This article is important to show the world wide problem of teaching little kids. It almost makes one believe it can’t be done.

Once I was in New York City with my family – touring. I’ve lived in lots of big cities across the nation, so big cities are not new to me – just not my thing, but I thought my own children should see NYC up close. Anyway, we were right behind the Daily News building when we came across a lot of “suits” looking down on a small two inch finch that had for some reason downed in the middle of town. Nobody wanted to touch it. It’s a bird – it won’t bite. It has a soft bill and no teeth – I promise. So I asked if they would let me take the bird. The suits (business men) were so grateful. I put the tiny bird into a popcorn bag and released it later.

The simplest things like birds and working with children seem to be such huge ordeals all over the world. I think our problem is nature. We are trying so hard to harness nature that we don’t have time to see that we only need to relax and watch nature to be able to step in and work with it. Teaching a three year old is not hard if you watch how they learn. It’s like the suits. There’s this huge block of suits behind desks trying desperately to dictate how to create this mega nationwide preschool program for children.

Here’s the answer: grab a popcorn bag blow it up, pop it and talk to children about the things they see. Grab a book and read it and bring them into the reading. It could be the dictionary, they don’t care, they just want the human contact, the love, the interest, neat stuff to know, and try. A good preschool program isn’t written in dark suited closets, it’s lived every day just a little differently because every day in the life of a child is different.

How do you know how to do this? It’s easy if you know how to live yourself.

CHENNAI :
The new syllabus for kindergarten in matriculation schools promises to change the face of early childhood education in the State, according to members of the Tamil Nadu Forum for Crèche and Childcare Services (TN-FORCES).

However, lack of governmental will and absence of adequate number of trainers for pre-primary teachers could slow down its implementation, they said.

There are some schools which have not yet received the new syllabus and several more where teachers were not informed of the new syllabus that came into force in the 2005-2006 academic year. The syllabus takes into account that children are beginning to attend school from as early as three years. Outdoor activities, games, oral recitation of numbers and alphabets are some of its units, with an emphasis on activity rather than the 3Rs.

Teaching the new syllabus will require most of the pre-primary teachers to radically change their teaching regimes.

Educationists pointed out that pre-primary teachers are on the lowest rung of the teaching hierarchy.

They are also worried about the mushrooming of teacher training institutes in the State with no recognition or proper guidelines, often run by trainers with little or no back ground in early childhood education (ECE).

Trainers have said that a teacher trainer needs a background in ECE with practical experience to conduct programmes. There were no government-recognised qualifications for pre-primary teachers, until the Tamil Nadu Open University introduced the Diploma in Pre-Primary Education recently.

“Though the diploma can be administered in 198 centres, none of these centres have had training in the teaching of the course itself,” said Prema Daniel, consultant on early childhood education.

Curriculum formulation

Ms. Daniel has been part of an initiative to formulate a curriculum for ECE teacher training. Their proposed curriculum now awaits the recognition of the National Council for Teacher Education. TN-FORCES is trying to partially remedy the lack of experienced teacher trainers with a workshop to emphasise the methodology of training in early May. Linked to the new syllabus, it will be conducted by experts such as Meena Swaminathan and representatives from the Indian Council for Child Welfare, Vidya Vikasini and Kothari Academy.

The workshop will aim to introduce the participants to the modern trends in ECE and provide knowledge of how children develop and learn.

Organisers also hope that it will enable teaching through the experiential method and help implement and monitor courses in ECE.

The workshop is scheduled to be held from May 2 to 5 at the ICSA on Pantheon Road, Egmore. For details, contact TN FORCES on 28175659.

This is Floyd and Ethel just hanging out over at the big public pond in Washington. They’re expecting, and I thought a nice picture to send to the family….

Some of you have asked about the cheese sauce we use at the GS. Since it’s Easter and most of us have some cooking to do, I’m publishing this today – better late than never. This cheese sauce can be used in chicken pot pie, quiche, mac and cheese, scalloped potatoes, and over anything else that needs a cheese sauce. For a total protein effect, use only dairy products. Remember low fat means high sugar and fake anything tastes fake.

For a big family or a half gallon:

1/4 cup butter or margarine or olive oil – melt or heat
1/4 cup flour – any kind – make a paste

6 cups of milk – any kind – stir with a whisk until smooth.

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese. You can use American, Parmesan, Swiss, but not oil based – makes it taste like soap.

At this point add two tablespoons ground chicken bouillon and a little salt.

When it comes to a boil, remove and add 1 cup of sour cream.

Pour over sliced potatoes, cooked mac, or anything else. You can bake this stuff again.

It’s either the cholesterol for the week or a child’s protein for a day.

I made candy last night for Annie and Molly. It’s rocky road:

In a Cuisinart, put 2 sticks of margarine or butter, a box of powdered sugar and grind into a paste. Add 1/4 cup cocoa, a handful of walnuts, a handful of coconut, a handful of chocolate chips, a handful of little marshmallows. Stir – don’t grind.

Roll dough into balls and put into the freezer for 20 minutes.

Stab each one with a tooth pick or the prongs from last year’s turkey harness.

Dip the balls in a combo of melted chocolate and a little paraffin if you have it.

Happy Easter

A Bunny Story from Beliefnet

Once upon a time there was a man who was peacefully driving down a windy road. Suddenly, a bunny skipped across the road and the man couldn’t stop. He hit the bunny head on. The man quickly jumped out of his car to check the scene. There, lying lifeless in the middle of the road, was the Easter Bunny. The man cried out, “Oh no! I have committed a terrible crime! I have run over the Easter Bunny!”

The man started sobbing quite hard and then he heard another car approaching. It was a woman in a red convertible. The woman stopped and asked what the problem was.The man explained, “I have done something horribly sad. I have run over the Easter Bunny. Now there will be no one to deliver eggs on Easter, and it’s all my fault.”

The woman ran back to her car. A moment later, she came back carrying a spray bottle. She ran over to the motionless bunny and sprayed it. The bunny immediately sprang up, ran into the woods, stopped, and waved back at the man and woman. Then it ran another 10 feet, stopped, and waved. It then ran another 10 feet, stopped, and waved again. It did this over and over and over again until the man and the woman could no longer see the bunny.

Once out of sight, the man exclaimed, “What is that stuff in that bottle?”

The woman replied, “It’s harespray. It revitalizes hare and adds permanent wave.”

Yes! Miss Abby is helping the other children with their math by going to the board and explaining how we get the answer right! Indifference and knowledge are two very different things. Perhaps numbers are not important to her.

Numbers became very important to my son when he flunked algebra as a freshman. It was at that point that he realized it was a matter of being in the race or out of it. I bought him a $2.00 desk at an auction – a big thing that would seat eight so he would have a real place to do what he wanted to do – that’s a mother’s job – to provide a place, and a time and the enthusiasm surrounding the deed – and he went to work learning all about math on his own. His problems are still on the desk. I flipped the top and keep the precious work as a memory. He now has a degree in math and does quantum mechanics for fun on the way home from work for fun. “I don’t deal in real numbers, Mom,” he has been known to say. That’s for sure.

Personally, I couldn’t care less about numbers. I took algebra, geometry, integrated algebra and trig, did a little calculus and touched on statistics in college, but I was more of a guest in the classroom than a participant. I was polite, I held the door, and my tests were neat. I even put my name on them.

In my adult life, give me a budget parameter and I will stay within my limits because I believe in fair play. If someone else is going to do the numbers, I’ll play fair. But everyone uses simple arithmetic every day, and we need to have some concept of what numbers are and how they can be used.

If you are a baker like I am, you need to know the difference between a teaspoon of baking powder and a tablespoon. If you need to know how many feet there are in the room by eye, you better be able to come close. If a recipe for pancakes is one thing, you better be able to quadruple it without the baking powder exploding. You need to understand why double bed sheets only go on one way and king both ways. You need to understand temperature degrees and whether you’re going to kill something if you put it out too soon. You need to know how many cans of cat food you need a day and be able to multiply that by seven and then cross reference the weight to know whether your car load will manage to carry it, and how many miles your car gets to the gallon – or in my case gallons to the mile.

If you’re at the store and the cash register is broken, it’s one thing to be able to console the young girl behind the counter, but it’s another to be able to do the change making. “Just count up.” “Up from what?” “From the price plus the tax to the ten dollar bill.” “Huh?” And I thought my math skills were poor.

Teaching math to 4-5s is fun because they discover. Now here’s the picture: There’s this pernicious little chart in a soft blue and yellow that is taped onto the blackboard. The children brilliantly ignore it. “What’s that?” Avoidance is a passion they are adept at. No one answers. “Here’s a copy of it,” and I put a paper in front of each child. “These are the numbers from 1 to 100. There are rows and columns. Let’s understand the terminology: a row goes across like this, and the columns go up and down like this. Now put your finger on the ten,” and so goes the lesson.

We will continue to explain that each row contains ten numbers that relate to one another by a similar tens count. Each ROW has the same number of tens – 21,22,23,24 – each have two tens and a certain number of ones.

In a column the last number is the same: 6, 16, 26, 36, 46. So finding a number is easy if you know that you need to find the tens and the ones. 36 – find it. Either go to the six column and count down, ones, tens, twenties, thirties bingo. Or go to the left side and count ones, tens, twenties thirties and then find the six. This is a matter of following a scheme or a formula. Kids will be using simple and complex formulas all their lives.

My goal is to allow this age child to discover fewer and more, what “how many” really is, ones and tens and why, and a sense of what a ten based number system is all about. Writing numbers is a matter of development just like handwriting. Bingo was never more complicated.

And who gets all these concepts? Abby. Now if I could get her to understand the baking powder, she could make the pancake batter…

The picture is a house on the battlefield of Gettysburg. I love the stone work. Can you imagine the math!

It was nice to hear from Mekhi’s mom. Mekhi was one of the most interesting children we ever had at the Garden School. Love to have him back this summer. Mekhi has a splendid ability to find humor in nearly anything. Tell a joke in class and among the straight faces, there is beaming Mekhi. He’s a heart warmer.

Yesterday Miss Kelly and I blended classes so the big kids could show the little kids how to.

We had a big sheet of 1=100 and played bingo. It was probably one of the best group activities we’ve had in a long time. Some of the little kids took right to the game with the older kids and did a presentable job. They seem to catch on with much quicker with another child showing them. That’s why student tutorials are so important. If it’s something a child has never done, and then sees another child do, you get not only incentive, but you get ways to do. What makes sense to me from years of experience does not always meet the minds of those just learning. It’s an interesting concept.

The question is not, “Then why don’t you just let the kids teach the kids?”

The teacher has the whole picture. She understands the whole concept, but there are short cuts that wily children will deduce and show the next kid if he’s allowed to. That’s why a more open atmosphere is a good thing in early childhood. When a child who knows is able to teach another, the teaching child learns as well. If you can teach something, you really know it. And by the way, mom and dad, Abby is teaching math for me.

We also made words yesterday as a combined group. We took purple domino plus sized paper with consonants or mouth sounds and we used vowel or air sounds in other colors to make words. The color coding was supposed to help, and for some children it did. The children liked the game a lot, and the younger kids did as well as the older children. When a child made a word, he raised his hand and told a teacher and we gave him a penny. He took home his pennies in a stapled Dixie cup.

Winners: Yuta, Austin, Jack, Madison, Peyton, Ty, Hadley. They all got a big candy bar from the kitchen.

We had homemade deep fried chicken nuggets and shrimp nuggets, chocolate chip homemade muffins, oranges, apples, noodles, and milk for lunch yesterday. The kids really liked this and asked for more.

This summer will be a lark as far as new fruits and vegetables. Today is a pizza day. We also stocked up on Popsicles.

Bathroom help: Please help your child learn the GS way of washing. You know how dirty our playground is. When we come in, we wash. We apply soap to our hands and arms clear to the elbows. Then we approach the running water and wash it all off. Then we wash our face with our wet hands. Then we wash off our hands again.

When children approach a running sink, and just stand in front of it, or apply soap and let the soap glob run down the sink, they are not washing. They are wasting time. Dry hands and soap make a child work at this, and that’s what they need to do.

Bathrooms are not places to mingle and socialize. Talking in the bathroom will result in a blue face.

I sent home three pages for some children of songs. Please help the children with the words. It’s for the Spring Sing. The psalm is from Daniel.

We are off on Friday. Please take note.

Please pick up a copy of the new magazine Evansville Parent. It looks like a winner.

I’m posting this because we need to know these things.

STROKE: Remember The 1st Three Letters…2006

STROKE IDENTIFICATION:

My friend sent this to me and encouraged me to post it and spread the word, I agreed. If everyone can remember something this simple, we could save some folks. Seriously . please read:

During a BBQ, a friend stumbled and took a little fall – she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics) and just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes. They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food – while she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the afternoon. Ingrid’s husband called later saying that his wife had been taken to the hospital and passed away. She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today. Some stroke victims don’t die, they end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.
It only takes a minute to read this…

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within three hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke . . . totally. He said the trick was having a stroke recognized, diagnosed and then getting the patient medically cared for within three hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE:

Thank God for the sense to remember the “3” steps.
Read and Learn!

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke. Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

S *Ask the individual to SMILE.

T *Ask the person to TALK, to SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE. (Coherently) (i.e. . . It is sunny out today)

R *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.

NOTE: Another ‘sign’ of a stroke is this: Ask the person to ‘stick’ out their tongue . if the tongue is ‘crooked’, if it goes to one side or the other, that is also an indication of a stroke.
If he or she has trouble with any one of these tasks, call 911 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to ten people, you can bet at least one life will be saved.

This is a picture of JFK’s grave.

Mondays are tough on little kids. Whatever the mood at home was over the weekend is left over on Mondays in the child’s mind. It’s the cat herding game. We read books in our class again today and it was a slow go – like they had never done it before – until I got the candy box out.

We did a math thing I had to ask Miss Kelly about because it was such a slow go, I thought perhaps it was way way over their heads. Mrs. St. Louis has a number chart to 100. It has columns and rows. The numbers go left to right from one to 10 and then left to right 11- 20 and all the way down to 100 in the right bottom corner.

Because it begins with one at each row, the columns are also identifiable as 4’s, 5’s, 6’s, etc. 26, 36, 46, 56, are all in a row going down, so asking the group what 26 is, and then the next 36 should have been a fun game, but even when I got their attention, it was a slow go. Abby won an egg because she was the only child in the class who could match a flashcard with a space on the chart. We will play with this again today.

We will be sending home a list of words to play with. The children should be able to read some words we have studied in the classroom. It would be fun to let them build sentences at home.

I’m writing a series for WFIE on the state of childcare locally. If anyone has anything to add, please let me know. Part of the problem of staffing locally is the inability to pay. Paying an employee is a matter of respect. Who do we respect and what are we willing to offer? What do you think your childcare provider makes and what are her expenses for working? When you think of the money poured into early childhood and you look at the toy status, and you look at pay and you look at food, where is the money going? Is it going to the children via good care or is it disappearing into the “programs” no child ever sees?

I’d like to get two baseball teams started at school. We need a T. I think a rubber plumbing pipe sunk into a bucket with concrete ought to do it. Anyone volunteer to make one? I have the baseballs. We need a few mitts and some giant beanbags for bases and some pennies. Kids will play so long as the game moves quickly and they understand what they are supposed to do. This is something we could do all summer.

This month is spring sing and the kids have chosen a lot of the songs. The ones they have liked this year are the songs we are singing. I’m sending home some parts to work on.

We’re still working on the summer program. Gas is really rising, and that’s a problem. One of the things we thought of was to add some fun to the children’s day were some “in school” activities we haven’t done for a long time like pulling taffy and making boats to sail and then sailing them in blow up pools. We’re putting our heads together to make this an outstanding summer. Please offer ideas as they come.

Thanks Hadley for the birthday greeting. I love you!

This is an interesting piece because once again it’s wrong. Labeled with intent to label!

I think what legislators don’t realize is that the investment of learning for a child ages 3-7 is not one for the future, but one for the present. Young children don’t begin to learn at 7. They learn from conception, and the ability to retain knowledge and build on what they do comes at varying ages. The idea that we would “educate” children at 3 so that they will be ahead at 7 is barbaric.

Ahead is only doable if the home is academically bent. You could put a dictionary into an infants hands and read Shakespeare to him non stop for ten years, but if the parents are not readers, the chances that he will be a lover of literature is slight.

The whole project of education is “an investment” but not in the future. It’s an investment in the individual child with the hope that at the formative years – 3,4,5,6,7 – not 7…, something that will move them for a lifetime will take root.

This is a picture of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Compulsory attendance deserves F

By Michael Smith
April 3, 2006

Every year, in state legislatures across the country, numerous bills are introduced aiming to lower the compulsory attendance age for children to enter school and lowering the age for state-funded kindergarten. These types of bills have been introduced this year in Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Minnesota, New York, South Carolina and South Dakota.

The argument for placing increasingly younger children into school is that it will improve academic attainment. It is believed that because of their early entrance, the children will be ready to learn when they enter the formative years of education. The idea of preschool is not original to the United States.

In Europe, where governments provide care and schooling for children as young as 1 year, billions of dollars are spent on these programs designed to give children a head start in their education and socialization. Questions are now being raised, however, whether early entrance into school actually accomplishes the desired purpose.

In 2000, the Program for International Study Assessment (PISA) compared the academic scores of children from 32 industrialized nations in reading literacy, mathematics and science. The results showed that children who have to start school at a very young age do not consistently outperform those who start later.

In a 1999 study reporting the Third International Mathematics and Science results (TIMS) for the eighth grade, a comparable result was found. Despite having a compulsory attendance age of 7, which is later than almost any other European country, Finland held the top ranking in all test subjects.

Singapore, which also scored high in the PISA and TIMS assessments, does not have any publicly funded early education programs. On the other hand, Sweden, which has some of the most comprehensive early child care programs in Europe, was one of the lowest-scoring nations.
Closer to home, studies of early childhood education indicate it might not be in the best interest of children. David Elkind, professor of child development at Tufts University, wrote in 1987: “When we instruct children in academic subjects … at too early an age, we miseducate them; we put them at risk for short-term stress and long-term personality damage.”

In a 2005 Stanford University/University of California research study, “The Influence of Preschool Centers on Children’s Development Nationwide,” it was reported: “We find that attendance in preschool centers, even for short periods of time each week, hinders the rate at which young children develop social skills and display the motivation to engage in classroom tasks, as reported by their kindergarten teachers.”

The Home School Legal Defense Association opposes these attempts to mandate early attendance for three basic reasons. First, there is not enough conclusive research data to prove that earlier is better for children. In fact, we’re now seeing that earlier may be worse for many children. Until there is conclusive evidence that mandated early childhood education in schools actually increases academic performance later, no state should fund mandatory programs.

Second, mandating early attendance violates parents’ fundamental, God-given right to direct the education of their children as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Third, the high cost to taxpayers to fund earlier and earlier entrance of children into school cannot be justified. In 1991, a bill was introduced in the Alabama legislature to lower the compulsory attendance age. The Alabama legislative fiscal office was asked to determine what it would cost the taxpayers to fund the program. The estimate was $4.7 million a year (1991 dollars).

It’s time for state legislators to make sure that lowering compulsory attendance ages is really in the best interest of society before asking the taxpayers to foot the bill. Every taxpayer should ask their legislators whether these programs are a good use of funds.

Michael Smith is the president of the Home School Legal Defense Association. He may be contacted at 540/338-5600; or send e-mail to media@hslda.org.

I was surprised to read the comment on the blog that included parrot bashing. Most of you don’t know that Edith and I have thirteen parrots at school. Most of them were born at the school and as they come out of their nesting boxes, Edith’s delight is always worth noting. “Oh, look at him. He’s beautiful.” Parrots are stunning birds right from the git go.

I’ve owned and raised parrots for over thirty years. Parrots are one of the most interesting and intelligent birds I know. I’ve also raised robins and starlings (starlings are outstanding animals) and chimney swifts. But parrots are my delight because they are so funny and so beautiful. At home I have a walk in cage. It’s empty now, except for an occasional sick wild cat, and my parrots are all down at school in a double wide walk in Robby made.

If you are looking for a gift animal for a child, a love bird makes a wonderful pet. They are best when they have someone to love – like another bird. They climb more than they fly, so a long cage is a good idea. Parrots are wonderful flyers. They have a strong body and take to the air with great delight. They appreciate being allowed to fly and will fly around the house if given a chance. I think with someone at home most of the time, one would only need a nesting box mounted on a high wall and not a cage at all.

Parrots are funny animals. They will approach nearly any food with interest and will “share it with you.” They are very loyal, very endearing and very long lived. Their health is a matter of good seed, a cuttle bone, gravel and grit and good clean water. They will take care of treats all by themselves if given a chance. Watch the fruit bowl!

The problem with parrots is not the mess as you would expect – they are fairly clean birds and their droppings actually make excellent plant food. It’s their call. Parrots are loud! They have a shrill monotone voice. Unlike a song bird, their deep demanding voice seems to caw rather than call. They seem to caw first and then copy a little like a dirge. It seems a bit lacking in creativity. I’ve always wondered if putting a song bird close to them would change the dirge.

Now to move from parrot bashing to something of substance. Images. An image is a writer’s description that allows someone to see what they see. A cash register receipt has no images. A poem is full of images. A well written piece for a column has a variety of news, information and images to make people laugh and to make people think.

People who know me know I love an image. But an image is not a category, a pigeon hole or a label simply because an image is ever changing. It’s a glimpse, a peek at something, and in the next seconds it could change. A label is a unfair assault on the ability of a human to make changes. “He’s retarded!” “She’s a labeler.” “He’s stupid.” We once had a young teacher who could not refrain from labeling everyone around her, and when she was taken to task for this, she left the school and began to label us in a most disturbing way.

We’ve had a lot of children come through the school who have been labeled by psychologists, social workers and other teachers which is unfortunately a crutch for people in those jobs who are uncreative enough to use images. We always nod graciously at the labels and go about doing our own thing. Mostly, the labels can be pealed off with enough images.

But no harm done. It’s a beautiful day and my family has already gathered today. My husband gave me a lovely bird feeder for my birthday with a cat on it. William took the tape measure outside to measure the cat. Jack got out the deck of cards to practice his tricks, and Molly and Rob drank coffee with me. Katy left for Alabama today just as Brendan called from Jacksonville and I got to talk to Elizabeth. Anne hopped in the jeep to go shopping for my barbecue later. It’s a faculty fest. See what happens when you let them grow up with a lot of freedom? They experience life with great gusto.

By the way, the picture is of the last battle site in Gettysburg. There were originally 90 cannons. It was sad. Katy and I took a long two hour car tour of the whole battle ground. More pictures to follow. It was eerie and sad – not to label but to draw an image – it was whistlingly eerie with strange shadows and an intermittent stillness. If you listened, you could hear the cries in the wind. The terrain differs greatly from large open fields to hilly and rocky sites where some of the bloodiest battles were fought.

What a lovely response to the last post. Thank you former parent. Blessings on your family.

I suppose we should just change those classroom designations and call them the Silver Room and the Gold Room. Mrs. St. Louis can call her class the Angels. The question of what goes on in those rooms would be the question most parents would ask, and the answer is kindergarten and first grade, so the circle goes round and round.

More than anything else, our curriculum is made for the individual child. We have a child who informed us about a week ago that he is smarter than both his parents and certainly all his teachers. “Great,” I said, “That’s just what I want to know. Tomorrow, you can do what scholars do – independent study. I’ll show you how tomorrow.”

So the next day, I told him to choose a book in the school from any of the libraries. “Science, history, geography, children’s shelves, teacher’s shelves – go choose, and he did. He chose a book off the science shelf about the sun.

“I want you to read as much of the book as you need to read to write three sentences. Then I want you to draw a picture of what you think the book said.”

In two hours he accomplished nothing.

“Self discipline is part of scholarship,” I remarked briskly. He gave me a wicked look. “Smart people finish assignments.” Scowl, scowl, scowl.

Truly it was funny. He was torn between two lovers – feeling like a fool. He was torn between pride and humility. Pride won. And pride that wins most often makes us look small again. I tried to explain to him that he has the brains and wit to accomplish great things, and this little assignment could have offered him a way and means and a scheme to learn more than any other child in the school, and through humility and duty he could achieve so much, but he preferred to succumb to pride and sloth. It is better to brag about one’s brain than to do the work necessary to use it.

It reminds me of two students we had last year. One could read anything in print. He actually read Chaucer in Middle English. And we had a little girl who was “learning” as she said to read. When it came time for the play, I asked the boy, because he was the better reader, to read the little Angel intro to the play. I noticed that he continued to mispronounce the same difficult words. He was absent one day, and I asked the girl to read for him. When she began, I began to listen carefully. She read slower than the boy but she didn’t mispronounce the words. And when I took each aside and asked them what they were reading, only she understood. He read like a parrot, she, like a scholar. She ended up reading the intro for the play. Both children were six.

Teaching children is not a “this then that” approach. Covering a text book and a list of “to dos” won’t cut it. Teaching why we learn, and what to look for when we learn, and being able to verbalize what has been learned as well as write about it is real learning. This starts at age three not thirteen.

One of my interests is how the eleven passions play off the virtues and the vices in every person I work with. Using the passions to attract virtue begins in the infant years. Virtue is a big part of growing up and staying up. It’s the gasoline for scholarship and the sign of being an adult.