School & WORK Journal 2021-22
snippets, slices, slabs of moments and doings through grades 9 & 6 and ages 5 (Pre-K?) & 2
irregular, infrequent, and incomplete thoughts & lists on learning, education, play. or sometimes just snippets of conversation with our kids amidst life, which is one of the most beautiful and wonderful ways of learning. I will possibly include older snippets and slices involving work of the past; many of which now degree hold some level of humor or eye-rolling, as many examinations or remembrances of the past tend to do.
May 2022
May 03
How does listening to Rage Against the Machine, Metallica, Blur, EMF, and the Kinks have anything to do with school? Well, feel free to ride with me in a motor vehicle and effortlessly segue between music and conversation about music, and then you can decide how illuminating a learning experience it was. I’d like to think our daughter has a lifelong appreciation for Master of Puppets after seeing me so daringly air-tap the steering wheel while she mostly listened to me and Lars Ulrich while paying a minimum of attention to her almost-finished Max Collins book in the passenger seat.
02
We discussed, in a moving vehicle, transgender issues and how they relate to education, law, science, and language, and how the extreme ends of conservatism and liberalism can wrap their tentacles so far to the edge that they end up strange bedfellows in creating environments that are hostile to thought, intolerant of respectful discourse, rejecting of education through dialogue, and ridiculing of fundamental human psychology to being forced into positions that allow for no variance or good-faith questioning. Yes, we talk about these things, and the harder the topic, the more we will talk. I am stubborn that way. In the meantime, we carry compassion, kindness, curiosity, a warm heart, and a sharp inquisitive intellect with us always.
April 2022
25 Monday
We engaged in a delightful conversation, while in a motor vehicle, concerning the complexities and converging variables of community, crime, and law enforcement, and how they relate to data analysis, statistical modeling, racial profiling, and gentrification. We talked about different neighborhoods and how difficult it might be to strike a balance of safety and affordability, and the role that intentional design and art play in showing respect for a physical area.
14 Thursday with Youngers
I baked chocolate chip cookies with a 2- and 5-year old. This has become a thing. I’d like to think there’s something valuable about cooperation, units of measurement, mathematics, and culinary creativity that’s tucked away in the middle of making a floury mess. Note: they turned out pretty well, despite dialing back the choc chips, sugar, and substituting apple sauce for eggs.
I played a 1981 video game on a 1983 9-in television, which may lead to questions about why we have either one of them, especially when the control wasn’t even connected in the case of the 2-year old. What did we learn? I don’t know, except it’s hilarious and heartwarming to interact with a 2- and 5-year old as they’re ferociously, kinetically handling a partially-functioning controller on an 8-bit (if that) gaming system where they have no idea what’s happening, but let that fact stop them not in the least from narrating a whole scenario: “…and NOOO! now that thing is crashing into that thing and we’re on the same team and AAAA! look out, it’s going to go off the side and LOOK OUT!!!!”
We played hide and go seek in the house. I am very good at this game.
I sat them down for a long talk about cooperation and getting along and The Golden Rule. This is a familiar talk. In fact, it’s a daily talk, and they don’t always enjoy it. It frequently comes on the heels of two children not getting along, and this leads to the worst punishment possible: having to sit down with me and talk about stuff like The Golden Rule, compassion, and patience for a long time.
I helped an 11-year with duckweed in his pond. Duckweed. It will save the world. You heard it here first.
March 2022
March 28
We somehow spoke of prisons, incarceration, and different nations’ approaches to the death penalty and how it correlates to punishment versus rehabilitation. Light and easy way to kick off the day. Oh, and of course the Oscars from the night before, and the infamous Slap-Punch heard round the world, accompanied by a discussion of what hypocrisy is. Later on, there was cycling, skating, bug-finding, library hunting, reading, picnicking, snake-finding, flower-picking, Danger Course-doing, and cookie-making. It was Monday.
22
We discussed, while driving, the merits of Spielberg’s West Side Story. Neither of us are enormously impressed with the film or story overall, but we have a shared appreciation for the choreography and Ariana DuBose’s performance. Then she went back to reading World War Z and eating Pringles post-Theatre. Also, she attempted to refresh and reteach me how to factor binomial equations, a task which I was not intellectually agile with this morning.
17
There were hasty attempts to put on green, as today is a certain holiday commemorating a certain Irish saint who was once imprisoned and later made his way back to minister to his former captors for 30 years, and became beloved enough to still celebrate hundreds of years later. We discussed Putin and the way he has consolidated power over decades, in large part due to aggressive disinformation campaigns and the creation of events that are presented in bad faith. We also talked about the idea of Xavier Rudd and Willem Defoe doing a music video together. I simultaneously assisted our 11yo on a writing packet involving voting rights.
15 Tuesday
I drove a girl to Theater. We spoke of Ukraine, Russia, and the intersection of local politics with geopolitical dynamics. She read Hugo Cabret while I listened to Kings of Leon. We repeated this cycle as we drove from sunshine into a storm, and back out again.
I helped paint snowy trees as part of a mysterious backdrop in the back of a large closet leading to a secret land that can be entered only through a wardrobe…
Even when my mind is on other things and tasks and responsibilities and stuff, I cherish the time I have with our 14-year old to cycle through conversations and little snippets of life together. Sometimes via dialogue, sometimes with shared silence or music or NPR or bumper sticker spotting. Sometimes just sharing space together in a moving vehicle.
January 2022
January 20, Thursday, regarding meetings and dates for parents of performing arts students (a.k.a. Theater)…
It is decided on an upcoming Friday “mask-building work party” for the coming show. The deadline is firmed for masks and costumes being done. February 22 is the magic one. Sets and costumes will be moved to P——-, where the show takes place, on March 21.
It was firmly reminded that parents are responsible for their students’ costumes, the importance of getting on the email list aaah, technology! and…the handing out of a rehearsal schedule, which will help determine the course of family’s life over the coming months.
11 Tuesday
Yes, I thought a good breakfast conversation would be about Schrödinger's cat, the classic thought experiment that helps explain the paradox of quantum mechanics through the example of a hypothetical dead-or-alive cat in a box. It was a good conversation, and reminded me of how much fun we had a few years first starting Flash and the ensuing vibrant dialogues about string theory, particle accelerators, time travel, and physics at large.
What are you think about Algebra at this point? I asked our 14-year old, hoping to be of help. Any particular challenges? She kept cranking through as I looked over her shoulder and tried to keep up, hoping to impart my knowledge in some small way. No. she said. It hasn’t been that tough so far. And I inwardly felt both proud and envious. Proud of her in doggedly sticking to something she doesn’t enjoy on the level of say, Theater or Writing, and envious in how…easy a time she seems to have in processing areas that were very challenging for me at that age.
November 2021
Miscellaneous in November
Social Studies - Geography. A 6th grader continues to learn about maps - hemispheres, latitude and longitude, scale, etc.
November 16 -18
Against a backdrop of Wookies, walkers, starships, droids, and Jabba birthday celebrations, an almost-five year old painstakingly prints out the numbers 1-9, in pencil, the whole way through…oh wait. He writes in pencil, painstakingly, until he gets to the number 9. At that point he switches to orange marker, inexplicably, and the carefully calibrated, staying-on-the-line handwriting goes off the rails. On the adjacent page, there is a vine maze with an Ewok who needs help getting up. I suspect the allure of this was a contributing variable to ditching the number 9 just short of the finish line and jumping to the aid of an adorable Star Wars creature.
October 2021
Miscellaneous in October
Social Studies - Geography. A 6th grader studies maps and how to read them - keys, legends, the difference between population and political maps, using a compass rose, etc.
Note: I wouldn’t say that one of the traits I’ve passed along to our children, genetically, is a highly-evolved sense of…following directions really well. I am working to improve my abilities in this area. I love geography and learning about the role of place and how it affects humans…but my ability to inherently know where I’m at, spatially, in relation to a compass, for example, is…not that of a high calibre. Yet.
September 2021
September 23, 2021
Grammar. A 6th-grader dutifully fills out out questions. I try to spice up the paper with an enthusiastic “+20/20, Nice work!” This isn’t quite as effective as one moves up through the grades. On the next, I let him know the great job he did by scribing “Not bad, Boogerhead” to his perfect score. I’m not sure he’s any more enthused. But he does it, and we probably won’t do a whole lot of this this year. At a certain point, repetition of core material becomes no longer valuable when it’s buried deep in the roots of a tool set, so recognizing what’s a complete or incomplete sentence becomes less…valuable to keep going back over.
