Second Act

http://vitality.yahoo.com/video-second-act-cindy-joseph-26992874

Waiting for Superman…

My family watched “Waiting for Superman” for the first time tonight.  I realize it came out a year ago…  I was left distraught, angry, and in tears.  A couple of years ago, I did a research project on America’s failing schools.  I knew that large cities are plagued with big dropout rates, not just double digits, but higher than 50% dropout rate – some metropolitan areas with over 70% dropout rates.  What I didn’t realize (even though I see in it my own district) was that suburban areas have just as many problems, but is masked by the high scores of high achieving students.  Since moving into Wake County I have seen this firsthand.  Wake County’s solution is to bus at-risk kids to high performing schools.  Sounds really great in theory.  The district boasts of results because they have more schools yielding better results.  In reality all they have done is spread out the at-risk children to dilute the sub-par grades.  It makes the district look good and it is awarded additional federal and local government money, but the real problem is never addressed.  In fact, I contend that the busing system that Wake County has adopted really is a disservice to the at-risk community.  First of all, these students spend a ridiculous amount of time in transit. (See my previous post about bus safety in Wake County – on average more than one bus accident per school day!)  Some children waiting at a bus stop at 6 am with an average commute of 45 minutes each way.  Sleep deprived children do not perform well in school.  In fact a Cornell Professor wrote about the importance of sleep and how children, especially teenagers, would benefit from a later school start time.  (I’ll look it up and write about it in detail later).  Not only that, you put at-risk students in an environment in which they can never compete.  My children will go to a high performing high school, and I worry that they won’t be able to compete and stand out against all the other AP students in order to get into a good college.  How can an at-risk child even keep their heads above water??  In addition, the extra-curricular activities happen before or after school.   When a child lives 45 minutes from the school, how are they supposed to participate?  We put an additional burden on the parents of the at-risk children who really would want to make a difference for their children.  I’m not saying, I know the answer – I don’t think anyone does.  But heaping up additional burdens on the very children we are trying to help is not the answer. 

I could write a novel about this, but for now…  it will have to wait for another post.    

Waiting for Superman

Super-Obese Kids

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/should-parents-lose-custody-of-super-obese-kids-2510149/

My last post focused on a restaurant wanting to restrict young families from dining in their establishment.  This post once again focuses on children.  This is a heart breaking predicament. When a child is severely obese, who is to blame?  Studies show that children typically adapt eating habits from their parents, so in general terms, obese parents produce obese children.  Does this give the government the right to take children away from a parent when the parent is only reproducing what was learned from his/her parents?  At the end of the day, each individual must take responsibility for their own actions.  But at what age does that occur?  The article sites children aged 12, 14, and 16.  Granted, how does the child know normal food portions if he has never been taught, but there comes a time that the child must decide for themselves what is acceptable.  I have a child that has food allergies.  Since they are not severe food allergies, the schools did not want to go through the necessary paperwork to have alternate foods provided for him.  Since learning of the allergies in 4th grade, he has had to self-regulate his diet while at school.  Instead of getting milk, he asks for a glass of water.  I’m not there to make sure he doesn't drink milk, nor will the school take any ownership to provide soy or rice milk for him as an alternative.  He has had to make wise choices about what foods he intakes.     Soooo, back to the question… who is to blame?  It’s a complicated question with no easy answers, but I do think it would help if the government would subsidize healthy foods instead of subsidizing foods that are known to cause weight gain.  This would make healthy foods more obtainable for the poor and middle class.  Additionally, instead of issuing welfare checks, change the system to vouchers that allow “approved” foods similar to WIC programs (Women, infants, and children) to promote healthy food choices.   http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/wichd/        

Restaurant Bans Kids

When I saw this article, I must confess I had mixed emotions.  Being the mother of four children, I can relate to the seemingly discriminatory ideals associated with such a policy.  On the other hand, I also was recently distracted by a screaming toddler at a neighboring table when reuniting with some old friends.  It wasn’t that the child screamed that was the problem, it was that the child was allowed to continue to scream that put a damper on the last 20 to 30 minutes of our dinner.  Luckily the family with the screaming child didn’t arrive until we were having dessert.   

The question is: What is a restaurant to do when such a situation arises?

When my children were under 6, no one had to tell me when my child was being disruptive.  It was disruptive to me, so the child received the “evil eye” the “mommy means business look.”  Typically that would solve the problem.  However, admittedly that didn’t always work, especially when they were younger.  In those cases, either my husband or I would take the child away from the dinner table and would be dealt with appropriately.  It takes conditioning for the “look” to work.   Webster’s defines conditioning as:  a simple form of learning involving the formation, strengthening, or weakening of an association between a stimulus and a response.  Simple, yes.  Easy, no.  I relate to the fatigue associated with parenting, it is an exhausting endeavor.  Early in our marriage, when we were just starting our family so dear friends said the best child raising book they ever read was “How to train your dog.”  Yes, you read that right.  The basic principles are the same.  Be consistent.  Giving in is rewarding bad behavior.  Stick with it, even when you’re tired.  All of which falls under “be consistent.” 

So what is a restaurant to do when parents fail to parent? There are no easy answers.  I think banning families is the wrong way to go. Maybe a statement similar to a movie theater about “screaming children will be asked to leave” may be enough of a deterrent.        

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/parenting/restaurant-bans-kids-under-6-discrimination-or-smart-move-2509487/        

Michael Vey

Pre-order today at Amazon for $10.58 (hard cover). It is a great book! Elisa gave it 2 thumbs up (and she a hard sell!). If you pre-order, let me know. I'm am part of a grass roots movement to get the word out and Richard is trying to track the effectiveness. :) 



http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Vey-Prisoner-Cell-25/dp/1451656505/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1308837512&sr=1-1

New Book

Richard Paul Evans has a new Young Adult Book coming out in August. He was of my favorite authors. 



http://www.facebook.com/notes/richard-paul-evans/the-big-announcement-youve-been-waiting-for/10150194328888025

Hazardous Bus Drivers

Here’s an article about the bus drivers in our area.

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/abc11_investigates&id=8127645

100 Bus accidents in a 4 month time frame when those months include spring break and a week off for Christmas.  Follow my math…  if there are approximately 4 weeks per month and only 5 school days per week, that’s 20 school days per month.  Multiply that by the 4 month time frame they are reporting on that is 80 school days.  That’s more than one school bus accident per school day.  Actually the statistics are worse than that because the students had a week off for spring break and a week of other miscellaneous days off from Christmas, student work days, and snow days.  That’s 1.4 bus accidents per day!   That’s crazy.  

Carpool Crazies

Every day I take or pick up my kids from school, the carpool line makes my blood boil.  First of all, it is beyond comprehension why there is only one crossing guard for 5 lanes of traffic.  No one can see that guard standing in the middle.  In fact just this week a police officer ran right past the stop sign holding crossing guard.  Yes, a police officer.  He stops just yards beyond where he should have stopped and lectures the crossing guard for several minutes after the traffic flow resumes blocking an already congested area.  My guess is that the crossing guard is a mom, either volunteering or earning a minimal amount.  Here’s an idea, instead of lecturing the crossing guard, why didn’t the police officer get out and help her?? 

At one school the crossing guard is only on one side of the intersection (see diagram - it didn't copy very well).  When the guard is walking children across the 5 lane road, people of the neighborhood and from the left side of the school think it’s there time to get into the school.  It happens every day.  Maybe this is “allowed” but what really gets me is when people stack up the line into the road so that when the crossing guard is no longer in the street there are several cars blocking 2 or 3 lanes of traffic. 

The other thing that drives me crazy is that the school has sent out notes about making a U-turn in the area of the school.  They ask parents not too because it makes it dangerous for the students and causing more traffic congestion around the school.  Even though when leaving the school you are not permitted to turn left, the school still prefers drivers not to make a U-turn.  But every single day, numerous people make a U-turn.  I need to go the other direction too, but I always go around the block to get back to the direction I need to go.  It’s so frustrating when these drivers could pull into the neighborhood next to the school to get turned around, but everyday numerous people make a U-turn right there on that 5 lane road.  When there are police officers around, they do nothing.  It is so frustrating!

Anyone know the laws concerning crossing guards or U-turns on 5 line roads?

Silence is Golden?

I know I have been MIA for....  a month.  It will most likely continue until after finals.  :(


But for your entertainment, here's a video of Chancellor Thorp playing jazz to promote arts in education.  Yes, that is my son on drums.  :)  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4kUC-Y6hvQ

Family Matters Part 6

 The information was confusing at times because names like Charles and Isabel are repeated in different generations.  My initial research also had some discrepancies as well.  There were two different dates for Isabel Turner’s voyage to America more than thirty years apart.  The family Bible anchors the 1881 date for the Turners.  After more research I determined the other date of 1850 to be when the McCreery side of the family came to America.  While it is much more difficult to research women because of the changing of their last name in marriage, I also believe there was more information on the McCreery side partially due to socioeconomic status.  The wealth of the McCreerys makes them more fascinating to research.  This coupled with the fact that the McCreerys had more news articles and other records written about them made information easier to find.  My grandmother’s brothers were also well established, one a surgeon, another a civil engineer that helped build part of Boston, and a third brother who was a principal at a school.  This was documented in more letters in my grandmother’s hand, but I could not authenticate the information on the internet.   
What was baffling was that my mom shared very little of this information before now.  I knew my great grandfather went to Brown and that my grandfather was a research chemist for DuPont with numerous patents to his name and even that my mother cut her leg on the beach while on vacation.  It wasn’t until last week that she revealed that the beach was on Martha’s Vineyard.  This past week I also discovered that my grandmother went to high school with Rose Kennedy.  Additionally my mother also revealed that her family would often hear of the Kennedy gossip through their neighbors in Oak Bluffs.  I never found out exactly what happened to the farm.  My grandmother wrote that it was sold, but she did not say when nor did she say if the big house stayed in the family and if so who retained the deed.  A search on the address my grandmother remembered did not match the current town records.  My assumption was that it was sold to a developer and the original road no longer exists.  The McCreery Department store went out of business in 1953 after 116 years in operation.  It survived the Depression, but closed its doors amidst the news of Stalin’s death, the execution of the Rosenbergs, and the end of the Korean War when Dwight D. Eisenhower served as President.   

Family Matters Part 5

 Discovering that my great, great Grandpa Joseph McCreery owned property in Martha’s Vineyard was just the beginning.  When I tried to ascertain why there was so much information on the McCreery side more details began to surface.  Buried in the pages of hand written correspondence was a sentence about visiting the store Uncle James owned in New York City named McCreery’s Department Store.  In the late 1800’s McCreery’s had the reputation of Macy’s and is listed among the emerging department stores of that era.  I happened upon an advertisement for McCreery Department Store dated 1948 for sale on eBay.  This particular detail surprised even my mother.  Searching for more information yielded little results, although I did find a photograph of the store.  James McCreery was born in Ireland, which corroborates my mother’s claim that there was some Irish in the blood line.  The store was founded before James arrived.  Perhaps James’ reason for coming to America was to run the store.  Later he inherited it or acquired it.  I found some additional information about James McCreery’s descendants online, but I could not validate the information because I did not have records of his wife or children. 

 

Family Matters Part 4

 Letters from my grandmother describe a family farm in Oak Bluffs not far from Fall River where Charles and Isabel McCreery resided.  It was not until I searched for Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts that I realized it was on Martha’s Vineyard.  The family owned farm was the summer vacation home for the brothers and their families.  In old letters my grandmother describes the property as a large orchard located on the northern part of the island.  My grandmother, Isabel Long describes the orchard with over two hundred and fifty trees.  The apple orchard was the largest; the small pear orchard was to the rear of the big house and in the front about a dozen dark cherry trees.  Behind the outhouse was a small peach orchard and beyond that is what she describes as a farm with chickens, cows, and even a large garden.  Isabel Long’s grandfather, Joseph McCreery collected the trees and shrubs on his travels and planted them in his gardens.  The barn and shed were covered in grapevines.  Many people would come and visit the vineyard and leave with sacks of fresh fruit.  The summers must have been heavenly as a child playing among the trees in the orchard until the sun went down.  Grandpa Joseph McCreery was very protective of his gardens and did not want the children to climb the trees but my grandmother confesses that they did.  On occasion the adults must have taken the children to the Flying Horses Carousel located on Circuit Avenue.  The Carousel was brought to Martha’s Vineyard in 1884 and still is in operation today.  My grandmother’s father, Charles John McCreery died as a result of injuries sustained from an automobile accident while vacationing in Oak Bluffs in July 1933.  His wife Isabel died two years later on her sixty-seventh birthday after an appendectomy.  The notes said she was so sad after Charles death that she had no desire to get well.  They are buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River, Massachusetts.       

Family Matters Part 3

 Isabel Tuner married Charles John McCreery on February 1, 1888.  Charles John McCreery was born in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1865.  He attended the prestigious Brown University graduating in 1886, Phi Beta Kappa.  Although I remembered hearing that my great grandfather attended Brown, there was no elaboration on his life.  Family letters reveal that he worked for a law firm after college and planned to be a lawyer but love had another path for him.  Charles was courting Isabel Turner and she wanted him to teach so they would have school vacations together.  He became Principal of two schools at the same time; Westport High School and Tucker Street Grammar School.  He was also the President of the Fall River Teacher’s Association in 1892.  According to records from Fall River, Charles also served on the board of directors for several businesses in and around Fall River: Shove Mills, Sagamore Mills, and Loyal Unity Lodge to name a few.  This information alone reveals that Charles was a well educated man and a prominent figure in the community.  He was the superintendent of schools for a number of years.  When he lost an election by one vote and he was made the District Superintendent of five schools in Plymouth. 

Family Matters Part 2

I realize this is probably pretty boring, but it does get more interesting next post.  :)

On October 31, 1881, Nancy Bills Turner boarded the S.S. Atlas with her three daughters bound for Boston, Massachusetts.  According to a letter from my grandmother, her husband William Turner left for the United States of America some time before to secure a job and housing for the family.  Nancy along with her daughters Isabel, Florence, and Mary left Newton, England and boarded the ship just after Isabel Turner’s thirteenth birthday.  The ship arrived in Boston, Massachusetts on November 16, 1881.  I could find little more about William and Nancy Turner.  Turner was a common name in England as well as in America.  A Google search for William and Nancy Turner in Newton, England yields thousands of pages.  Searching a number of different ways still produces hundreds of leads with a recurring Joseph Mallord William Turner, an impressionist painter of the 1800s.  The fact that Isabel Turner was a teacher suggests that she was educated.  While education was more common in the late 1800’s, for females it was generally reserved for those who could afford it so it is likely her parents came from at least a middle class or upper middle class background.  Regardless of the socioeconomic status of William and Nancy Turner, it is evident that their daughter Isabel Turner married into the elite upper class of Fall River society.  

Family Matters Part 1

To follow is part of a Geneology Project I have been working on for one of my English classes.  If I get enough hits, I'll post more of the story:  

Researching my mother’s family history became an intriguing and unwieldy task, involving numerous phone calls and spending hours pouring over old letters and family documents then chasing down leads via the internet.  Someone on my father’s side of the family had already compiled enough information to fill a three inch binder complete with a copy of the family crest, possible reasons for immigration, and records of ancestry back to Denmark in the early 1600s.  On the other hand, my mother’s family history was like assembling a puzzle with missing pieces without a picture diagram, fitting together tidbits of information from an incomplete family tree and thirty year old hand written letters.  What I discovered astounded and baffled me.  Buried beneath the mountain of yellowing papers was history filled with affluence and revelations of my family giving insight into my mother’s personal psyche.  

Hot Topic! "Tiger Mom"

It seems that the “Tiger Mom” hit a hot spot around the world; from cartoons to articles of both support and outrage.    My blog on the subject produced the largest number of hits to date; double of my previous top ranking blog.  I’ve read several follow articles and responses to Chua.  Apparently, she did not choose the title the Wall Street Journal used and her book is about her journey away from being a Chinese mom when her 13 year old rebelled. 

Another friend sent an article about the fierce competiveness of the Chinese culture.  Some places in Hong Kong require a resume and interview to ensure a child is proficient in Mandarin BEFORE they enter pre-school.   Early childhood development begins at age 2.  While we struggle to bridge the education gap for our low income families, China has made huge strides in even outlaying villages.  While China should be proud of their nation’s accomplishment in education in just a few years, they are still lacking.  "Many Chinese complain scathingly that their system kills independent thought and creativity, and they envy the American system for nurturing self-reliance - and for trying to make learning exciting and not just a chore."


Apparently it is hard to duplicate creativity and ingenuity.  


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/opinion/16kristof.html?_r=2

Cartoon on Chinese Parenting

Tiger Mom

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

When Gerald read excerpts from this article this first thing I felt was “inadequate.” I have not had, nor do I expect to have a valedictorian or a violin prodigy. In fact the one child who was interested in violin we steered her to viola because it is less competitive and quite frankly a less squeaky instrument for a child to learn. While my children’s report cards have consisted primarily of “A’s” there have been times that they had “B’s” and even occasionally a “C” (gasp!). Does this make me a bad mom?

Of course I’m reading into this, but it seems according to the article that the mom is the determinate of how well the child performs. Since the article spoke in generalizations, I’ll speak in generalizations as well. It is a perception that Chinese males are work-a-holics, leaving the raising and disciplining of the children to the mom. Wow! That stresses me out just putting on paper. I cannot imagine having the raising of 4 children exclusively on my shoulders. Gerald, my husband, and I have often times had to take a divide and conquer role with our children. Sometimes they needed dad, others mom. Math and music were always Gerald’s field, English and History more mine.

Chua claims that a Chinese mom expects their children to be perfect and even an “A-” is unacceptable. “For example, if a child comes home with an A-minus on a test, a Western parent will most likely praise the child. The Chinese mother will gasp in horror and ask what went wrong.” Furthermore, she states, “If a Chinese child gets a B—which would never happen—there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing explosion. The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A.” I want my children to succeed, but I also want them to have a life and social interaction with their peers.

While I do get onto my children about their grades and I do expect them to take ownership and work to improve sub “A” grades, I season it with compassion and try to give them the tools to be successful. Depending on the circumstances they may be grounded from television and/or games. “Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe that their child can get them. If their child doesn't get them, the Chinese parent assumes it's because the child didn't work hard enough. That's why the solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child. The Chinese parent believes that their child will be strong enough to take the shaming and to improve from it.” I cannot fathom intentionally “shaming” my child. We have moved so many times and our kids have had to adjust to new schools and make new friends. I want our house to be a refuge. There are enough people out there knocking them down, they certainly don’t need me “shaming” them when they get home. We’ve hired tutors when necessary, spent extra time on homework, encouraged musical participation, then let them determine their other activities.

The valedictorian when my daughter graduated was a Chinese girl and scored a perfect 1600 on her SAT. While many universities accepted her, she was waitlisted at Harvard. I’m sure it must have disgraced her parents who didn’t even go to her high school graduation to hear her speech. In retrospect it wasn’t her ability to perform that kept her out of Harvard; it was her lack of well roundedness. While she wrote for the school newspaper, she did not have any other extra-curricular activities, no community service, and no positions of leadership. This article in the WSJ makes me understand her family a little more. While she was perfect in every other way, she lacked the humanity that contributes back to society probably because she was not permitted to participate in those activities. So while her parents may have been disappointed, it was their own fault that she had to “settle” for Cornell.

After I synthesized the article, I decided not to beat myself up about it. My children are incredible. My oldest child a graduate of Cornell University working for Teach for America. The next child is at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is the top drummer in the jazz program. He picked his own instrument and was never forced to practice 3 hours a day. Now I think he’s getting close to 3 hours a day but it’s only because he is passionate about music. The middle schooler is first chair bass in the orchestra and was a starter in football both 7th and 8th grade. (For my Texas friends this is a big deal because there is only one middle school team.) All 4 of my children were in the Academically Gifted programs. I have not forced them to practice their instruments. The boys have played video games. They have all tried many activities to see what really excites them. Gymnastics, football, soccer, bass, piano, viola, cheerleading, choir, drums, guitar, the list goes on and on. They also have read a plethora of books: classics, fantasy, historical fiction, Christian. They are well adjusted, respectful children who are generous and kind hearted. They know that their parents are their biggest fans and that we will love them no matter what. We do hold our children to a high standard, but it is season with compassion and grace. We are far from perfect, but our children know we don’t expect them to be perfect either.

Better Late than Never!

Today I put our Christmas cards in the mailbox to be mailed. Yes, I realize it’s January but I figure it’s better late than never. Right? So our Christmas letter was brief and my list was short. Sorry for moving so much that no one can keep up with us. Now that I have that checked off my list it is time to get cleaning! If I don’t do it now, who knows the next time I’ll get a chance. So the Christmas decorations are boxed and put away. Oops! I missed the Santa on top of the refrigerator. I wonder what else I missed… Wrapping paper put away, tackled the big pile of laundry and finally washing all those sheets from our full house at Thanksgiving. Eeek!

I had an epiphany on New Year’s Eve. As we wondered the streets of downtown Raleigh for First Night, I realized I no longer have little ones. I know, I know, the kids have had birthdays and two are already out of the house but it wasn’t until we were walking in the crowded streets that it dawned on me. Moms always count heads especially with a crew our size. I kept feeling like I was miscounting. One, two, three, four, five, six, and my sister makes seven. Wait, who am I missing and I would count again. Then I realized, the heads I was counting were too tall! When did this happen? How did all my little babies get so big??? I was already a little remorseful that I will no longer have an elementary school student next year, but this was a shock. So my friends, if you feed your children they will grow. And even if you threaten to stop feeding them, they find food and you really could never stop feeding them anyway. Lol