learning
Gone
The Boy was playing CandyLand with K, and after he'd won the first game, he was eager to play another.
"I'm going to win again!" he proclaimed, and for a moment, it looked as if he were going to do just that. He shot ahead with double color after double color. Then K drew the gum drop and zoomed ahead.
"Oh, I'll never win!" he proclaimed, frustrated.
"Yes, but you might draw another candy piece and move ahead, or Mama might draw the candy cane when you're way past it and have to go back many, many spaces," I reasoned. But as I often remind The Girl, there's no reasoning with a four-year-old. He continued playing a bit halfheartedly. He drew a candy piece eventually, but K had shot so far ahead by then that his chances of winning really and truly were gone.
And with that loss, his desire to play was gone as well.
I remembered the whole time they played the new buzzword in education: grit. It's really nothing more than perseverance in the face of difficulty and setback, but educators and researchers in education like new jargon. (I suspect it's mainly from the latter.) And so "grit" is thrown around in education blogs and educator gatherings quite often these days. It was rewarding to see The Boy showing some of this perseverance. It took a good bit of encouragement, but he finished the game, learned the lesson (?), and we had a nice close to the afternoon.
The next night, The Boy and I are working with Legos. I was building a jail for him, and he was building a mystery. Not having a plan, he found the process a little slow-going and frustrating.
"I just can't get it," he fussed as he couldn't get two pieces joined. He threw them down, and for just a moment, I thought the chances of a relaxing evening of Lego-ing were gone. But just for a moment. Seeing everything as a teaching opportunity -- or at least trying to -- I showed him how to get the pieces together, then pulled them apart and had him try again.
"I got it!"
Two opportunities to teach that could have disappeared but didn't. The trick for me, though, is to transfer that to my students. Everything can be a moment to teach, a learning opportunity, for the at-risk kids in my charge. They lack social skills, patience, anger management methods, volume control, grit (there it is again), a growth mindset (another edu-speak jargon term that's hot now). Every teaching moment can't bloom -- I'd never get to the curriculum some days. The balance must be there, but there's so much they need before they're gone off to high school...
Inspired by the Daily Post’s prompt of the day: Gone.
Teaching Tasting
The Boy really wants to learn how to cook, so we’ve begun, somewhat unplanned, to recognize spices.
When I gave him cinnamon, he wrinkled his nose a bit, took another sniff, then asked, “Did we put that in the sauce for Thanksgiving?” I nodded my head. “Oh, it’s crunched up cinnamon sticks!”
Monday Chills
When I got home today, everyone was in the back yard. The Boy was swinging, the Girl, wrestling with Polish lessons.
Tadpole
The recently-caught tadpole needs more room to grow. L did some research about what they might eat and how to best provide an authentic environment for development, and she’s determined to see it through to frog-hood.
Note from School
Candyland
Candyland is a good first game for the Boy. It’s as boring as can be for the adult playing with him, but that’s often what parenting is all about: getting over the selfishness of boredom and relishing the interaction with the child. At the same time, I remember stacking the deck when playing with L, rationalizing it to myself by saying that I was teaching her to lose gracefully or win humbly. Perhaps I was just not savoring the moment and rushing to get to the end.
Candyland teaches turn-taking and acceptance of the luck. And while I’d like not to be one to suggest that luck has much to do with one’s fate because I’m a tough-minded, right-leaning moderate, I know that’s just bullocks. It’s luck where you’re born; it’s luck what your parents are like; it’s luck whether or not you have a handicap, physical or otherwise. Still, we right-leaning types like to think of bootstraps and such in the land of the free and home of the brave.
The Boy, though, had to add his little touch: the use of cars. If it’s not cars, he’s really not all that interested. Colors are difficult to remember because, well, colors, but vehicles — he can recognize Lamborghinis and campers, excavators and hot rods. But other things — not so much.
K the other night was working with him on Polish prayers, and she recited the traditional guardian angel prayer. After listening to it, he looked at K and said, “You must be kidding! I can’t remember that!”
Perhaps K needs to update it, include a Bugatti or something similar.
Exploring
We finally put water shoes, Crocs, and sandals on and went exploring in the creek behind our house.
Earnings
The Boy has become aware of money and all the things it can bring. While he's not quite dreaming of cameras, he has his own toys he thinks about.
"Daddy, I'm going to save some money and buy that set," he might say when we discovers some new car set that he simply must have. So he's set about finding ways to get money. It turns out, our neighbor will give him some spare change when E comes over hand helps him wash his truck.
"He scrubs the tires a bit," the neighbor explains, "and I help him out in his savings." Last week, he came back with thirty-five cents.
"Now I can buy my car!"
"Not so fast," we all want to explain, but it's difficult to explain to an almost-four-year-old what money really is, what value actually consists of.
Value is something, I guess, you have to learn yourself. Like when you drop some of your coins into the recycling bin that's half again as tall as you, when you realize that there's no way at all you can get that money back out without someone's dedicated assistance.
Cameras
So many things started for me in Poland. Of course the most obvious is my family. I met K soon after my arrival, and now close to twenty years later, I can't imagine life without her. I also fell in love with cycling while in Poland, eventually buying a road bike that I rode many, many kilometers.
I sold that a few years ago to raise money for my other Polish-born love: photography.
In between the time I first decided I needed a better camera -- which was about two or three weeks after arriving in Lipnica -- and the images I made today, I've amassed a small collection of various cameras, including several Russian models I bought in Poland or K brought to the marriage.
Today, the Boy discovered them and absolutely had to look at them all. The Russian range finders were a favorite as they were small and fit his hands. The twin-lens reflex camera was a mystery: I couldn't explain to him that you hold it waist level and look down into the view finder.
But he was a quick learner: it was only the second camera that the questions from the first experience appeared: "Daddy, how do you take the picture?" which is to say, "Where is the shutter release?" "Daddy, how do you move the picture?" which is to ask, "Where is the film advance?"
The irony of the situation was on the other side of the lens. I spent so much time lusting after bigger and "better" cameras over the years. The Nikon D2X captivated me until the release of the D3. The D4 of course replaced that, and then came the D5. And it would be pointless to mention that, at around $6,000 for the body alone, these professional cameras are and always will be out of our price range. So I contented myself with the so-called prosummer D300, which is now of course ancient history.
And then there are the lenses. The real magic of the camera is the glass, and my dream lens to go with my dream camera is about $2,000. Again, out of my price range.
The irony? My favorite camera now is our little Fuji digital range finder.
No zoom. No bells. About as plain a camera as one could wish for.
So now I'm dreaming of a $6,000 Leica M9 digital range finder...
Silly boys and their toys.