Click, Clack- Gah! Moms Who Read and an 8 Year Old Who Lost That Love and Feeling

 

This is my weekend stack. The bound text I brought home with me, anyway.  This doesn't count the websites, blogs and articles I read online and with my phone.  2 bags and a crate- that's how I carried it.  I am taking a master's class for a new teaching certification, so some of these books are for reflections and case studies that are due Tuesday.  All in all it will be synthesised in a total of 12 pages.

 

I compare this stack to my husbands:

 

Not very different. He is currently in school full time getting his RN. 

 

What literacy skills will the boys need to make them lifelong, responsible members in our society?  It has me thinking.  My 8 year old is a great reader- by no means is he an avid reader.  Anymore. He has lost a passion for it.  I take him to the library weekly. He has 2 magazines that come to our house each month.  I've given him my Kindle so he can experience digital text. He uses my account on Big Universe to read his required daily minutes.

 

Whenever it's reading time he always asks, "how long?" He never used to ask that.  We would read for hours-book after book. Some books we made with pictures of our family at the zoo, on the farm, on vacation.  Some books were favorites that we read to we both had memorized. I've introduced James to favorite characters like Ralph the mouse, Stuart Little, Gregor the Overlander. But now as a second grader- every time we read, he sets his timer takes his position at the table and waits for the minutes to pass. This is a shift for our family- required reading minutes and a 6 column reading log that needs to be completed nightly.  Title, author, genre, pages read, minutes read- really?  Why should an 8 year-old document his pleasure reading time like a 40 year-old women tracking her points on Weight Watchers. (No offense 40 year-old women on WW.) Tracking his reading outside of school will not allow my son to become a better reader, in fact this practice has had an opposite effect on him. So the reading log routine has gone to the wayside and is reflected in his report card with a check instead of a plus. But that's okay.

 

 He'll come back, some day. For now his brother crawls in my lap with book after book, developing early reading skills. When James finds him holding a book upside down, or in the quiet early morning hours I overhear him saying, "no, you hold it like this." and "That's a favorite, can I read it to you?" For now, I will continue to feed his reading life and the book lover inside of him that's lost for a little while. 

 

Here are a few photos of this week in pictures:

 

James spent his birthday money on a trampoline. Why yes, there are books in the background and a Christmas tree.

Toby and I had some one on one time so we walked to the University so he could buy me fro-yo!

Our first sledding expedition. One Beaver was complaining about going down the hill, the other Beaver did not want to come back up the hill and Dad Beaver was complaining because it was too cold to be standing on top of the hill.  Lesson learned: leave the crabby Beavers at home and hit the slopes solo.

Presidents day at Deer Park- While the bread was for the deer, geese and llamas- as Beavers they took advantage and fed themselves.

Family Wellness Boot Camp- Toby the Wheel Barrow Champion. Made a fruit, cheese and ham kabob. Must have been the fuel he needed.

Holy Moly

I have a few things that have been on my mind lately.  Thoughts, ideas, wonders that I carry with me throughout my day. I bounce them around in my head on my runs. Lately, I have one little ping pong ball that has been kerchunking its way through the right and left sides of my temples.

As a parent, I am trying to do the best I can with what I know.  What I know is this. Matt and I are in survival mode. One of us walks in the door while the other hurricanes their way out the door.  Our days start at 6 am and we do not stop until baths are over at 730 pm. There have been days that have worn me down to the bone, so much that I am not present with my family.  In retrospect, I've taken energy and money from my family in order to have that energy and money for work. Not many professionals can say that in order to do work, they pay for supplies and materials, maybe the self-employed do. Lately I haven't felt like a good parent. Lately, I've felt like I've failed the boys.  Lately, I've felt like I'm driving this bus blindfolded.

I'm also having similair conversations with the staff in the building I work in. Many are feeling like they aren't doing enough...Our low is getting lower...I feel like a bad teacher...I've failed them because...But what is education to teachers today?  What is parenting to those who parent?  Why can't we shift our paradigm and change the way our model for education and parenting? 

Our staff discussed this video by Sir Ken Robinson:

I watched it a few times.  Once as and educator, once as a parent and once as a 80 year-old kermuggin.  This shift can be done.  The only way it can be done is together- together as a building, as a district, as a community, and as a nation.

The only way I can feel like a better parent is if I bring my team together for a little pep talk.  An honest talk about what being in this family means. We are great thinkers, we will no longer put our heads down and be miserable. My parents taught me that hard work pays off in life.  Hard work in here pays off "out there".  I still believe that today.  But as an educator I know my definition of work needs to change.  As a parent my definition of work needs to change.  The work that was done in classrooms 60 years ago should not and cannot be the work we give kids today.  The work that was done in families should not and cannot be the work we do as a family today.    
 
A lot of times people don't know what they want until you show it to them.
Steve Jobs

 If life is a game, aren’t we on the same team? I mean really, right? I’m on your team, be on my team.

So what now?  Come together, collaborate, inquire, question.  Let our kids learn to reason, but we must show them what that looks like.  Stop saying they can't when they can.  Stop thinking I can't when you can. But know that you aren't in this alone, that we are all in this together.