to keep kids safely and constructively engaged during out-of-school time. The Fund’s contributions allow for the creation and continuance of afterschool programs aimed at the academic, physical, and social development of children throughout the U.S. The JCPenney Afterschool Fund also works to raise awareness of the benefits of afterschool programming, and is committed to ensuring that every child has access to the world of opportunities that awaits them after school.

Miracle Blanket Joins Forces with Operation Special Delivery
Military Wives Now Receiving a Little R & R after Giving Birth While Dad is Away at War

Medford, Oregon
October 12, 2005
Announcing the birth of a joint task force as The Amazing Miracle Blanket® partners in sponsorship of CAPPA’s Operation Special Delivery (OSD) with the donation of hundreds of limited edition camouflage Miracle Blankets. The highly valued OSD labor doula program provides volunteer doulas to military wives during wartime as they welcome newborns while dad is on deployment.

“We are absolutely thrilled to have the backing of The Miracle Blanket Company as we support our troops and their families who are already sacrificing so much,” said OSD Director and CAPPA doula Val Staples. “I can’t imagine a better tool than the Miracle Blanket as it will offer tremendous relief and comfort for these new moms who, after the stress of giving birth, will be handling the load of caring for their baby without the support of their partner.”

Indeed duty calls around-the-clock for these solo moms. The non-stop diaper changes, feedings, spit-ups and the oh-so-deafening, sometimes non-stop cries of a fussy or colicky newborn can break even the strongest mother’s will. But armed with parenting know-how as offered by OSD doulas and now The Miracle Blanket, these moms will be better prepared to go at it alone until dad comes home.

While doulas will lend emotional, physical and mental support before and during delivery, The Miracle Blanket® will help mom and baby get the rest they need to empower mom to care for her newborn more easily. As recommended by hundreds of pediatricians, doulas, OBGYN’s and tens-of-thousands of parents around the world, The Miracle Blanket offers the most effective way to calm a fussy or colicky infant allowing mom and dad, or just mom in this case, to get some much needed rest.

“I couldn’t imagine a better fit as we’re always looking for meaningful ways to thank these incredible men and women for the sacrifices they make for our country every day,” said Michael Gatten, creator and owner of Jaydler Limited, parent company of The Miracle Blanket. “To work with an outstanding organization like CAPPA and at the same time to be helping out our troops is truly a great honor indeed.”

And it’s not just any Miracle Blanket these moms will be using. In honor of their solo-mission they’ll be using a special, limited edition Miracle Blanket designed just for them. At the request of CAPPA, the Miracle Blanket Company produced a special, limited edition, baby-colored camouflage blanket that will be donated to these deserving families. Also, a limited number of additional camo Miracle Blankets are being made available for sale to the public on the company’s web site at http://www.miracleblanket.com/ with proceeds going to help OSD’s efforts to support military families.

The specially designed camouflage Miracle Blankets are being unveiled NOW through Sunday at the 6th Annual International CAPPA Conference in Garden Grove, California at the Hyatt Regency Orange County.

Jaydler Ltd. is a privately held corporation based in Medford, Oregon. Michael D. Gatten formed the company in early 2002 to produce and distribute the Miracle Blanket®. Primary distribution is via the Internet, as well as through pediatric offices, maternity wards and select childcare professionals. Sales have spread throughout the United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, Switzerland, Canada and Australia, as well as in Japan and the Philippines on U.S. military bases. http://www.miracleblanket.com/.

CAPPA’s Operation Special Delivery is part of the CAPPA Foundation, a non-profit organization. CAPPA/OSD consists of professionally trained Labor Doulas. Labor Doulas provide informational, emotional and physical support during pregnancy, labor, and the early postpartum period. Studies show that doula services result in many benefits, including a shorter labor, a less painful labor, a significant reduction of cesarean births and a reduction of developing postpartum depression. CAPPA/OSD provides Volunteer Labor Doulas to ALL 50 states and all U.S. military installations and personnel worldwide. http://www.cappa.net/ www.operationspecialdelivery.com