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February 20, 2007
Paperclips Mean a Lot More Than You Think
Last week I was traveling in Nashvl. No I didn’t misspell it. It’s the only way I could think to spell a city's name the way it’s pronounced there. There don’t seem to be many vowels in the South or else the sounds are kind of lazy and laid back. I liked it although I found myself saying “ya’ll” a couple of times recently.
One of my favorite activities is to visit places. Oh, I went to the typical tourist things and I will get around to telling you about them soon. The Hermitage has to be talked about when I mention history/social studies lessons, but there was one item in a little place out in the country that really caught my eye.
A friend took me to visit his hometown out in Marion County. We’re both educators so he knew I’d like to see a school or two. One of the stops didn’t get me any farther than a railroad car on their front lawn. No kidding a real railroad car. The car was filled with paperclips. Well, not filled, but hundreds of thousands of paperclips were on either side of the box car behind glass.
Okay so what’s the story here?
In 1998 the eighth grade students at Whitwell Middle School were studying the Holocaust. The enormity of the six million Jews affected was beyond their understanding so the teachers asked the principal if the students could collect something reflecting the number. She agreed if it was small and manageable. According to the website information http://http://www.marionschools.org/holocaust/ they decided on the paperclip because the Norwegians had invented it and wore paperclips on their lapels protesting the Nazi regime.
The kids wrote to people, told them what they were doing and asked for a paperclip. As they received answers they wrote to more people, famous people, people who were affected by the Holocaust. They received answers, stories, reports, pictures and over 30 million paperclips.
The display is in the boxcar. There are letters and pictures around the glass enclosures. One thing that caught my eye was a pile of small rocks outside the boxcar and one of the rail and another on the coupler. I was told Jews bring a small rock to recognize that someone has died.
There’s much more to this story as you can see by their website. When I was driving out of the school grounds which is in a small town 20 miles from another small town, I couldn’t help but think about how a group of 12-year-olds in a remote town in southern Tennessee had managed to catch the attention of so many because they wanted to know about a world outside of their own. What they found, I’m sure changed their lives forever, and it may have brought some understanding to the hearts of many others.
Posted by Dr Joni at 07:22 AM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2007
“Different” “Handful” “ADHD”
I’ve heard those words several times from parents over the years. I remember one of the first times I had a similar comment and I never forgot it. A Mom was talking to me about her family. She said, “Well, we have three girls and then there’s Andy.”
I had Andy in my special education class. He was a darling blond haired-blue eyed child. He enjoyed life and had an infectious laugh. It seems his sisters were all in the gifted program or close to it. Andy hadn’t learned to read yet. He was in first grade and was still trying to find out what school was all about. He was already in my program for additional help.
Andy wasn’t hard to deal with in class. He just wasn’t like his sisters.
A Mom the other night told me of her child who was also in special ed. From her I learned he had Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), had various kinds of assistance going, and the variety of things Mom had tried to help him.
I know about kids who are different. I have four children including a set of twins. My boys may be the same age, but they are VERY different from each other. I couldn’t have treated them the same if I’d wanted to. They had too many differences to do so.
I’m sure at least one of them was labeled a “handful” by someone and our doctor told me one of them was ADHD. He needn’t have bothered. I had already figured that out, but I wasn’t going to give into it.
I believe that children are who they are, but they will become who you tell them they are if you tell them often enough.
If Andy’s being different was a good thing to the family, then Andy was going to be just fine. If it was a curse, Andy would have trouble as he got older. His being different would be something bad, not okay, even if Andy was just fine.
The Mom with the ADHD was searching for ways to help her child. So was I with my child. I chose play to his strengths and help him focus his ability to “multitask.”
How we accept our children’s differences, how we label them, and how we encourage and support them will go a long way in helping them deal with whatever life throws at them.
Posted by Dr Joni at 02:17 PM | Comments (0)
February 05, 2007
Help with Algebra
At a workshop the other day, a mom asked me about how to help with algebra. It was not a trick question, but getting to the question was tricky. Mom is a Spanish speaker and, although I speak some Spanish, my conversation needs to be at about a second grade level and the speed of a slow turtle for me to get it all.
Mom explained to the interpreter and I got a few words, then the interpreter explained to me. “Her son’s in third grade, and he’s getting some algebra problems. She doesn’t know how to help at all. She doesn’t know algebra. What should she do??
I told her there was a trick with Algebra, and you didn’t have to be an expert to use it.
“What,? I asked, “is the missing number in this problem??
2 + ______= 4
“Dos,? said Mom.
“Okay, what is X in this problem?? I said.
2 + X=4 solve for X
“Dos,? said Mom.
Then we tried another problem, more of a third grade one.
2 X ______= 6 What’s the missing number.
“Tres,? said Mom.
“Okay, so solve for n,? I said.
2 X n=6
“I get it.? Well, I know she said “I get it? because I could see it in her face. She just lit up. “I can help. I understand how. I can help him,? the interpreter told me she’d said.
I appreciated the translation, but I knew she got it. She was so excited. She could do algebra. She could help her son.
Sometimes all people need is a little bit of help to know something they already know. Isn’t that nice.
Posted by Dr Joni at 05:53 PM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2007
Grandparent Help
I was at a workshop last week talking about how to become involved in your child’s learning. It’s something I talk a lot about. This particular workshop had about 50 people speaking two different languages, but we still managed to communicate our interest in kids and their learning.
After the workshop a lady came up to talk with me. She explained that she was a grandmother taking care of her daughter’s little girl. She said, “I haven’t done this in a while, and I’m not sure what I can do to help her in school.?
We talked for a bit and I encourage her to look around for opportunities. I gave her a couple of quick ideas, and she and the little girl left.
A couple days later I received a phone call from a teacher in a school nearby where we’d held the workshop. She said she’d been talking to her great aunt. Her great aunt had talked to me at a workshop and gotten several ideas for her granddaughter. She was trying them out and thrilled at how well they worked. She was asking the little girl to read signs as they drove in the car and playing learning games at home. She was so excited to have some direction about what to do.
There’s some research out about parent involvement. What the study showed was that it didn’t matter the grade level the parent passed in school or the socio-economic status or the ethnicity of the parent or in this case grandparent. Children’s achievement improves when a parent gets involved in the learning.
This grandparent has definitely gotten involved. What a treat for both the grandparent and the child!
Posted by Dr Joni at 07:21 PM | Comments (0)