What I want for Christmas

What I want *every day* for my kids is a good school, a real education, an engaging and invigorating environment that enriches their natural talents and encourages them to build new talent. Right?

Here are a few random points from what Aee's teacher talked about at Back-to-School Night:

* It took her no longer than three minutes to get to the part about "differentiating instruction for each child". Usually it takes teachers longer than that. If they get there at all. Differentiating instruction is difficult in any situation other than one-on-one tutoring.

* I have never heard "differentiating talk before, but it is usually in a flufy way. I hadn't heard someone speakd so specifically. She said she differentiates for *every* child. I'll have to see this to believe it. For now, I know that she's giving Aee appropriate reading (big delicious-looking chapter books!), spelling (big tough-looking words), math (exercises that are right up her alley) and other work that seems to fit her wonderfully. Her work is different from her peers. There's a chance that each child's work is different from the other. We'll see more as the year goes on.

I always suspected it was possible to fully differentiate a classroom, but the closest I have ever seen is teachers putting children on 'tracks" or in "groups" or otherwise segrating groups of kids who fit into a close-enough-to-this-peer category.

Yesterday when I came to pick the kids up from their afterschool program, I saw Aee and her teacher sitting on one of the picnic benches outside, under the trees which were blowing a bit in the wind. Aee was doing a reading test, smiling (at the book, not at me). When the teacher and Anna saw me, they both said, "Aw, we're not ready yet!" The teacher asked if I could come back in a little bit.

It was 4:40 pm.

My comment was, "Are you doing testing outside of school hours so that you can generally improve the quality of instrution during regular classtime?"

She smiled and turned back to the test.

Sweet!

Sleep

Tonight, at 10:01 pm, my son said, "I'm going to go comatose now and hallucinate vividly, then maybe in the morning I will have amnesia about those hallucinations. See ya."

Translated: "I'm going to bed now. See ya."

Ha.

Sigh of relief

Every parent of a teenager dreads the day when they find something in their teenager's room or in their pants pocket while doing the wash.

As I was doing laundry today, I noticed a bump in my son's cargo pants side pocket. I cringed.

You can imagine my relief when I pulled out...










a mouse pad.

Whew.

Better Be Ready

This summer has been absolutely amazing, bouncing from one trip to the next, whirling through so many potentially joyous situations.

We got back from NZ and a week later we were headed off to Paris. Sweet!

We're home now and the next trip on the calendar is Ohio. Every time I see that on the calendar I tilt my head and think, "Ohio? I don't know how to react to that."

We'll see!

Extremes

I love this -- in the last few days I have packed a full set of suitcases for:

* hot California summer
and
* snowy NZ winter

and there wasn't a single item of overlap so I could pack the suitcases and let them sit at the front door waiting.

Like big wrapped presents.

Without bows.

Even better.

See, I don't like vacations for the act of vacationing, as dictionary.com says, "a period of suspension of work, study, or other activity, usually used for rest." Vacations seem to indicate a dislike of the regular day-to-day lives and a desire to get away, escape the grind. While I admit this last year has been the most difficult of my life (by a long shot) I don't view vacations as the stereotypical get-away.

I remember when we lived in suburbia and everyone was taking off on their summer / winter vacations and I thought, "Wow, only a few weeks a year is 'the good life'. Eeep." It seemed more valuable to invest in making every day fulfilling so that the craving to disappear on vacation, to suspend that work, is not what drives you the other 350-ish days of the year.

So, I try (although not all that successfully) to build an everyday life that is fulfilling enough so that "vacations" can be used for another purpose.

Care to guess what?

What else could a vacation be? Other than relaxation?

Think back to when you were five... Exploration! Discovery! Feeling the texture of the earth in a new place, new playground. Wondering at the new sky, letting that sense of awe wash over you as you relished your power to navigate the world.

For me, a trip feels more like the first time I walked on two legs. It's an amazing feeling. It's more of a study, a turning on of a switch, not the turning off that the word "vacation" implies.

Now, that does sound hokey, I'm sure, but it is wonderfully true. I love "vacations". I just wish they didn't have such a Lazy Joe name to them.. "Vacations" sound boring. What about "explorations" or "bouncing arounds"?

Or maybe I should just get back to prepping the house for my absence. 1/2 the family is staying home, so it's not a big deal, but still. I love leaving things clean. I don't care what it looks like when I get back, just as long as I can walk out the front door with the sight of a clean home as that last visual impression stored in memory.

Rollercoasters

At 10am this morning: "I did it! I got the plane tix to AU and NZ!"

10am to 10pm: So psyched, finally going.

10pm: Travelocity calls, the tix didn't go through. Airline canceled one segment of an eight leg trip and the whole trip collapses. Doh.

10:30pm: Rebooked, leaving in about 48 hrs. Psyched again!

Feels a bit like a rollercoaster.

Ironically, my beloved and three of the kids are in Santa Cruz this weekend riding actual rollercoasters.

Unplugging

I love the other side of the tech curve. It used to be, "How can tech improve my life?" and now it's "Do I really need all this tech?"

Every new device I pass through this test:

* Do I need it?

* Do I want it?

* Do I love it?

If it fails any one of those three tests, the device sees the inside of the donation box.