Empathy Education: It can come from books!

A small selection of incredible books that transport kids out of their bubbles.

I grew up in southern Orange County, California. There were two Latino kids in my grade level (hi Ernie and Michelle) and one African-American girl (hi Tammy).  When John moved to our neighborhood, from China, not speaking a word of English, the school assigned me (who knew only 3 words in Chinese, and a different dialect to boot) to be his buddy, because my last name made me the most-Chinese kid they had to offer. In the '80s, I was exotic because I was biracial, but because I knew almost no other kids of Asian decent, I usually just considered myself white.

I dearly loved history. But in conservative South County, I was taught that the Civil War was not about slavery, but rather about railroads and states' rights. I was taught that Manifest Destiny was an unfettered good. When my award-winning History Day project, "Casualities of the Westward Trail," won only third place at state level, dinged by the Native American judge who wondered why I only included white casualties, everyone assured me that he had been terribly unfair to me.

And yet, when I got to UCLA and read Zinn's People's History of the United States for the first time in Sociology 1, I understood it immediately.  The notion of looking at the world and history from various points of view made perfect sense to me. Why? How could this Orange Country girl, who had really only been taught one view of history and power, so easily accept looking at the world from another angle?

I "got it" because, without realizing it, I had always seen history from a variety of angles. Cassie from Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry taught me about sharecropping and the Jim Crow South. Karana from Island of the Blue Dolphins taught me about native Californians and surviving off the land.  Laura Ingalls Wilder completely won me over with her portrayal of homesteading life.  Anne Frank taught me about the horrors of the Holocaust. And while Scarlett and Melanie taught me about privileged white life in the pre-Civil War South, Mammy and Prissy taught me about slavery. I learned the "women's point of view" from the main characters of the scores of YA historical romances I read growing up, from pre-Revolutionary indentured servants to Lowell Mills girls to Suffragettes. These characters quite often wore beaded bodices on their book covers, but from the pages, they told the stories of actual girls living in other times. I can see now that many of the mental images that these characters gave me were far from perfect. Far too many were wealthy (and dreamed mostly of silks) and the soldiers and blacksmiths who swept them off their feet were often far too progressive to be realistic. Nor would I ever recommend studying Prissy to someone wanting to understand the cruelty of the Antebellum South. But, every book added up. Every character was a friend of a sort. I grew up in an almost entirely white world, but through my books, I grew up with friends and confidantes of every color and class background, and every historical period.

Our country is deeply divided and increasingly segregated. It's no wonder we don't understand each other. We don't know each other. We can't move kids from neighborhood to neighborhood to teach them about difference and diversity (And yet, it would help so much!  How many of us have changed our minds about some class or group of people after befriending a member of that group?). But, we can share books.  And we can talk about books. And we can share discussions of those books -- bringing together a diversity of voices, about a diversity of topics.

Through books and discussion, we can teach history and culture, and we can foster empathy and compassion. Books help us to step into another person's shoes and see the world through their eyes.  Let's spread that experience as much as possible. (And, as I write this, here at EdBoost, we're formulating a plan to do just that....).

For now, here are a handful of my favorite children's and YA book recommendations:

I Am Malala by Malala Yousefsai: Everyone should read this book. It's an amazing window into Taliban rule, and the people who initially welcomed it, through the eyes of a truly inspirational young woman (the "Young Readers" version of this book is not quite as historically and geographically detailed as the full version, but it's a great read for the 5th-8th grade set).

Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo: Welcome to rural Florida. See it through the eyes of kids who not only have very little in terms of material goods, but in terms of compassion from their peers. And see how a couple of outcasts build a happiness of their own (for slightly younger kids, Because of Winn-Dixie, in the same setting, is also a great read).

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis: This book, by the author of The Watsons go to Birmingham, is set in a tiny village of runaway slaves, just over the border into Canada, just after 1850.  Elijah, the 11-year-old main character is so likeable and his adventure so interesting, that the historical import of the setting just seeps into you as you read. 

Trash by Andy Mulligan: The poverty of the third-world trash heap is overwhelming.  But see how these scrappy kids survive on what the rest of society discards -- and enjoy a gripping and thrilling mystery to boot.

Sold by Patricia McCormick: From America 2016, it's easy to take for granted that "women are equal" -- but watching Lakshmi, a 13 year old Nepali girl, sold into marriage puts it all in perspective.  Learn about her world and also her tenacity.

Cut also by Patricia McCormick: Many of us know someone who suffers from anxiety, depression, or some kind of self-harm disorder. But it's so hard to know what's inside people's heads.  Why do people act the way that they do?  Why is it so hard to help people who are suffering?  Cut takes you into the heart and head of a cutter and it really helps you see mental illness from the inside.

What books do you recommend to kids who want to broaden -- or burst -- the bubbles that they live in?

Why I Enable (Encourage?) my 5-year-old's Pokemon Go! Obsession

The cover of the "Pokemon Book" the girl is "writing"

"Mama is a softie."
"Hope we can have fun with real people, not Pokemons."
"I would not hand my phone over to a 5 year old. Heck, it's not even paid for yet."

Yes, according to grandma, Mama is a softie for letting the girl, just starting kindergarten, play Pokemon Go! on her phone. And, if you get the subtext, not only am I crazy to let the girl walk around with my phone, but I'm encouraging a "video game mentality," where kids interact with computers and shun people.

So, why do I, the mom who has let her kid play very few video games (I recently learned that she is embarrassingly behind her peers when it comes to using a PlayStation controller) let her walk around the neighborhood playing Pokemon Go?

The more we play, the more reasons I find.

First, it makes her want to walk.  We're a walking family and we live in a walkable part of the city. But, while the girl is a good walker, she often used to preface her Friday night restaurant choice with, "Which places can we drive to?" Now, she nixes all the driving places, often preferring a walk much longer than her dad is willing to take when she's moving at a Pokemon-playing pace. A few weekends ago we took a 3-mile round-trip walk to the thrift store to pick up some books. It was 2:00 on a sunny California afternoon, and the thrift shop has parking; even I considered driving! But she wanted to walk, so we did. Thanks Pokemon Go!

Pokemon Go! also adds a crazy techno-innocence (and cheapness!) to our outings. Our big adventures this month? To the La Brea Tar Pits to catch Charmanders and to the Santa Monica Pier to catch water-type Pokemon. We were outside, everything was free, we met all kinds of random people (many also playing Pokemon). Fun, cheap, easy, entertained. What more can a mom ask for?

And, far from stripping the girl of her imagination, Pokemon Go! feeds it. There are Pokemon everywhere in my house. She catches them on the street (even when she's not actually playing Pokemon), kneeling down suddenly to coax a Pokemon into her hand, pushing me out of the way so she can sic one of her Evees on a Rhython blocking our path, or handing her Pokemon "case" to me when I drop her at school, so I can take them to their "Pokemon day care." She tells me that you can collect baby or adult Pokemon, but she prefers the babies because "the adults pass away much more faster." And, she always reminds me, if I carry the Pokemon case too close to my body, the Pikachus might poke me. They're naughty. They do that.

As an educator, I can't help but notice the small, but important, academic skills she learns while playing: while many of my very smart test prep students don't know the words "combative" or "lure," my child now speaks obsessively about "combat power," "lures," and "evolving" and "revitalizing" her Pokemon, not to mention raising the "prestige" of red gyms.

Pokemon Go! also tackles a perennial problem for our younger students: place value. It's hard to get little kids to conceptualize the difference between 100 and 1,000 -- to them, it's just "a lot." Many of our students get bogged down saying long numbers correctly and comparing multi-digit numbers (why wouldn't a number that starts with 9 automatically be bigger than a number that starts with 1?).  Thanks to Pokemon Go!, my girl can tell you that her Vaporean, with a CP of 1614 can "easily defeat" an Arcanine with CP of 950. Oh, and as for sight words, she can now identify fire, water, psychic, ground, bug, and grass type Pokemon. She can't read all of the info in her Pokedex yet, but she sure is more motivated to learn to read than she used to be.

And don't get me started on alphabetical order.  Now that no one uses dictionaries, alphabetizing is a lost art (my very smart tutors spend far longer than they should filing student folders!), but my child scrolls through her Pokemon, looking for a "Geodude with a G" like a pro.

And yet, my favorite part of Pokemon Go! is that it teaches economy in a way that is direct, tangible, and free. I have found it impossible to convince my child (or our students) that spending $4 on junk food (or coin-operated rides at the mall) diminishes their ability to buy something they might really want later on. They simply cannot resist the instant gratification. For my girl, purchasing opportunities are too rare, and everything she buys with her own money is a luxury anyway, so she rarely feels the angst of wishing she had that $4 back. Thus, money spent, no lessons learned.

But, a kid who uses up all of her raspberries on weak Pokemon regrets it when faced with a 900+ CP Snorlax that she desperately wants. And, a kid with bad aim will quickly learn that foregoing Pokestops (where more pokeballs can be acquired for free) in order to catch more Pokemon, means an empty stock of Pokeballs just few blocks later. A player who squanders her stardust or candies on unworthy Pokemon regrets it almost immediately. My girl has gone from someone who blithely uses up her resources for a measly Ratatta, to a girl who carefully considers which Pokemon is "worth" an Ultraball. It's a lesson I have been trying to teach with money for a year and which Pokemon Go! has deeply imprinted in just a month.

It's not a perfect game, for sure. I worry that my kid -- or one of my EdBoost kids or staff members (yes, we all play) -- will get run over crossing a street while also catching a Paras or a Pidgey. But, as a new trend in video games, I like it. And, I think it goes a long way towards teaching through hands-on experience -- something we are constantly trying to create for students. Why not take advantage when it's built into something they WANT to do? When parents ask me my opinion, as I know they will, Pokemon Go! (in moderation, of course) will get my thumbs up.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go walk some kilometers and hatch some Pokemon eggs (oh, and did I mention that my kid now measures distance in kilometers?).

"I'm Paying for it Myself."

A parent on a Los Angeles parent list posted today, "We wondered what other parents are giving their teenage children for 'allowance'...we just want to know if we are giving our daughter too little or too much." The parent noted that the child drives herself back and forth to school and they gave her $60 a week to cover gas and "lunch" (in quotes, because the student always waited until she got home to fix lunch). The parent also noted that the student always seemed to be asking for more money come the weekend.

Another parent sympathized with the quandary. "I am torn between wanting to pay for them to go out to eat with their friends because I love seeing them out having fun vs. what should they pay on their own to teach them responsibility."

It felt like the parents really wanted to give their kids enough money to enjoy life. It was sweet and generous. One parent explicitly asked for advice and stories, but no "judgement." And yet, the judging side of me could not help but recall spending my teen days at the mall, running on a single $1 Hotdog-on-a-Stick because there was no way I was spending more than that (back in the day, when I made $3.10 an hour!) on food.

Reading these posts, I felt stuck between wanting to be a generous parent and wanting my child to suffer (you know, just like I did!).

Then, my 5:30 SAT tutoring appointment was a few minutes late. It's not uncommon. Students walk in late all the time. Traffic in LA can be rough.  After school activities run late.  They lose track of the time.  They oversleep.  No big deal. But Alejandra came rushing in, breathing hard, "I'm sorry... the bus!"

She wasted no time getting to a desk and pulling folders out of her backpack.

"Did you do your work for me?" I asked, as I always ask. "Of course!  I'm paying for this myself!"

At that moment, it clicked. This is why the generous side of me should NOT prevail; we should not give Quinn spending money. Most of my students cruise in, take a few minutes to get their work out, stop in the bathroom, and then want to answer their texts during tutoring.  They do their homework about 50% of the time. They want SAT prep -- they definitely want to raise their SAT scores! - but they don't value the time like Alejandra does.  Alejandra who spent winter break chasing kids around the L.A. Live ice rink so that she could come to EdBoost and work on her SAT scores.

I also thought of Jessica, one of our star students, whom we recently hired as a tutor (and who, I am proud to say is universally both loved and feared by students!). We're doing college applications together, and unlike so many other students who apply willy-nilly, she thought carefully about every school she added to her Common Application.  Her family is low-income so almost all of her application fees have been waived, but she'd be covering the cost of the extra SAT reports. "Oh! That's not bad at all!" she exclaimed, surprised but grateful to learn that she could cover a school ($11.25) with just an hour of work.

I think I'll pay Quinn's college application fees. I paid for all of my own gas, entertainment, and food out (though I had free range of the pantry for me and my friends!) but my mom covered SAT and AP costs and college app fees. That still seems fair to me. SAT tutoring? That's a harder one.  I'm considering the tack taken by another recent student's family. I complimented him for ALWAYS doing his homework.  He laughed, "My mom says if I miss even one assignment, I have to pay for my own tutoring!" He never missed a page.

Why You Really Should Check Your Kids' Homework

"My teacher doesn't care if it's right!"

Help students with homework for long enough and you'll hear this statement a lot. Tell a student to fix an answer and the response is almost automatic, "My teacher doesn't care."

It's a reasonable response. So many teacher give completion grades: if work is done, students get credit. Kids -- who so often struggle to draw conclusions from their reading comprehension work -- quickly reach a conclusion here: My teacher cares if the work is done, but does not care if it's right.

Taken to its extreme, this conclusion means that students just "fill in" homework. We see answers that are completely wrong. Totally made up. Completely nonsensical. The paper just needs to look like it contains work.  

When we admit new students to our homework program, we often warn parents: your kids are going to hate this -- and for the first few weeks, they are going to swear that we are making their grades worse. Why? Because we're going to insist that they do their homework correctly.

Why do we do it?

Read magazines or education news or listen to podcasts and you may hear credible sources, often teachers, tell parents not to check their children's homework. This is the kid's responsibility, they say. Or, how can a teacher tell what a kid can or cannot do if parents check homework (and help students get things right)? Checking homework, they tell us, is helicopter parenting and wrong. 

As a tutor and homework help instructor, I have always disagreed with this. I have always believed that the best homework pushes students to practice the skills they learned (or were supposed to learn) in school. A student who cannot do homework is a student who needs more instruction -- or at the least more practice. And practice done wrong is worse than practice not done at all. So, we correct all of our students' homework. When things are wrong, they redo them. When they don't know how, we teach them. And, for some students, particularly the ones who struggle to learn in the classroom (Are they not paying attention? Is the teacher confusing them? From our perspective, it's impossible to tell), I often feel like these are the moments when the kids learn the most. Students who can successfully complete their homework each day are students who know the material. 

So, what about as a parent?  I just experienced this problem for the first time with my preschooler. She loves doing her homework and completed her first two homework packets with very little help from me. It's tracing and cutting and drawing. All she needs from me is some help reading instructions.  

But she rushed through the third packet. Her lower case h's looked, at best, like drunk n's... at worst, like nearly sideways chicken scratches. 

I had her do them again.

I pulled out some notebook paper and ruler, made some wide lines, and had her redo the work. 

The lesson: your work should be quality.  You should take pride in your work.  I care about how well you do your work. You should care about how well you do your work.  Ms. Jenny cares about the quality of your work.

But, as I said that last sentences, I wasn't sure. Would the pre-school teacher hold them accountable for good work?

I found out a few weeks later at our first conference: She did. She didn't want the work to be perfect (they are 4 years old afterall!) but she compare their homework to the work they did in class.  If the homework was messy compared to classwork, they missed out on play time to re-do the work. 

So, it turned out, the teacher was right on top of it. I didn't need to check my girl's work, because her teacher would. But, because I did, she got her play time.  And, I got to start, right now, in pre-school, teaching her the right values for school work. That's my job and I don't want to leave to to chance.  I love that her teacher and I agree, but I don't want to take a chance on that lesson being lost. 

I'm lucky. Her teacher agrees with me. We'll play back up for each other and make sure my kid learns to take pride in her work. But I'm sure there will be other teachers with different priorities, or not enough time, or too many students who need more help than my kid. In those cases, I want to make sure that I'm there to say, "I care about your work being right -- and you should too."  And, in those cases, I will also tell her what I always tell my students, "I'm sure your teacher cares if it's right -- even if she doesn't have time to check everything you do -- I know that she cares."

What words do you use with your kids?

"Don't provoke your brother!"
"Why do you have to antagonize each other?"
"Will you please stop taunting him?"
"Wipe that sulk off your face."
"Don't pout."
"You guys are really aggravating me."

These phrases wore grooves in my brain over the course of my childhood. Clearly, I was not an easy child.

Now, as an ISEE and SAT tutor, I invoke these sorts of phrases when I try to see if students know words like provoke, provocation, antagonize, antagonistic, taunt, sulking, and pouty. They usually don't. When I ask students, especially students with siblings, if their parents implore them not to antagonize each other, they typically shrug, "They just tell us not to bug each other."

I don't know if this is true. I also don't know if I know these words because my mother used them, or because I have always liked words (I should ask my brother if these words also strike strong memories for him). My mother is not an intellectual type. The first in her family to go to college, she dropped out halfway through to become a flight attendant. She only finished when she learned she was not tall enough to meet those willowy 1960's stewardess requirements. But she had a wide and varied vocabulary for scolding us and that vocabulary sticks with me. 

And the strategy haunts me when I talk with my 4 year old. Daily, I pause for split seconds when I talk to her. There's always an easier word that I can use.  An easier word that will mean I don't have to answer 52 follow-up questions and she will actually totally understand what I'm talking about the first time around.  But should I be using the harder word? Is that my job? Is that how I improve her vocabulary naturally?

The scenario that convinced me that I'm doing it wrong was a simple one: 

We were on the freeway. One of those big trucks that carries a dozen new cars drove past us on the northbound side.

"Mama, is that a tow truck that carries your car when it doesn't work any more?"

"That's what a tow truck does, but that truck had a lot of cars. It's probably taking new cars to the..." ...and here a pause.  If I were talking to an adult I would call it a dealership. But, for my girl, for a second I thought about calling it a car store.... "dealership."

"What's a dealership?" 

(Of course.)

"It's like a car store. It's a place where you go to buy a car."

"Mama!  Look, there's a carousel at that dealership!"

She was pointing out the window, at, sure enough, a car dealership, looking at one of the big striped tents the dealership was using to shade some cars.

That was the moment when I thought, "Yes, that's it. I'm supposed to use the real words."

I know this from working with our EdBoost kids. They love to pick up on the words we use. Our homework helpers love to call me "persnickety" and they come in from school to tell us that their teacher used one of the big words that we like to use (procrastination, diligence, efficient, etc). I know, from my job, that we have an obligation to use good vocabulary with kids.

And, I am also convinced that we have an obligation to use those big words with little kids - even if makes our lives just a little big harder right now. If we do, maybe some SAT tutor sometime in the future won't have to work so hard.


P.S.  This morning she told me I was "aggravating her"... I'm both proud and.. and that other feeling you get when your pre-schooler tells you that you aggravate her.

Judging Goldie Blox on its Essentials: Is it Fun?

Putting together the front axle of the parade float.

When the Goldie Blox video went viral, I not only saw it everywhere, but got tagged by a number of friends. Apparently, as the educator, feminist mom of a just-about-to-be-three girl, I was the target audience.

My first thought: yay!  What a cool idea. There's the birthday gift I was looking for!

Then (within what, a day?) the backlash began: Is it feminist enough? (There are princesses and pink and purple pieces!) Creative enough? (Kits encourage not free play but building a particular structure from specific plans.)  Empowering enough? (Parade floats?) Smart enough? (Perhaps the Goldie Blox folks are better at PR than at building toys).

One question I could answer for sure. There was truly far too much talking, writing, blogging, tweeting about this toy.  But, although I gave up my Goldie Blox research without buying a kit, the drama was really just a symptom of my (our?) general toy-buying neuroses. I continued to angst over every toy I did consider for my daughter.  She loves baby dolls, but should they have blue eyes like hers?  Or, explicitly non-blue eyes?  Should they have light skin or dark skin?  Can I buy her a broom and dust pan (as she always tries to use grown up ones and ends up knocking down every picture frame in the house?) or is that gender normative?  Should I buy her letter toys and games? She really prefers (and learns a ton from!) the letter games on the Kindle -- but of course Kindle time is screen-time, which might be frying her brain. And thus, every shopping trip was psychologically fraught.

When I finally came up for air, I thought (as usual) about our students. Kids really have only one criteria for a toy: is it fun?  And, our students' parents -- who come from all walks of life but include a lot of working class and first generation immigrants -- tend to use the same criteria my parents did: is the fun worth the money?  

Seriously. How did this happen?  It just shouldn't be this hard to buy gifts.

In the end I bought very few. Lots of people buy my child too many gifts.  I decided let other people make these decisions and just watch.

And, at her birthday party: GoldieBlox and the Parade Float arrived.

After it was unwrapped, I quietly set it aside.  Despite the angst, I was excited. I wanted it to get a fair shake, not get lost in the morass of wrapping and other small pieces.

So yesterday, I brought the box to the breakfast table.  I wanted to get her excited.  But, I also wanted to prep.  Nothing kills the joy of a new joy like watching a parent read the instructions!

But, no instructions necessary; there was just a molded plastic box of parts, figurines, and a story book.  Every few pages the book presented a new creation with basic instructions on how to build it. The main attraction, the "Parade Float," had a blueprint.

With some prompting (and a number a breaks so that her doll could "help" put pieces together -- tricky with tiny plastic hands), we built each part of the float. Then we harnessed up the dog figurine who was meant to pull the float and we "played."  When I had to go, she called dad in to keep playing with her. The dog pulled the float; the little bear figurine was an "engineer" ( a mechanical engineer or more of a train engineer? -- hard to be sure) and various friends "rode" the float.

The three-year-old's verdict: fun.

The social scientist, feminist, educator, over-angsting mom verdict:

1. Ruby, the over-dressed, float-riding girl is sort of annoying.  But, Goldie wears overalls.  I can live with it.
2. The book's illustrations are helpful and clear, but leave enough wiggle room for the kids to figure out some of the details. As an experienced Ikea builder, I give them a thumbs up.
3. The story is super thin. If you're going to center your product on narrative, can you write a better story?  It reads like such an after-thought.  For a story-lover, that was disappointing.
4. Why aren't there Goldie and Ruby figures?  When my kid plays, characters are key. The story was weak, so she pretty much made up her own, but it seems like we should have figurines of the two main characters, not just the secondary ones (maybe they come in another set?)
5. It's all very doable. My just-turned three-year-old did most of the building herself and, while I had to do a lot of pointing and prompting, she followed the directions pretty well.  An older kid could sit down and execute on her (or his!) own. And the pieces are flexible, so the kids do have to fiddle a little to get the pieces of work as they should (unlike, say, a snap together model that has a "correct" fitting for each piece).
6. My favorite part: there are six more structures drawn out at the end of the book.  We didn't get to them this time, but we will. They are drawn in detail, but do not come with step by step instructions. 

Many of the critiques that I read about Goldie Blox state that it doesn't really encourage inventive thinking because it gives explicit instructions to build an item. Many critics suggest that Legos are superior -- allowing kids to just build.  I disagree.  As a kid I had a Lego house. I loved building it.  But, I didn't really have the creativity to build anything else. I wished they had given me some thoughts for next steps. And, as an educator, I find that a lot of kids are like I was as a kid. The kid who is born to be an engineer is going to build. Give her some tinker toys and she's making vehicles. But what about the kid who may not have innate engineering genius, but who you want to encourage to be an engineer (or think like an engineer)?  She needs some steps. Give her detailed instructions, then some more ideas, and then she will be more likely to make the leap and start inventing herself.

When I teach writing, I find that there are two types of kids. Those who love to write, write. You can teach them style and form but they give you plenty of content to work with. They will take writing classes and listen to their writing teachers and over time their writing will improve. Then there are kids who hate to write. And it's hard to teach them because they produce nothing to give them feedback on. Give then a blank piece of paper and those kids can return to you, in an hour, a blank piece of paper.  

"I can't think of anything to write," they will wail.  And no matter how many blank pieces you give them, they won't write.

And, all rambling evidence to the contrary, I was one of those kids.  Now, when I teach writing, I steal techniques from Ms. Dexter, the teacher who taught me to write. Give explicit assignments (in my writing camps, we start by replacing adjectives in someone else's stories, then move on to "Show-not-tell" essays -- write an essay that shows me that the teacher was boring without ever using the word boring!, then exposition pieces where they explain something they know how to do). We take tiny steps to help them get words on the page. After time and practice the  blank page is not so daunting and, via baby steps, all of the kids in my writing camp write a personal essay by the end of the week.

So, although Goldie Blox is far more explicit than creative, I think it serves a purpose. Goldie Blox gives structure to a kid who could learn to love building but may not be bursting with ideas. And, yes, it uses pink and purple, but whoever said that a feminist can't enjoy pink and purple.

So, although it's not the perfect toy, I'm going to stop reading about Goldie Blox and just keep playing with it. I think it's kind of fun.

Can we really make kids want school to start?

Back to school: ubiquitous letters above the board
and maybe even some chemistry!

Los Angeles Unified went back to school last week and our students have been trickling in.  It's always fun for us to see them -- see how they have literally GROWN over the summer -- and get back into what feels like a normal routine for us.

But what about them?

As summer comes to an end, we hear a lot of groaning.  And, as most of our students have to be at their campuses before 8am, I can't say I blame them.

But one of our students, just starting 10th grade surprised me yesterday.  In response to the standard, "So how was the first day?"

She said, "Great...well, not really...I guess not that good."

When we pressed, it wasn't that anything bad had happened, but rather nothing really happened at all.

She explained how last year she was so excited to go to school, so excited to be a 9th grader and start high school... and how she presumed that feeling would come back: "And then in 11th and 12th, you're almost done, you're making progress, but 10th grade..."

It made no sense, of course, as 10th is still closer to being done than 9th grade was...

But, on the other hand, it made tons of sense.  What was there to be excited about?  Same old school, same old friends, a very long road until graduation.

What made me sad was, what about what she'd learn this year?  World History is one of the most fun and interesting and eye opening classes in the high school curriculum.  Chemistry is the class where you actually get to mix stuff in test tubes and live with the possibility of disaster.  French 2 means she'll actually get to speak a little French, the language of fashion, her first love.

And that's it.  We do not think of school in terms of what we'll learn.  We think of schedules and friends and environments. We obsess on location, whether a kid can handle a block schedule, if a teacher will be a good fit.  The last thing we tend to think about is the curriculum.

And we know the curriculum.  For each grade we know what every teacher in the state of California (and every state using the Common Core!) will teach.  There's no reason not to get pumped -- and help our kids get pumped -- about what they're learn this year.

Before she starts 4th grade, I want to take my kid to the San Fernando Mission and let her know that this year, she'll learn about the Chumash, and Father Junipero Serra -- and she'll probably build a mission of her own!

Before she starts 2nd grade, I want her to be excited to learn about fossils (and if the class doesn't go fossil hunting, I want to promise her a trip to the Newport Back Bay where I did my fossil hunting as a kid).

Before she starts 3rd grade, I want her looking forward to learning about electricity.  And, if they don't build circuits in school (oh please, let her go to a school where they will build circuits!), off to Radio Shack to get some circuit building gear (for anyone who loves electricity less than I do, Lakeshore Learning has some lovely electricity kits that you don't have to assemble from scratch).

Second grade: paragraphs!  Fourth grade: fractions!  Kindergarten: letters and words and addition and subtraction.

Why can't these be some of the things we get excited about?  Why do even we, educators, seem to focus more on the social than the educational?  My resolution: I will focus more on the learning.  Less on people, less on grades, more on what they learn (ok yes, and they need to get the best grades they can while they're learning... some things can't change that much...).

And, yes, it's true, the standards are vague and teachers vary a little (especially in science and social studies), so here's my other commitment to my someday-going-to-be-school-aged-daughter: when we go to Back to School night, we're going to stop by to see the teachers for the next year, to say hi and grab a handout.  Let's learn, from the teachers' mouths, what we can start to look forward to.  And then let's start looking forward to it.