Subject: The Puppy

Puppy Size

“Danielle keeps repeating it over and over again. We’ve been back to this animal shelter at least five times. It has been weeks now since we started all of this,” the mother told the volunteer.

“What is it she keeps asking for?” the volunteer asked.

“Puppy size!” replied the mother.

“Well, we have plenty of puppies, if that’s what she’s looking for.”

“I know…we have seen most of them,” the mom said in frustration…

Just then Danielle came walking into the office

“Well, did you find one?” asked her mom. “No, not this time,” Danielle said with sadness in her voice. “Can we come back on the weekend?”

The two women looked at each other, shook their heads and laughed.

“You never know when we will get more dogs. Unfortunately, there’s always a supply,” the volunteer said.

Danielle took her mother by the hand and headed to the door. “Don’t worry, I’ll find one this weekend,” she said.

Over the next few days both mom and dad had long conversations with her.

They both felt she was being too particular. “It’s this weekend or we’re not looking anymore,” Dad finally said in frustration.

“We don’t want to hear anything more about puppy size either,” Mom added.

Sure enough, they were the first ones in the shelter on Saturday morning. By now Danielle knew her way around, so she ran right for the section that housed the smaller dogs.

Tired of the routine, mom sat in the small waiting room at the end of the first row of cages. There was an observation window so you could see the animals during times when visitors weren’t permitted.

Danielle walked slowly from cage to cage, kneeling periodically to take a closer look. One by one the dogs were brought out and she held each one.

One by one she said, “Sorry, you’re not the one.”

It was the last cage on this last day in search of the perfect pup.

The volunteer opened the cage door and the child carefully picked up the dog and held it closely. This time she took a little longer.

“Mom, that’s it! I found the right puppy! He’s the one! I know it!” she screamed with joy. “It’s the puppy size!”

“But it’s the same size as all the other puppies you held over the last few weeks,” Mom said.

“No not size… the sighs. When I held him in my arms, he sighed,” she said. “Don’t you remember? When I asked you one day what love is, you told me love depends on the sighs of your heart. The more you love, the bigger the sigh!”

The two women looked at each other for a moment. Mom didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. As she stooped down to hug the child, she did a little of both.

“Mom, every time you hold me, I sigh. When you and Daddy come home from work and hug each other, you both sigh. I knew I would find the right puppy if it sighed when I held it in my arms,” she said.

Then holding the puppy up close to her face she said, “Mom, he loves me. I heard the sighs of his heart!”

Close your eyes for a moment and think about the love that makes you sigh. I not only find it in the arms of my loved ones, but in the caress of a sunset, the kiss of the moonlight and the gentle brush of cool air on a hot day.

They are the sighs of God. Take the time to stop and listen; you will be surprised at what you hear. “Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath! away.”

We often talk about the spoiled child with disgust. We label children as spoiled, we often fail to associate with spoiled children when we have a choice, and we certainly would choose just about any child who isn’t spoiled as a guest when we go someplace special. We all know what “spoiled” means, but do we really understand where it comes from?

It’s more than a child’s stumbling block. It’s more than a couple of years getting past a difficult “stage.” It’s a more than a poor parenting technique. It’s a matter of a human formation that has gone terribly awry. Formation is the building of a human being from the moment of conception to emancipation. At that point the child must form himself and we call it maturity. When that formation is squeezed too tightly into a narcissistic only profile, the child can’t help but be spoiled.

Tracking down the failure often means going back through the generations to find which bad example has misguided the child. Often it’s the mother because it’s her example that is most available to a child. Often it’s the mother’s mother who has set a selfish, mean spirited, me first example that haunts the whole family generation after generation.

The whole idea of “spoiled” comes from the inside out. A philosopher friend of mine once coined the expression, micropsychia. By that he meant someone’s soul was completely consumed by the tiniest of matters – namely self when the whole world was in front of them. A spoiled child learns from a spoiled parent that he is number one, the only one who really matters, and as long as he is satisfied completely in any situation the world is rosy. If follows course because the parent believes he or she is also the only one who matters. It is never a good thing. It is often creates a very evil situation because we are not talking about the body only. We are talking about the soul, and being “small souled” is a dangerous and separating thing from both God and man.

The traits of the spoiled child are tantrums, wailing without tears for things that they are “cheated” from having. The spoiled child feels entitled to everything everyone else gets no matter what. It’s almost funny because the spoiled parent will make sure that his or her child gets every single thing every other child has worked for no matter what. The spoiled child can never say thank you, please, excuse me, I’m sorry, or I was wrong. He breaks every rule and then is furious when caught. He lies, cheats, steals, and blames others for his poor behavior. These are learned traits because spoiled parents do the same thing.

The irony of the spoiled family is that the spoiled child is almost always found out to be a fraud. He or she is dressed to perfection, has all the right toys, does all the right activities, seems to have all the right stuff, but there is no substance, no genuineness, no depth – because he is small souled. The spoiled child rarely does well in school because even with some intelligence, there is the inability to give back what they have learned. It doesn’t matter until it shows on a report card and then it’s someone else’s fault.

One of the attributes to friendship that children learn early is called exchange. “I’ll play your game if you will play mine. I will give you half fo my ice cream if I can have half of your chocolate bar. I will let you watch your TV show, if I can watch mine later. I will help you clean your room, if you will help me clean mine.” These are ordinary swaps that later become adult swaps. We learn in childhood that other people matter and have needs and our help is an investment in the world around us. It’s called the human condition, and we learn to swap weaknesses and strengths with love and affection. It helps develop friendships and make the knowledge of one another important.

Spoiled children never offer to help anyone. They always seek help, take whatever is offered and never say thank you.

So how does a family turn spoiled into a geniune personality, something to be admired rather than something to be distained? It’s not easy to strip the whole tree. Examining their own behaviors and expectations and changing self centered and grabby handed habits and a me first objective into a world of give and take can be frightening to the family who has never done that.

Beginning to turn around from Narcissius’s pool might mean offering one’s time to another without expecting a return on the investment. Learning to give freely of time talent and treasure one bit at a time takes time. But one little step at a time would show Narcissius that there are other pools in the universe. Finding other people’s pools and recognizing other people as people would enlarge any soul. It would make the world a better place. It would encourage real friendships and a real knowledge of people.

Good Morning! Another challenging Monday. Calendars go out today. The month will be over before we know it.

This is a Plain Jane week. We will be attending to classes all week and still trying to get the kids outside.

Please check the weather for the afternoon to dress children properly. Cool mornings and warm afternoons make for uncomfortable kids if they are still wearing winter clothing.

Our Awards Day is May 15. It will be in the afternoon at 3:00 p.m. Please plan to stay for our picnic. The picnic will include hot dogs and drinks provided by the GS, and covered dishes provided by parents. Please plan to bring your child’s favorite dinner side.

We hope you are enjoying the artwork hanging in the library. Miss Elise puts something new there every day. The children have worked very hard this year to achieve some really interesting projects.

Miss Julie will be taking Miss Kelly’s place for the rest of the year. Please welcome her.

Have a great week!

From Teacher Magazine.

Comment: This is an excellent article and very close to my heart. I think Mary Tedrow hits the nail on the head. Education should be based on what we know. If you can’t write about it, you don’t know about it. It’s that simple. More writing would lead to better tests. Problem? Teachers would have to read it, and that means more time.

Published: April 22, 2009

Investing in Writing to Win the Ed Race

Classroom teachers are generally last in line when it comes to spending decisions and the first blamed when those dollars don’t result in student achievement. Given this history, it’s not likely that I’ll be asked to serve on a committee writing a grant for the “Race to the Top” money to be distributed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan this fall. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion on the matter.

Duncan says these grant dollars will flow only to states promising innovation. For most policymakers that means grand schemes—charter schools, fancy hardware, giant reading programs with discrete benchmarks, alternative paths to teaching, textbook adoptions, mountains of data and tests, tests, tests.

My idea of innovation calls for a quieter revolution, one with fewer bells and whistles. It begins by envisioning a quiet but humming classroom, where busy heads bend over pads of paper and hands scribble rapidly with pens or pencils.

If I were running the education world, I’d ensure that every building contain, at a minimum, one teacher trained through the National Writing Project in the teaching of writing and the use of writing to learn. Planting that single seed could revolutionize the way we look at students and student work.

The NWP has been transforming teachers from all disciplines and grade levels for over 30 years, and the track record of success is well documented. One study revealed that 98% of teachers in the NWP remained in education their entire careers, while 70% of those stayed in the classroom working with students. More to the point, perhaps, a recent meta-study of NWP research found that teachers who participate in Writing Project professional development outperform non-Project teachers on every measure of student achievement in writing performance.

But why pour dollars into effective writing-instruction? Well, I’ve come to believe—in part through my experiences with NWP—that writing is at the core of learning.

Writing as Making Meaning

From a teaching-and-learning perspective, reading is input – other ideas implanted from a variety of voices – and writing is output – a record of a student’s understanding of what those voices are saying. But though we spend barrels of money ensuring that students can read, we neglect to help our students make sense of what they’ve read, heard or seen by asking them to use the writing process for deeper thinking.

Teachers are quick to note that superiors seldom seek our advice, yet we rarely ask our students what is on their minds. We spend most of our time filling their heads, and carve out very little to discover how they are responding to and integrating what we’ve told them.

What is it they think they have learned? How does that learning fit into their lives? What connections can they make between the new knowledge and the old? Can they imagine a future where their new knowledge expands to resolve problems and issues? Opening a window into students’ thoughts is the only way to know for sure how well they “get” what we’re giving them. Notepads and pencils make excellent window-openers.

Why writing and not some other tool? Writing is thinking—one student sorting through his knowledge and understandings to produce thought. When a student learns something, she must first articulate it in her own language before she owns it. Writing gives every student in the room the time and space to do this important reflecting in a very personal—dare I say differentiated–way.

In a matter of minutes, writing can reveal a student harboring a huge misconception, a student imagining possibilities the teacher has not considered, or a student struggling to learn an important concept.

By not asking students to write, we are also ignoring their potential role in designing education as makers of meaning. Teachers dismissing student knowledge is akin to education policy makers dismissing teacher insights. In my classroom, my students’ written responses help me know them better and tailor my instruction to their interests and needs.

Still not convinced that true innovation in education lies in the paper and pen?

Try transforming your own classroom into a community of learners tomorrow. Ask your students to write about this: What is one thing we have done this quarter that you have enjoyed? What did you like about it? What is something you would like to see as a part of our classroom work? Why?

I guarantee they will respond with the same eagerness and insight you would, if I were to ask: What is one thing you would like to change about education in this country if you could?

You’ve already heard my answer. So go ahead – write away. What’s yours?

It’s always amazing to me to watch personalities. Personalities can be matched to a plate full of cookies. Some people actually take the trouble to make the cookies -for everyone. There are those who supply the plate or have the organizational skill that benefit everyone. There are those who share the cookies and create a happy place for everyone around them. And there are those who think the entire plate of cookies, plate, table, room, house, lot, street, town, state, country – in fact the entire world belongs to them – no duh!

Cookie plates begin in childhood. Sharing, giving, that sense of generosity is created in the home. It’s reinforced at school with good teachers who are generous and loving. All cookie plates are passed down from generation to generation. Going through life sharing, making, and organizing so everyone gets a part is a great way to go through life. The antithesis? It’s not even worth discussing.

Like every day, today was a cookie plate day at school. I watched as an incredible staff made cookies, found the plates and shared them with everyone. The kids got their fill today. There was no one who took the entire plate for him or herself.

I was delighted with my little class of cookies! Every one of my little guys knew their letters, and could tell me the sounds. Several of my kids knew the vowel sounds both the long and the short. This makes me very happy.

Today, Miss Elise set the second cage of butterflies free. The kids got to watch as the butterflies we had raised flew out into the world. It was exciting. It is always such a pleasure to work with an enthusiastic teacher who loves to share. Elise is a delightful teacher and really enjoys her time at the GS. She is young and beautiful and one of those plates of cookies that only has crumbs left because she shared every single one!

We are reading My Father’s Dragon after lunch. We are in the second book, and the children are really enjoying it. They are keeping up with the story and can answer lots of questions.

In French class, we are learning about food. Today Jill told me that we ate potatoes, apples, fish and cheese for lunch. We looked up the word corn together. Next week we will learn the body parts.

Miss Leigh spent the afternoon working on a special project for next week. SHHHHHH it’s a secret, and we are all excited to find out how this will develop! Miss Leigh is another fantastic teacher. I’m prejudiced, of course, because I’ve known her since she was a fat little new born butterball. Leigh is an exciting person to have around the children because she’s full of life and fun. I remember her as a young child and always thought – “Around Leigh, there is always a party.” She hasn’t changed a bit.

Miss Kelly has taken a leave of absence, and has been replace by Miss Julie. Miss Julie is really digging in on the children’s reading skills. This is her forte, and we are delighted to have her. She brings to the Garden School a steady loving interest, and a seriousness we really need. We are blessed to have her.

Next week the summer itinerary goes home. If you have any changes, please let us know. Thanks for a GREAT week!