A Few Words from Bud..........

Black History Month

2012-02-12T12:40:00.000-08:00

Back when I was a young teacher, I used to struggle with thenotion of Black History Month or Women’s History Month. Why should we have a particular monthdevoted to these topics? Shouldn’twe instead work to change the history lessons and integrate African-Americans,women, and other typically underrepresented folks into our regularteaching? Doesn’t the act ofdedicating specific months to subjects such as Black History perpetuate theproblem in the teaching of history – that the canon is dedicated to the study ofwhite, male-dominated culture and all others are looked at as minor players onthe stage of history? Yes. At core, I still agree with thisperspective.

And yet, I have come to appreciate the importance of Black History Month. The reality is, even in 2012,African-American History in most elementary schools is still relegated to two topics – slavery and Martin Luther King. In fact, sadly, there are children inour elementary schools across the United States who think that MLK endedslavery! One (of many) problemsassociated with limiting the study of African-Americans to these two topics isthat it ignores vast extraordinary contributions made to American culture. Consider the poetry of Langston Hughes,the blues and jazz contributions of Billie Holliday and Louis Armstrong, or theartwork of Faith Ringgold. Aren’tthese worthy of study in any definition of an “essential” Americaneducation? Of course, and there isso much more.

While it is impossible for an elementary teacher to teach itall, Black History Month is a greatreminder to broaden their students’ breadth of knowledge and experience. I encourage educators at our school andacross the country to look at the vast resources on the internet that can makeAfrican-American History accessible to young people. The Education Department of the Smithsonian Institute is agreat place to start: http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/resource_library/african_american_resources.html. Another government sponsored siteis

http://www.africanamericanhistorymonth.gov/teachers.html

While I still believe that it is essential to “integrate”our study of history, I have come to believe that it is important for teachersto recognize Black History Month andfind ways to make the many aspects of black history evident to all children. Weowe it to all of our children.

Some Thoughts about Technology at TRS

2012-01-16T08:32:00.000-08:00

Here is a collection ofthoughts about the role that technology currently plays and will likely play inthe future of TRS classrooms. These thoughts are based on myconversations with the preschool and elementary faculty during my initial sixmonths at TRS.

1. All use of technologystarts from the school’s educational values and mission. We are a school with a deep commitment tohands-on, face-to-face, project-based, and inquiry learning. Our practice isguided by knowledge of how children learn, is child-centered, and useschildren’s development as a starting point.

2. We believe thattechnology use offers an additional set of tools that can help children learn.We do not believe that learning to use technology is an end in of itself.Rather, where developmentally appropriate, we seek to integrate the useof technology into the span of tools and content already available to teachersand students.

3. We believe that young children frombirth to 6 years of age should have minimal contact with computers during theirschool day. Most of our students have access to computers and smart technologyat home. We do not believe that children in this particular age group need morescreen time as part of their school curriculum.

4. Gradually, duringchildren’s elementary years, we introduce a variety of technological toolsincluding use of word processing, spreadsheets, presentation-software,interactive hardware and software, Internet-based material, and much more.

5. Across our school, wehave a high standard for our curricular and material choices for our students.Therefore, we choose technological exposure conservatively and with greatforethought. In using technology, we apply a set of questions that guide ourwork.

Does the use oftechnology…
a. enhance studentlearning?

b. emphasize the skillsof collaboration, teamwork, cooperative problem solving, and decision-making?

c. increase a student’sability to research and explore in-depth information on a given topic?

d. give students andteachers access to real world problems and offer opportunities forstudents to participate in realworld solutions and audiences?

e. help children linkwith others outside of TRS community and even across the globe?

f. enhance our teachers'ability to differentiate instruction for the span of our learners at ourschool?

g. enhance communicationand expressive skills?

h. promote opportunitiesfor the development of higher-order thinking skills?

i. promote active andexperiential learning?

j. teach our students touse these tools safely and ethically?

We understand that thetools of technology that we expose children to today will not be the same toolsthat they will use in the future. The world of technology is changing rapidly.Rather, we hope to offer students a set of attitudes, values, and skillsrelated to technology use that will carry them into their future schooling andbeyond.

MLK Day

2012-01-16T08:24:00.000-08:00

As we mark Dr. King's birthday, let's all commit and re-commit ourselves to his vision, his values, and his wisdom. As parents and teachers, this is our calling. Whether it is helping your child value human diversity, teaching them to make the world a better place, or reading about this man's heroic life, let's all do our share. There are many events around the Triangle. Attached are a few.

http://www.carolinaparent.com/articlemain.php?Celebrate-Martin-Luther-King-Jr.-and-Other-African-Americans-3175

Developing that Empathy Gene Part II - Manners

2012-01-03T06:08:00.000-08:00

We all can agree that developing a sense of empathy is important for our children. I take this as an assumption. I believe that all children are born with the capacity to be empathetic and kind. The capacity is inherent in humans and may in fact be one of the factors that distinguish us from some other species. I also believe that it is our duty as adults to cultivate in our children sensitivity to others and an understanding that in comparison to most children throughout the world, our children are extraordinarily blessed.

What role, then, do manners play in developing empathy in our children?

Recently, a child came to the office and said, “We need 10 copies of this sheet made.” I asked her to include a “please” in her request and then reminded her to say thank you when I finished and had handed her the copies. I have high standards in this arena. I believe that as adults we have an important responsibility to help young kids learn the conventions of manners and in doing so will give them a start down the path of developing true empathy and appreciation.

I remember a parent who strongly disagreed with me about the importance of manners. She argued that teaching manners was phony and a mindless convention. She believed that it was her job to teach her kids to be genuinely appreciative and that manners were to be expressed when they felt true appreciation for something.

While I agree that as parents we want to develop authentic appreciation in our children, I happen to also believe that teaching young children to participate in the rote habit of manners is a critical step in establishing authentic appreciation, empathy and sensitivity to others’ needs. I believe that having kids use please and thank you, holding the door open for others, shaking hands when introduced to a new adult, and saying good morning to teachers and parents (as examples) is important even from an early age. When my wife, Kathy, and I expected our own children to be well mannered – it was about thinking of others, not being self-centered or selfish, and putting one’s own needs into the larger context of the family’s or classes’. A favorite line is our family in, “It’s not all about you” when we were trying to signal that one of us is only looking at the world from our own perspective. I love it now when my own children call me on my own single-minded, selfishness.

Teaching manners is not easy work because young children are naturally egocentric. They are developmentally programmed to think of self first and foremost. Teaching manners alone will not develop true appreciation and empathy. But as kids grow, it is important to discuss with them why we use manners, why and how we think about other’s needs, and how we can show real respect for others in our family, community and the world. Developing life long attitudes of kindness, empathy and appreciation starts with some basic manners!

“Developing that Empathy Gene” - Part I

2011-12-05T13:19:00.000-08:00

Can we all agree that developing a sense of empathy is important for our children? I take this as an assumption. I believe that all children are born with the capacity to be empathetic and kind. The capacity is inherent in humans and may in fact be one of the factors that distinguish us from some other species. I also believe that it is our duty as adults to cultivate in our children sensitivity toward others and an understanding that in comparison to most children across the world, our children are extraordinarily blessed.

My next several blog entries will be devoted to what my wife, Kathy, and I referred to as “developing the empathy gene.” As parents, this has been a central theme of our parenting, our community engagement, and our hopes for our children’s education. As much as we care about their academic and athletic achievements, we are more passionate that our children be kind and caring human beings.

How does one help children develop this mindset? Over the course of several blogs, I will attempt to take several angles on this work.

First and foremost, if we want our children to be sensitive and caring individuals, then we must model that ourselves. You will hear this from me regularly. Children learn most from what we (adults) do rather than what we say.

The following quote is taken from a University of Alabama website for young parents. (http://www.pal.ua.edu/discipline/empathy.php)

“Above all, remember that parents are their children's first and most influential teachers. If we expect our children to grow into caring, empathetic adults we must model these behaviors. Let your children see your kind and thoughtful actions, hear you express your concern for the feelings of others, and demonstrate empathetic parenting. Listen carefully to your children and ask questions that help them clarify their thoughts and feelings. As their empathy grows because of your modeling, they'll be more able to relate deeply to others. They will also grow in their ability to practice good listening skills, help others, and show generosity.”

Our children are watching us closely. The attitudes we demonstrate each and every day will be imprinted in the minds and behavior of our children.

Coming up in future blogs I will discuss a variety of related topics including: the relationship between teaching children manners and empathy, empathy in the school curriculum, engaging in community service projects as a family and in school, and the importance of guiding children through their ego-centric phases all the way into adulthood.

"Holiday" Season

2011-11-28T11:40:00.000-08:00

One day last week, a child in one of our older grades said to me, “You may think that we are weird, but my family doesn’t celebrate Christmas.” Of course, my immediate response was to let him know that he wasn’t weird but in fact, quite normal.

This took us down the road of our varied religious backgrounds – mine being Jewish and his being Muslim. We shared our common childhood experiences of how awkward it feels when almost everyone around you celebrates something that you don’t. I shared with him my family’s responses to Christmas; we used Christmas as our travel day (the roads and airports were deserted) and when we weren’t travelling, we would to go out to a Chinese restaurant (which mostly never closes in NYC’s Chinatown.) He liked the travel day idea!!

As we move into this next phase of holidays and community celebrations, it is important for us remember this particular student, his feelings, and all of the children in a similar circumstance. Our culture has made Christmas so big (Black Friday, Cyber Week, etc.) that it is easy to get caught up in the hype and forget that not everyone shares the same religious views.

Some kids feel “weird,” left out, and less than, because their family doesn’t celebrate this one holiday. It can be lonely to be “the other.”

One of the best parts of our school, our community, and our nation is our pluralism. The fact that we have different beliefs is an asset to our community. From my perspective (and I will write more about this), diversity (of all kinds) makes us stronger and richer as a community.

I believe that it is important to teach our children that there are many different sets of beliefs, many different ways of being religious, and many different paths. Teaching our children to be accepting of difference, sensitive to the feelings of others, and yet, at the same time, proud of their own families’ heritage, values, and beliefs is vital. Just some more food for thought for your “holiday” table – whatever you celebrate.

Developing a Moral Compass

2011-11-18T05:14:00.000-08:00

When I was eight, I had an experience that changed my life. As a child, I loved red rubber balls. I would spend hours throwing the ball in a back alley of my apartment building in NYC pretending to be Mickey Mantle or Bobby Murcer. One day, I headed to the local “Five and Dime” to get a new ball. (I had very trusting parents who let me walk to school and around the neighborhood by myself at the age of eight.)

I had a dollar in my pocket – surely enough to get a new ball. When I got to the store, I found that they had two varieties of rubber balls. One cost 89 cents and the other $1.05. Naturally, I picked the first ball and went and paid at the register. When asked if I wanted the receipt, I declined. What would I need the receipt for?

Just outside the store, full of enthusiasm I tried out my new ball. It barely bounced! It was a dud! How could they make a red rubber ball that didn’t bounce? I was frustrated! This was not going to work. Without much thought, I walked back into the store and found both sets of balls again. I tried other balls in the 89 cent bin. None of them bounced!!! I then tried the $1.05 ones. A beautiful bounce! Perfect for the upcoming baseball game (in my head) back in the alley.

Realizing that I did not have enough money for the more expensive ball, I slyly took my 89 cent ball out of my pocket and returned it to the correct bin, put the more expensive ball in my pocket, and calmly walked out the door. Who would know? Who would care about the difference? I headed out the door and down the block.

A minute later, the store manager grabbed me from behind and accused me of stealing the rubber ball in my pocket. Frightened, I stammered out the explanation of what happened – admitting my crime and explaining about the two balls and the switch. I cried and apologized profusely. He didn’t believe me. He asked for the receipt. Hmm! We went back in the store and luckily (I guess) the cashier remembered me, verified that I had just paid for the original ball, and the manager sent me home with the non-bouncy ball.

As I left the store, I was shaking, confused, embarrassed, and petrified - petrified at what my parents would say and do. When I got home, it all just spilled out of me. I told my mother the whole story – sobbing from embarrassment. What was hard was that I had let my parents down. They trusted their children and held high expectations for us. I had let my parents down and I knew even then that I had let myself down.

I don’t remember the consequences that my parents meted out, but I do remember that they understood that I had already experienced some “natural consequences” and appreciated how awful I felt.

Of course, I did not write this blog entry just to focus on me. The development of ethics and morality in children interests me. According to a survey by the Josephson Institute of Ethics of 12,000 high school students, 74% admitted to cheating on an exam at some point during the past year to get ahead (www.josephsoninstitute.org).

This is disconcerting to say the least.

As parents, I believe we all should be cognizant about how we pass along to our kids a strong and resilient moral compass. Some things that I wonder include:

How do kids internalize a sense of values or a moral compass?

What role does adult modeling play?

How important are our words?

What are the important things to say?

How important is it to catch kids making poor judgments, and then hold them accountable?

What’s the right balance between consequences for moral lapses that are too harsh and ones that are too meager?

How important is it to catch kids making the right decision and subtly letting them know that they made the right decision?

What role does trust and high expectations play in developing that moral compass?

What role does the media (TV, movies, internet) have in determining our kids values?

How and when does peer influence begin to rival parent influence?

A book that I have just started on this topic is by Rushworth Kidder of the Institute of Global Ethics entitled Good Kids, Tough Choices: How Parents Can Help Their Children Do the Right Thing. It is organized by developmental age groupings: Birth to age 4, Five to age Nine, Ten to age Fourteen, Fifteen to age Eighteen and Nineteen to Twenty-Three (Yes, parenting goes all the way into the post-college era! Believe me!)

You may want to check out their blog for parents entitled Now What Do I Do?

http://goodkidstoughchoices.org/. I have linked this to my own blog as well.

As some of you have heard me say, parenting is one of the hardest (and most enjoyable) things that we will ever do with our lives. Let me know your thoughts so we can help each other.

Lying To Get on Facebook

2011-11-07T05:55:00.000-08:00

Recently, I came across an article from Huffington Post on the explosion of kids under 13 who are now on Facebook. There are similar articles in Time, Forbes, and MSNBC. As you probably know, Facebook has a minimum age of 13. In order to get around this limit, children and parents are faking birthdates to access Facebook’s site. This requires setting a fake birthday (to ensure the minimum age requirement.)

The article discusses a new study, "Why Parents Help Their Children Lie to Facebook About Age: Unintended Consequences of the 'Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. The study shows that:

“95% of the parents whose 10-year-old was on Facebook knew about it. 78 percent of them helped the kid sign up.

Of all kids under 13:

68% of parents helped their child create the account

78% of parents think it is OK for their child to violate minimum age restrictions on services”

While I am concerned about the use of social media by young children, I will save that discussion for another day. Instead, it is the sanctioned lying that draws my attention.

Children learn from our actions. In fact, more than our words, it is our actions that speak loudest to our kids. They are watching and learning from us (adults) all the time.

What is the lesson that children will learn by parents sanctioning their lies to Facebook? I believe the lesson is that it is okay to lie to get what one wants. Isn’t this the same as an underage teenager lying to obtain a false id and then purchasing alcohol? An impressionable young teenager might assume is it okay to lie about one’s age to get access to pornography. Is lying to Facebook different than lying to the government about one’s taxes? Or lying to colleges about what activities one really participated in? Where does lying end? Recently, the College Board just admitted that there are a significant number of cheating incidences on the SAT. Is this a surprise?

How is an 11-year-old to distinguish when it is okay to lie online and when it is not?

By no means am I saying that these examples will be the consequence of lying to Facebook. But by lying to Facebook (and parents sanctioning it), I believe that parents are giving a confusing and mixed message to our children. Maybe I’m overreacting. What are your thoughts?

2011-10-31T11:04:00.000-07:00

Logo Discussion #3

CooperativeCommunity: Bringing TogetherChild, Parent and School

I like triangles. Three sides, three vertices. No matter how you configure them, the angles always add up to 180degrees. No matter how one configures a triangle,all three sides are essential.

At The Raleigh School – students, parents, and teachers arerepresented by the triangle. Eachis critical to the healthy social and emotional development of youngchildren. Let’s look at each groupbriefly.

Two of the sides of the triangle are obvious ones – studentsand teachers. Children learn bestin a social context. Childrenlearn an enormous amount from other students. Schools like TRS that promote collaborative learning teachchildren to see others as a resource and not as competitors. Most experts agreethat learning how to work together is one of the most essential skills of 21^stcentury learning.

While some would argue that we are about to see a reductionin the need for educators (as computers take on more of the work), I have nodoubt that even schools of the future will need passionate, caring, dedicated,and knowledgeable educators in the lives of young children. The Raleigh School’s cadre of educatorsare skilled at getting students into their “stretch zone” - that place betweensafety and panic – where learning is optimized.

What then, is the role of the third line segment - parents? First and always, parents are theprimary educators. No matter howmany hours a day a child spends at school, it is the working relationshipbetween parent and child that has an indelible imprint on his/her life.

As I shared with parents earlier in the year, we at TRS believethat it is critical for parents to be deeply engaged in their children’s schoolfor many reasons. Most importantly, it models for childrencollaboration, community, and the power of a small group of people who cometogether to make a difference in the world.

Secondly, research clearly shows that children of parentswho are highly engaged in their education do better in school, have increasedmotivation, greater self-esteem, and decreased use of drugs and alcohol as teenagersto name a few.

Other than be involved with the school, there are severalways that parents can help be that third line segment of the triangle. According to the Michigan Department ofEducation, “Familieswhose children are doing well in school typically exhibit the followingcharacteristics:

1. Establisha daily family routine. Examples: Providing time and a quiet place tostudy, assigning responsibility for household chores, being firm about bedtimeand having dinner together.

2. Monitorout-of-school activities. Examples: Setting limits on TV watching, checkingup on children when parents are not home, arranging for after-school activitiesand supervised care.

3. Modelthe value of learning, self-discipline, and hard work. Examples: Communicatingthrough questioning and conversation, demonstrating that achievement comes fromworking hard.

4. Expresshigh but realistic expectations for achievement. Examples: Setting goalsand standards that are appropriate for children's age and maturity, recognizingand encouraging special talents, informing friends and family about successes.

5. Encouragechildren's development/ progress in school. Examples:Maintaining a warm and supportive home, showing interest in children's progressat school, helping with homework, discussing the value of a good education andpossible career options, staying in touch with teachers and school staff.

6. Encouragereading, writing, and discussions among family members. Examples: Reading,listening to children read and talking about what is being read.”

It takes a cooperative community of parents and teachers tosupport a child’s healthy intellectual, social, and emotional development.