WordPress weekly photo challenge: Ready

As soon as I read this week’s WordPress photo challenge theme, I knew what my picture would be. “Ready” is a challenge I face at our house every school day. Managing to get my kindergartener on time at school every morning is a feat requiring to move mountains. Well, maybe not, but I feel exhausted after I drop him off. He doesn’t start school until 8:15am (his little brother starts preschool 30 minutes later) so you’d think we have plenty of time to get ready by waking up at 6:45am. But that would mean forgetting his son is a master procrastinator with no sense of urgency.

We keep getting nasty letters from the school, listing the days he’s been tardy. And by “tardy”, they mean the days I get him in the line in the courtyard barely one minute after the bell rings. Give me a break! Well, apparently they don’t want to give me one. All he may miss is the beginning of the pledge of allegiance one or two days a week. Boo-hoo.

So every morning we follow the same routine, which the kids always seem to forget from one day to the next:
- Wake up at 6:45am
- Get out of bed / get pulled out of bed
- Pee
- Get dressed / have Mama dress you
- Go downstairs
- Sit down at the dining table
- Stay seated long enough to eat breakfast
- Only play with toys if there’s extra time (I said, only it’s there’s time!)
- Brush teeth
- Put shoes on
- Put suncreen on
- Put jackets on
- Go in the car and get strapped in

Of course this is only their part, not everything I have to do on my end to make it all happen. If you’re a parent, you know exactly what I go through in the morning. How did we do today? The boys were in the car at 8am sharp and we had plenty of time to make it to school. Ta-da!

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Ready

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Follow-up thoughts on ADHD and divergent thinking

After I wrote my post titled Diagnosing a four-year old with ADHD – really? a little over a week ago, I got a very interesting comment from fellow blogger Nancy at nrhatch. (Thanks, Nancy!) She suggested I read her post Changing Education Paradigms where she features a great video from RSA Animate (I love their videos) enhancing a speech from Sir Ken Robinson. In it, he explains how much off-track our education systems around the world really are. His statement is based on the type of workers we need to prepare for the 21th century’s economy, as well as the way a child’s mind works and what type of schooling can bring the best out of our children.

I love the part where Robinson explains that most five-year-olds use divergent thinking (asking questions such as, what if?, why?, why not? ) but by the time they reach their teens, the education system has crushed their divergent thinking and replaced it with the very uninspired, non-critical convergent thinking. Perfect to create quiet, docile plant workers who will follow their leader without questioning, but not much else. And the increase in standardized testing will only reinforce the use of convergent thinking, as divergent thinkers have a hard time answering standardized tests. That’s because every answer has to be either A or B. There’s no more room for creativity, and imagination is being shunned in our schools. As if it was a bad thing to “think out of the box.”

Out of our minds: Learning to be creative by Sir Ken Robinson

After working almost 15 years in the corporate world, I can tell you most workers can’t even conceive thinking out of the box. You may think I’m stretching the truth, but spend just one hour in a meeting room with middle to upper management people and you’ll understand what I mean. Quite a shame, since our evolving world and its economic challenges will require just that. New ideas, new concepts, new technologies. And our schools are doing nothing to ensure getting our kids will be ready for this new world.

I’m not sure how we can get it so wrong and why we’re not turning things around quickly enough. I’m afraid it’s our responsibility as parents to make sure our kids preserve their divergent thinking skills, knowing how hard the school system will try to crush them. I’ve ordered Ken Robinson’s book “Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative” to find out more about Robinson’s ideas and what I can do for my kids (and a little bit for myself too) to keep in touch with their creative side. I’ll make sure to let you know what I got out of it in an upcoming WWW Wednesdays update.

What do you think about where our educational system is going? Do you think it’s preparing our kids for tomorrow’s world? What do you think can be done to make things right again?

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101 in 1001 challenge – October 2011 update

Can you believe it’s October 26 and I’m doing my “101 in 1001″ update for what happened in September just today? What can I say, September has been a crazy, crazy month for me. My son’s kindergarten teacher quit after the first week of school. No, I’m not making this up, sometimes s*%t happens. Her replacement came in the class with no (and by that, I mean ZERO) teaching experience and left the class in chaos every day. No spot was available in another class so we decided to pull him out of a great opportunity to learn in a French immersion program and bring him back to our local school. During the transition period, he had hernia surgery. As common as it is, I worried about it. A lot. Before, during and after. I also picked up one more recurring client and a couple of projects, trying to squeeze work in between everything going on. The transition to the new school didn’t go well and I couldn’t wait for September to end, with October bringing better news. I want to tell you what happened in October but I need to save it for my next “101 in 1001″ update. Hint: it’s not much better…

So here are the very few things I’ve managed to do in September. Sometimes, life takes a priority and you just have to deal with it. It would be nice to get a break once in a while, but I just have the feeling I’m not due for this yet.

Homegrown raspberries

2) Grow food plants in the garden (Summer / Fall 2011) (1/1) – DONE
I declared war on very rude squirrels who never gave my melons a chance to grow as they munched onthe fresh seedlings and melon flowers (morons!), but I still managed to grow a few other things, including raspberries and zucchini. I’ve planted new seeds for a winter crop, so let’s see what happens to them. Fingers crossed - my bad streak has to end at some point, right?.

64) Shop at a farmer’s market (1/1) – DONE
We visited a local farmer’s market where I managed to find some delicious green beans and plums. By the way, I’d have green beans out of my garden if the bugs and squirrels didn’t munch on them so much… We also bought home the most fragrant strawberries of the whole summer. Definitely something to do on a more regular basis, especially in the summer.

99) Take a class to learn something new (1/1) – DONE
This summer I took a class on writing children’s books. Although I want to focus on picture books for early readers, I learned a lot from this class and even got an idea for a chapter book. I don’t have time to entertain it further right now, but it will be a fun project down the road. Right, when I have time…

And please don’t ask me about the Health side of my 101 challenges. The summary is: I’m not eating great, I drink too much caffeine and I’m not sleeping even close to seven hours a night. I’m exhausted. Enough said.

So there’s a lot ot make up for October and only 5 days left in the month. I’m sorry this isn’t a very inspiring story for people who may consider joining us but it’s still a great thing to accomplish as a person. I just remember there is a reason for allocating 1001 days to do everything.I know when things settle down (even for a few minutes), I’ll take a look at my list again. It’s only a matter of time.

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Kindergarten, here we come!

Quite a big day for us today, with my oldest starting kindergarten this morning. I wasn’t sure how I would handle it: the school dropoff, the waving goodbye, the part where I watch my baby growing up in front of my eyes. I’ve had a lot of mixed feelings about this transition in the past week, going from being very excited for him to worried I’d start crying as I left him at school. How scary would it be for him? What kind of place is Mama leaving me  that makes her so sad? Get me out of here, now!

His little brother doesn’t go back to preschool until next week so I knew I’d have to hold myself together or face a lot of questions from him too. I also knew I’d have to keep a tight eye on the clock and our schedule or we’d face the chance to be late for our first day of school.

So I was extremely proud of myself when we got in the car at 8:15am, with school starting at 8:55. My son is in a French immersion program in a magnet school and the ride takes 15 to 20 minutes. Except, it didn’t today.

Somehow, the weather decided to turn nasty yesterday and we got our first rain since probably last April or May. Going to bed last night, I thought I’d seen the end of it, but this morning we woke up with dark grey clouds shedding tears on our windows. Still, I had 45 minutes to get to school, right?

Well, it took every single of these 45 minutes to reach our destination. As always, San Diego drivers forgot how to drive in the rain (that means keeping a safe distance, people!), and the freeways were a complete mess. I got off the parking lot freeway when I could and decided to take the side streets. Apparently, so did everybody else. I’d been worried about the lack of parking in front of the school. No worry there because all the other cars had already left when we pulled into our parking spot, right as the school bell rang.

We sprung out of the car, making our way through the outside eating area and the playground blacktop, and finally reached our class. That’s when I realized everybody else was late with us. Phew! So I helped my son get to his desk and start drawing while the teacher welcomed her students. His brother sat down next to him for a minute and gently rubbed the top of his head. Aw… But wait, no tears. A few minutes later, we took off. I kissed and hugged my son goodbye. I took a last look at him through the classroom windows as we were leaving. He was concentrating on his drawing and never looked up. Fine, be like that… No tears still.

I then got his brother back into the car and we headed for Balboa Park to take advantage of Free Tuesdays at the Natural History Museum. We got stuck into even more horrendous traffic for another 40 minutes. By the time we got to the museum, I realized I never got the tears I expected in my eyes and didn’t feel like sobbing. As a parent, it looks like I’ve done some growing up too. My little guy is getting bigger, and I’m cool with it. At least for today.

Do you remember when your children started kindergarten? If your kids are too little, do you think you’ll have a hard time with this life transition when the time comes?

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My boy is graduating from preschool tonight

Yes, you read this right. My oldest is graduating from preschool tonight during an official ceremony. The whole class will be giving a well-rehearsed performance, including songs, sight word recognition and some other secret activities my son won’t tell me about. The kids will be wearing cute graduation hats they get to keep, and they’ll receive a graduation certificate. Of course, no preschool graduation ceremony is complete without cake and apple juice. That’s all kids need to stock up on, tons of sugar an hour before bedtime…

When I first heard about this preschool graduation ceremony, I couldn’t help but chuckle. I honestly had never heard of such a thing. And the timing seems a little off since preschool will  still be in session for two months, until kindergarten starts. But then again, why not celebrate a milestone in our children’s lifelong learning voyage? For me, entering the public school system marks the end of a fun, grade-free, stress-free era. Pre-K kids need all the encouragement they can get, and I think parents do too.

Here’s a funny fact about this graduation ceremony. My son happened to mention he would wear his Buzz Lightyear pyjamas for the event. “Wait, at a graduation ceremony, are you sure???” “Yes, the teacher said we should dress up.” Ah, the English language can be so subtle… So I checked with his teacher to find the origin of the confusion. She did tell the kids to “dress up”, not realizing a boy may understand it as “wear a costume” rather than ”dress nicely”. Since my son was expecting to attend a costume party, I suggested she clarify to the class what types of outfits were appropriate for the event.

This reminds me of a very funny Mo Willem’s Gerald and Piggie book called “I Am Invited to a Party”. Piggie doesn’t know what to wear for her first party and Gerald helps her go through a series of possibilities. What if it’s a costume party? Wait. What if it’s a pool party? How will she know the proper attire to wear? If you have kids between 3 and 6, you should read this book to them, they’ll love it.

My husband happens to be on a business trip this week, so he’ll miss the ceremony. This means I’ll have to manage my squirmy three-year old to keep him sitted while I try to take photos and videos of the event. How many times do you think I’ll be saying “please sit down” tonight? I think I’m the one who’ll need the cake most when this is all over. Wish me luck.

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