Black History Month Curriculum Resource: The Harlem Renaissance

Black History Month is coming up, and it happens to coincide with the time we are studying the history of the 1920's and 1930's.  So what better topic to combine the two than the Harlem Renaissance?

We have already been working on it some, but I recently found what I think is a fantastic resource.  John Carroll University has created the Harlem Renaissance Multimedia Resource, which pulls so much information about this fascinating period of modern American history into a central site.

What I love about this website--beside the fact that it is FREE--is that it includes not only the aspects of the Harlem Renaissance that most of us tend to think about, such as the music and the literature, but also the politics, the philosophy, the education, and even the international connections.  There is a whole section on religion as well; in fact, throughout the entire site I saw the predecessors of Martin Luther King Jr's thoughts, philosophies, actions, and words.  It not only has multimedia resources--pictures, audio, and a little video (all that I found was Billie Holiday)--but also lots of links to other websites with even more comprehensive information on that particular topic.

Particularly helpful to me were the timelines included and the map of Harlem itself.  It has a general timeline of the political and artistic events during that period, which helps me put things in order.  Even more interesting to us right now, however, was the timeline of the music.  My son has been getting more interested in jazz, about which I am not that knowledgable (confessional--even though two of my brothers were performers, students, and aficionados of that musical genre, and my father is at least a long-time fan).  The timeline helped me understand how ragtime gradually morphed into swing, with dates, different jazz styles, artist bios, and short audios of outstanding pieces along the way.

So if you are looking for resources about black musicians, writers, thinkers, educators, or politicians, this  website is a great place to look.

What Happened to Wikipedia and Google?

I'm frequently writing about Google Doodles in this blog.  But today's Google "Doodle" is different than any before, at least as far as I know.  Today the famous logo does not appear at all, but rather is blacked out by a big black box.  However, at least that popular student resource is working.  If students go to the English site of Wikipedia, they will discover that it is down for 24 hours.  In its place is a short protest against two pieces of legislation and a request, complete with links to contact your representatives (according to the zip code you enter) and then tweet about it or post it on your Facebook page, to express your opposition to the bills.

The legislation in question is the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).  The goals of both these acts is to protect US intellectual property, primarily from foreign sources that are selling it as their own.  The main supporters of the bills have been Hollywood and other entertainment producers who are trying to shut down foreign bootleggers of commercial media, such as illegal downloads or DVDs of US films and TV shows, music, etc.

So the goal is something that I think most of us would support.  People shouldn't be making money by providing us with illegal copies of performances they don't own and that the performers themselves don't make any money for, right?

The issue that many Internet-based companies, and many of their customers, have is that these bills address the problem not by going after the illegal producers themselves, but the sources that give these illegal producers access to American consumers online.  So, rather than suing or arresting the bootleggers, SOPA and PIPA allow the producers to take action against anyone who provides services or even has links to the illegal websites and demand that they block any US access to this site.

Many in the online community have major issues with this approach.  Some consider this approach to be censorship, which they vehemently oppose in any form, despite the reason.  Others argue that the legislation as written is overly broad and would impose onerous burdens on even the smallest Internet companies. Yet others say that this is just the wrong way to address the problem of intellectual privacy.  As Alexis Ohanian, the founder of Reddit (another online resource that has gone dark for the day), says about this legislation, "It's like taking action against Ford (Motor Company) because a Mustang (car) was used in a bank robbery."  Reddit has a lot of educational information about this issue (albeit more anti-legislation than pro) as does the SOPA Strike website.

So as much as we might hate losing our Wikipedia (along with lots of other informational sites) for the day, this is a great opportunity for discussing with your children or students some of these issues, such as the downside of everyone (including criminals) being able to access everyone in the world, and what is the best way to deal with problems like this.  (Besides, only the English site of Wikipedia is down, so you can search in a different language and work on your translation skills along with researching the subject.)

And if you think your students will use this as an excuse to play games rather than do their research on the Internet, don't worry--MineCraft is one of the sites that has joined the blockout.

Curriculum Resource: Explaining the Occupy Wall Street Movement

I don't know about you, but I've been having a hard time explaining the Occupy Wall Street movement to my middle schooler because I haven't completely understood it myself.  I don't think the mainstream media has done a great job reporting on what this movement is really all about, preferring to focus on the "sizzle" (growing numbers, celebrity drop-bys, the variety of issues and outfits among participants, etc.) rather than the substance.

However, I found an NPR podcast that I think gives a better background about what is really significant about these protests.  Things may seem disorganized and unfocused to outsiders because while participants disagree about what the MOST egregious problems in modern American policy are, they all agree that we need an entirely different PROCESS to address them.   So while they may all be protesting different specific issues, they are united in not only discussing, but in demonstrating, a different system for making decisions, setting policy, and even allocating resources in a fairer, more democratic, and ultimately better way.

But listen to the enclosed just over 20 minutes podcast to hear a better explanation, including the theory behind a different way to run our entire production system that is known as "participatory economics:"



Plus, come back tomorrow for a teachable moment around this weekend's protest news.

My Story on Steve Jobs

I'm still on the Steve Jobs theme, because I'm afraid our world has just lost one of its creative lights.  I've been telling bits of this story to different people all day, so I thought maybe I would just tell it all at once and put it out there for everyone to access.

Also, when I say it is MY story on Steve Jobs, that means that it is my interpretation of his life path.  I don't have any particular or personal insight into the man, having never met him--although I did at least get to see him speak at a conference once.  Rather, this is my telling of the story of Steve Job's trajectory, filtered through what I know and where I was as I, too, was encountering the new world of computers and networking and digital arts, etc.  I do not claim it to be true.  But I offer it up as one tale of a man who can teach us a lot through the way he lived, regardless of whether his technologies had ever worked out or not.

His life did not start off especially auspiciously.  He was born out of wedlock, and given up for adoption by a middle class couple living in California.  Like the other man who most shaped the computer environment through the end of the 20th century, Bill Gates, Jobs dropped out of college; in contrast to Gates, his reasons were largely financial (Gates came from a fairly well-off family).  But he kept going to classes unofficially and for no credit (including his famous story of serendipitously attending a calligraphy class that, a decade or so later, helped him understand the need for beautiful computer fonts), and eventually started a computer business in his garage with his high school chum, Steve Wozniak, the computer geek who could bring to life Jobs' vision for a computer that would transform lives of the common people.

Jobs and Wozniak, drawing from experimental concepts from computer innovators of the time, developed a computer that people could use without knowing code, that people could point to things in order to make things happen, that included color, that included nice fonts, and that looked "cool," rather than just utilitarian boxes.  The market rewarded their vision, and Apple Computer rocketed to a major player in the computer industry.

However, after the first few years of success, things were hard for the visionary Jobs.  He was always dissatisfied with what we had now and was always questing for the next best thing, sure that we could always do better, faster, cooler, and more beautiful.  But multi-million publicly-traded corporations are not built on constant reinvention.  The young Apple Computer Corporation was not able to deal with its co-founder's insistence on abandoning what they had in order to create what he saw was the great next advance.  Eventually, the board brought in a manager from Pepsi-Cola to stabilize the company and built up a traditional corporate structure, and less than a decade after it had started, both Jobs and Wozniak left the company they had founded.

So Jobs moved on and created NeXT Computers, which built the kind of ultimate computers that he had advocated, and had been rejected, at Apple.  And sure enough, he created a computer that was a thing of beauty and power.  The only problem was, all that fabulous performance ending up costing close to the cost of a cheap car....two, three, maybe ten times the cost of the "personal computer" of that time.  So who would buy a computer like that?  Mostly, it was Hollywood--digital artists who could see the potential of the way Jobs was heading, and who needed that amount of graphic power (it was always about the graphics and the visual for Jobs) and could easily justify the expense.  NeXT became a niche computer, but the niche it filled fit nicely with a man with such visual, marketing, and even storytelling expertise as Jobs.

It was the NeXT/Hollywood connection that supported Job's next big leap.  He bought a cast-off unit from George Lucas (another visionary who transformed the movie industry, but either couldn't see or didn't have the time to follow where computer animation would go), and turned it into Pixar Animated Studios, the most commercially and critically successful computer animation studio of modern times.   He funded the operation through several lean years until the launch of Toy Story, and then ran the company until finally it was acquired by Disney, making him the largest stockholder of the company (and multi-billionaire), but also, in my opinion, saving the company's soul after years of substandard programming by managers whose decisions were driven by cost, rather than by art.

Before all that, however, back in Apple Land....former PepsiCo leader John Sculley had managed to stabilize the company as requested.  It was so stable, however, that it was sinking like a rock.  Apple had always been, and to this day continues to be, a bit player in the grand scheme of computer sales.  However, it had acquired an ardent fan base in the early days.  But bit player, with nothing new or exciting to entice people not to abandon it for the dominant players of IBM and Microsoft and such...well, it wasn't a winning market strategy.  Which is not to say that Sculley was unsuccessful.  He did a great job of building up the structures and strategies and corporate skeleton that Apple needed to survive in a business environment.  But the company realized that they could not survive without an exciting alternative to the IBM/Microsoft/corporate dominate computers.  They realized they needed the Jobs magic again.

In the interim, Jobs had also grown up a little, corporate-wise, at least.  He had learned that he couldn't always abandon last year's work to pursue this year's possibilities.  More importantly, perhaps, he realized that you couldn't necessarily create next year's vision without going through this year's reality.

Whatever, Apple bought out NeXT, Jobs was back in charge, and Apple started going gangbusters again (with an organization that could support the vision).  The NeXT software became the new Mac OS X software.   They created MacBooks, iMacs, and all the incredible software bundled with their computers for free.  Then they branched out to iPod, iPhones, iPads.  Jobs' vision about the potential of digital technology outreached computers themselves, and extended to the music industry, the movie industry, and the book industry.  Apple was leading the charge to reinvent almost all of the popular media that we use today.

So, then, Steve Jobs' life is a great lesson to teach our middle schoolers, outside of his technology.   When he had his big falling out with the company he created, he had enough money to go off and do nothing for the rest of his life but complain about how stupid Apple had been to (to be honest) kick him out.  But all our lives would probably have been the poorer for it.  Instead, he kept pursuing his vision for using computers to transform the lives, not just of the rich, corporate, or knowledgable, but of everyone.  He was brilliant enough to see the potential in Pixar, and humble enough to learn about his own mistakes that enabled him to return to Apple.  He could overcome his ego and his competitiveness enough to build a relationship with Microsoft that enabled Macintosh computers to read Microsoft documents (which, again to be honest, probably is what saved Apple from going belly up in the 1990's). In short, I think he learned the thin line between confidence and arrogance, and I think we are all the better for it.

The other lesson we can learn from Steve Jobs is the need for passion, or in the more personal vernacular, love.  His graduation address at Stanford has been making the rounds, and I've included it below.  In it, he talks about how there is nothing more important than living a life of love.  And he is not only talking about relationships; he is referring to finding the love behind how we spend out lives every day.  He says that he started each day looking at the mirror and asking himself that if this were his last day on Earth, would he want to spend it doing what he was going to do that day?  He responds that if he found himself answering "no" for too many days in a row, then he found a way to change his life.

So there is much to learn from Steve Jobs.  He teaches us about sticking to a vision, even when it is a lonely road.  He teaches us about going through a public "defeat" and coming through it stronger and wiser.  He teaches us about when one door is closed, find a new opening.  And he teaches us about, when it comes down to it, it's all about love, even if it seems to be about computers.

Oh, and he just happened to foster the development of the some of the best digital tools of our times.    But, like I said, that was a by-product of a life well spent.

Hear his deliver his life philosophy below:

Poverty: The Factor Educational Reformers Don't Want to Consider

Amidst all the debates about charter schools and Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind, educators may have missed the latest report that 22% of children are now living in poverty--the highest figure since 1993.  But that is a shame, because that fact is likely to have more of an impact on student test scores than all the policies enacted by all the politicians put together.

At the end of last year, there was a whole hullabaloo about the fact that US students only scored around average or below on the international PISA test scores.  YIKES!  AMERICAN SCHOOLS ARE FAILURES!!!!!

Except, on further analysis of the data, it doesn't really reflect poorly on American schools.  Instead, our poor showing internationally doesn't really seem to be based on our school system at all.  Rather, it speaks to the shocking fact that in a country of such abundance, one out of every five children lives in poverty....one of the highest levels of poverty among the OECD countries with whom we have been compared.

How can I say that?  Because the National Association of Secondary School Principles analyzed the data by separating it by the level of poverty in the schools (as measured by the number of students eligible for free or reduced lunch programs).  IN EVERY CASE,  the US students came in FIRST when compared to countries in the same poverty range (in many cases, the other countries has MUCH lower poverty rates, but at least fell into a comparable range).

So, for American kids who went to school in relatively rich schools (defined as schools where less than 10% of students had incomes low enough to qualify for lunch programs)....well, they kicked the butts of the top-ranked Finnish students (with a mere 3.4% of poverty level) by scoring 551 to the Finnish 536:

Country	Poverty Rate	PISA Score
United States	<10%	551
Finland	3.4%	536
Netherlands	9.0%	508
Belgium	6.7%	506
Norway	3.6%	503
Switzerland	6.8%	501
France	7.3%	496
Denmark	2.4%	495
Czech Republic	7.2%	478

OK, so that include all those Ivy League feeder prep schools and such... but what about just those middle/upper middle class schools, where, say, 10-24.9% of students qualify for lunch program?

Country Poverty Rate PISA Score United States 10%-24.9% 527 Canada 13.6% 524 New Zealand 16.3% 521 Japan 14.3% 520 Australia 11.6% 515 Poland 14.5% 500 Germany 10.9% 497 Ireland 15.7% 496 Hungary 13.1% 494 United Kingdom 16.2% 494 Portugal 15.6% 489 Italy 15.7% 486 Greece 12.4% 483

Source for all figures:  NASSP

OK, well, how about our poor schools and our REALLY poor schools?  Even compared to the OECD countries that have a higher than 50% poverty rate (Austria, Turkey, Chile, and Mexico), the US students still did better.   So, when you compared apples to apples, the US students always came up on top, no matter how sweet or sour the apple selection was.

So according to the data, US education is doing an exemplary job at all levels--high income through low income student populations.  Why, then, is "school reform" so fixated on blaming bad teachers and their "gang," the EVIL teachers' unions, for all of our educational woes?

My answer?  It's back to my educational days as an existentialist.  Existentialism argues that people will do anything to avoid facing up to their own responsibility.  It is so much easier to blame uncaring and inadequate teachers, and one-sided teachers unions, and regulation-bound public school administrators, than to ask ourselves:  How is it, that in a country that has so much, and so many live such abundant lives, that somewhere between one-fifth and one-quarter of our children live in poverty?

Hey, rather than admit that I'm part of the systemic poverty problem, I would rather blame those uncaring teachers and inflexible administrators myself.  The thing is, I don't actually know any educators like that....

Finding Beauty Among Chaos

So we in the Raleigh area survived the hurricane without much destruction, or really much disruption for most of us.  The hurricane move the to east a bit at the last minute, which took us JUST out of the range for the really high winds and rain.  So we were lucky.  Oriental, where my husband has his boat, was not as fortunate, as the eye of the hurricane passed right over the town, resulting in 9 1/2 foot flooding on the main streets and structures by the waterfront.  But even so, there weren't many deaths, and not too much damage, so I think we were lucky.

As I stated in my Saturday post, I did venture out Friday night, which turned out to be a lovely night.  I saw some beautiful art, which was calming after a stressful day of getting prepared for the coming hurricane.  Then two things happened that helped me get a great spiritual message about this whole thing.

I went to the exhibits in the Town complex, which included shows at Page-Walker Arts & History Center, the Herb Young Community Center, and the Town Hall (where I often received personal tours by the artist because I was the only one of the public to be there--unfortunately, since the art was so good).  In walking from the Community Center to Page-Walker, I passed through the Page-Walker herb and sculpture garden. What should I see there but a hummingbird, sipping nectar from some of the plants!  I thought to myself, "A hummingbird in a hurricane?  How bad can it be?"  Then I remembered that among the Native Americans, hummingbird was supposed to be a totem animal representing joy.  So in the midst of all our worry and stress about the coming storm, there was also a symbol of beauty and joy.

My son had a lock-in at the library for his Newbery Book Club, so after viewing the art, I drove over to pick him up.  So I was driving along High House Road, when I saw one of the MOST gorgeous sunsets I have ever seen in Cary.  I was driving along, and when I hit a hill where I could really see it, I would think, "This looks like one of those American Illuminist paintings!"  Really, I was so struck by the sunset that I was probably lucky I didn't have an accident, except that, again, few people were on the roads.

I even tried taking some pictures as I was driving.  They don't nearly do it justice, but are shown below:

So it was just a great reminder to me that even in the midst of chaos and worry and the disturbance it brings to human egos that Nature is powerful and uncontrollable, there is also beauty and joy and wondrous human achievements and characteristics--if we take the time to notice them.

What Are Your Five (or Six) Most Influential Books?

Today I stumbled upon a wonderful website sponsored by Scholastic books. Entitled You Are What You Read, it asks the best question I’ve been asked in quite a while--What Five Books Influenced You the Most? You enter that information into your profile, and it connects you with other readers with similar tastes. It also has the lists of all sorts of celebrities, authors, educators, and other famous people, along with other reading resources.

But what a question! My whole family and I are such readers that it is really hard to pick the top five books that have changed my life. I also found it much easier to focus on the ones that have really altered the course of my life more recently than the ones that most influenced me as a child.

So I gave myself a little leeway (not being a rules-driven person in general, as those who know me already know). I decided to make two lists: my favorites as a child (up through high school), and the most influential from college to today.

But even so, I cut and cut from my many contenders, and I debated and considered, and I couldn’t get below six categories (some had more than one book...another fudge factor). Then I realized that today was 6/6. So obviously it was meant to be that I had two lists with six items apiece!

So here are my two lists of my six most influential books. They are more in sequential order than order of impact, because, again, I just couldn’t decide on that.

CHILD

Winnie the Pooh/The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne
Is there a better book for conveying that comforting world of friendships and relationships we had with our earliest toys?

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Before there was Harry Potter and the Lightening Thief, there was Narnia, covering many of the same fantasy world/good versus evil/family versus...whatever, not family themes. I think both of these were also influenced by the fact that I was born and raised through elementary school in London.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle/Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
So to most people these books probably seem really different (and, of course, on one hand they are), but they are bound in my mind as both having protagonists that were plucky young girls who do whatever it takes to take care of their families. Family was--and still is--a predominant value in my life.

Animal Farm by George Orwell/Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Maybe it was because I went to high school in the DC suburbs, but my teenage rebellion books dealt more with political and social power rather than personal liberation (which I would classify books like Catcher in the Rye, which is a popular book on the list). I have always been wary of following the masses and of the potential for the abuse of government, or increasingly in modern times, corporate power (which is why I still refuse to get on Facebook, despite the many pleas by my friends).

The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Paradoxically, perhaps, I also embraced the idea of the social contract--the fact that we will willingly give up some of our independence so that we can live together. But I see that as a mutual agreement between individuals, not something imposed upon me by the government or other structure.

The Once and Future King by T.H. White/Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
These two are combined in mind, not only as books, but as their corresponding musicals (Camelot and Man of La Mancha). I remember writing my college application essays on these books. The main message they left me was to do the right thing, even if no one appreciates it, no one understands it, and no one accepts it at the time. You do the right thing, and it makes a difference, even if you aren’t around to see it. You do the right thing, and you can live and die with peace, even if others might judge you as a fool or a failure. If I had to pick one, this is probably the idea that has influenced my entire life more than any other I have ever gotten from books.


ADULT

The Republic by Plato
So I went off to college to an outstanding liberal arts college, The College of William and Mary, and took a philosophy course largely because my roommate’s boyfriend’s roommate was a philosophy major. I took my first class, and then my first test, and left thinking this was the easiest class I had taken for my entire college experience and wondered why it wasn’t on the list of “gut” classes that had circulated among my freshman dorm. Then I found out that other people actually thought the test was hard! These things that I had been thinking about my entire life were brand new to most of my classmates. So, anyway, I think it was reading this book that made me decide to major in philosophy and concentrate in political philosophy, with a minor in government.

Being and Nothingness/Nausea/No Exit by Paul Sartre
A little later in my philosophical career, I became an existentialist, mainly through reading Sartre. One of the things I loved about him was that he explored these ideas through more than just confounding philosophical treatises (Being and Nothingness), but also novels (Nausea) and plays (No Exit). Discovering existentialism provided the philosophical, and eventually the spiritual, foundation for my entire life.

Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe
I read this in college, and realized how my eating choices could contribute to world hunger--or not. I have so many allergies to alternative protein sources (allergic to eggs, nuts, and dairy at that time) that I couldn’t see being a vegetarian, but I did give up eating red meat for over 20 years after that book.

Guns, Germs, and Steel/Collapse by Jared Diamond
Both these books changed the way I viewed history. I had been raised in what I call the “Great Man” theory--that these extraordinary individuals created the course of history. Diamond makes a great argument that civilizations rise and fall based on environmental factors, not outstanding people. This only added fuel to my lifelong environmental activism. But perhaps more importantly, I am trying to incorporate this perspective into how I teach my son and my other students history and geography and world religion and such. I believe they need to see how decisions about natural resources have contributed to the success or failure of societies in the past, which I hope will help them make more intelligent decisions about our future.

Loving What Is by Byron Katie
This is probably the best book that describes my spiritual approach to life. As Katie says, “When you argue with reality, you lose 100% of the time.” It’s not an easy read, but it can be a life-altering book.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
This is such a fantastic book. This one, again, changed the way that my family and I eat (and influenced me to start eating red meat again). Pollan poses the question: Given that we humans can biologically eat anything, how do we know what to eat? He then looks at the economic, environmental, societal, and ethical costs of four types of meal: fast food; food from Whole Foods; food from local farms; growing, hunting, and gathering all your own food. He is a wonderful writer, and I, who thought she was relatively conscious about her food choices, was alternately horrified and inspired by the facts and stories about food production in this book. This is an incredibly important book that I recommend to everyone I know.

So there you have it. I’ve probably told you more than you wanted to know. But with so many wonderful, wonderful books left off my list, I felt I had to justify the ones that made it.

I would love to hear about some of your most influential books, even if you don’t want to do the whole “top five/six” or extraverted/here is my life thing. Please add your favorites to the comments below.

Walking Backwards

At our Teaching Your Middle Schooler conference last summer, the keynote speaker said that one reason that middle schoolers have gotten such a bad rep is that, since they are figuring themselves out and their bodies are going through so many changes during that period, that they can change so much from day to day, and that is difficult for those of us with our plans about how to educate them and parent them and coach them, etc., to deal with.  And I see how that can be frustrating.

But at our spiritual center, we study the writings of a woman named Byron Katie, whose most famous book is called Loving What Is.  Katie argues that the suffering in our life comes from us resisting the things that show up in our lives, or fighting against "what is."  That is to say, there are things in our lives that we might not like and want to work to change, and that is fine.  But we spend so much time fussing about the fact that they are in our lives, and they SHOULDN'T be in our lives, and we DON'T WANT THEM in our lives, and so on, that we have no energy left to deal with them.

And I think that is a great insight to bring to dealing with our middle schoolers.  Of course,  when we've set up our schedules to get them to the classes or activities that they LOVE, except that now they can't stand them, or (this happens in my house all the time) have bought a huge bunch of bananas because for three weeks we've run out of bananas about every second or third day and I get complaints about not having any, except this week no one will touch bananas with a ten foot pole and they rot...well, yes, that can be annoying and waste money and all that.  But it makes it easier if we understand that this sort of thing is what children are SUPPOSED to be doing, according to developmental theory.

So what if we took the position that the conflicts that arise in these situations are not the children's fault, but our fault for resisting what is our current reality.  Or how about if we not only stopped resisting these changes, but embraced them.

This just came up today because we went for a hike at our local nature center, Hemlock Bluffs.  My son and I go hiking there A LOT, and have for his whole lifetime; I was figuring out today that we must have hiked the looped trails at Hemlock Bluffs EASILY over 250 times in his life.  The trails have numbered stations with educational materials, but we have done them so often that we no longer stop and read the information.  But they are trails that we've done over and over in all seasons and all sorts of weather, sometimes in the format of formal classes offered at the center, and sometimes with friends, but usually just on our own.

Anyway, we went on the trail today, and we were the ONLY PEOPLE there besides the staff.  It was funny, because it seemed cold because yesterday the temperature was nearly 70, but today the temperature dropped 25 degrees to the mid-40's.  So it seemed cold, but it was actually slightly warmer than the average temperature for Cary in February.  Another great illustration about how much and how quickly our physical environment can change, and how our perception is based on comparison to what we experienced the day before, not the reality of what we should expect for this time of year.

So we were going on our hike, and my son said, "Let's walk the trail backwards.''  So he headed off in the direction from the bigger numbers of the educational stations to the smaller ones.  I, having been raised to "do things the right way," had a slight pang of guilt, but followed his lead.  And we had a lovely walk, pretty much in silence since we weren't talking (he tends to run ahead, so we can't really talk when he is 50 yards in front of me) and we didn't pass anyone else to exchange pleasantries.

But I realized that by walking backwards, I noticed all these things about this familiar route that I don't usually notice.  I was seeing the opposite side of the trees and the bridge and the steps and all the sites I know so well, and it all looked so different.  It was amazing--and quite inspiring.  It reminds me of how much of my life I walk through without really noticing or experiencing, because I am expecting today to be pretty much like it was yesterday.

So I'm thinking now that maybe that is something we all need to do more of in our life--walk through it backwards.  Take a different route, re-order our routine, see things from a different angle.  Just wake up to our own lives and to experiencing all the little things that make up its magnificence.  And if that is your goal, then our wonderful middle schoolers with their ever-changing opinions and desires and demands are a gift, not a problem.  Because whatever you want to say about early adolescents, they aren't the ones who are stuck in a rut.

So let's take an opportunity to thank our middle schoolers for the blessing they bring to our lives by shaking them up.  All too soon, their lives may be as settled and uni-directional as ours are.  Let's all rejoice in the times we can share in walking backwards in our lives.

Norman Rockwell: Painter of the American Story

This week our homeschool group went on an educational tour of the exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Art entitled "American Chronicles:  The Art of Norman Rockwell."  It is a fabulous exhibit, and, as always, the Museum has put together a wonderful educational tour that is perfect for middle schoolers.

Both the exhibit in general and the tour in particular focus on Rockwell as an artist whose work always tells a story.  And, in general, that story is something sweet or humorous or heart warming about America.  But his stories are not just about America as a concept; their are odes to the everyday, to the common folk, to the ordinary mini-dramas that most of us overlook every day.  Yet, as you look at his art, it makes you think, "These things--these common, everyday people and occurrences--they are so beautiful, so filled with meaning and emotion.  How can I pass by them every day and miss them?"

Norman Rockwell himself said about his art:
Without thinking too much about it in specific terms, I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed. My fundamental purpose is to interpret the typical American....

Commonplaces never become tiresome. It is we who become tired when we cease to be curious and appreciative.

I think this is a great message for middle schoolers today to hear, born as they were into a culture that seems to worship celebrity over almost everything else and everyone is striving for their 15 minutes of fame promised them by Andy Warhol.  His art is a great companion to the poems of Walt Whitman, the plays of Thornton Wilder, the music of Aaron Copeland, all American artists who found inspiration not in the high and mighty, but in the American Everyman.

He is also a great role model, however, for the care he put into his work as well as his prodigious production abilities.  The tour and exhibit depict how carefully he worked on his illustrations--posing live models, taking photographs, making multiple sketches, then one complete drawing of the final piece before capturing it on canvas.  When you see how much work went into each detail of each painting, you really can't imagine how the man managed to produce more than 4,000 original works.  This really hits home in one large room of the exhibit, where they show all 323 covers of the Saturday Evening Post he created in the 47 years he was their chief illustrator.  You look at all those masterpieces, month after month, year after year, and you can't help but be impressed.

However, not all of Rockwell's art was goodness and light.  In his latter years, instead of resting on his laurels, he began to explore some of the civil rights issues that had been prohibited from his Saturday Evening Post covers.  Here, the tour guide was phenomenal.  She took the students through the story of Rockwell's painting, Southern Justice (Murder in Mississippi), the very chilling depiction of the murder of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney in 1964 (click on this link to see the picture itself).  The children were silent and riveted as the tour guide told them about this event and Rockwell's attempts to convey it on canvas.  It's a powerful picture and a powerful story, and very appropriate for middle schoolers, who are grappling with understanding the darker side of history than most of us glossed over when they were in elementary school.

The exhibit will be in Raleigh until January 30, so if you can get there to see it before then, I recommend you do so.    The exhibit reminded me of perhaps Wilder's most famous quote in Our Town:  Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?--every, every minute?  Well, if anyone ever did, it was Norman Rockwell.

The Cycle of Giving and Receiving

I'm not really one for New Year's Resolutions; I tend to make more short-term resolutions or intention statements all along the year.  However, I do have one for this year:  Take More Baths!  However, this isn't really a statement about my personal hygiene....

I'm thrilled to say that in the four months that I've been doing this blog, I've had 3,153 page views, including visitors from dozens of countries from every continent in the world except Antarctica.  I don't know who all my readers are, but I'm assuming that most of you all are parents and/or teachers.  And parents and teachers are some of the biggest givers in the world.  That's not to say that they don't get a lot out of parenting and teaching; I'm sure those activities are up there in the top five list of the most important and significant and rewarding aspects of their lives.  But both teaching and parenting involve putting your heart, body, and soul into serving others so that their children and/or students can have full, enriching lives.

The thing about big givers is that they often need to be reminded to allow others to give to them as well.  It's not that it is OK for givers to receive sometimes--actually, it is a necessity that they do.  If they don't, if they never recharge their own batteries or refill their own stores of energy and spiritual nourishment, they can't keep on giving.  And if they never allow those around them, particularly their children and students, to give to them, they are depriving those other people of the opportunity to learn to become givers as well.

For me, this lesson came this week from taking a bath.   Usually, I never take baths, even though I enjoy them.  Why not?  Why, they take too much time, of course.  Why spend 20 or 30 minutes in the bathtub when I can get the job done in 5 minutes by showering?

But this year, the people around me were sending me a message.  One friend gave me a special candle for taking a bath.  Another gave me a lovely bottle of wine, and yet another some rich dark chocolate.  Best of all, however, were some friends who worked with my son to give me a handmade gift--which turned out to be some peppermint bath salts and an organic oatmeal facial mask.

So I was rushing around earlier this week, trying to get ready for our trip up to Washington DC, when I realized I needed to wash my hair that night instead of taking time in the morning for a shower.  But I was also cleaning up, and happened to pick up the jar of bath salts from my son.  I realized that a nice bath would help relax me and my body before having to drive for many hours tomorrow on roads that would be packed with both other cars and with snow (on the sides).  Could I actually spend the time on a bath with so many pre-trip chores to get done?  When I first mentioned that I was thinking about taking a bath, my son looked surprised, and then said "Thank you."  I realized that he didn't really think I would ever use his bath salts, and that it made him feel good for me to actually take advantage of his gift.

My husband offered to wash the dishes and clean up from dinner, and my son said he would pack his own clothes.  So I thought, Why not?  I gathered all my gifts, ran a bath, poured in the bath salts, mixed up the oatmeal facial and applied it to my skin, and slid into the warm water.  I lit my candle, sipped a little wine, ate a little chocolate, and enjoyed both my muscles relaxing in the warm water and my soul reveling in a few minutes of peace after the exhilaration of the holiday season.

When I emerged from the bathroom maybe 45 minutes later, I was clean and rested and much better prepared to face the stress of a day of driving in heavy highway traffic.  And my skin!  I couldn't believe it!  I've always had really dry skin, but my face felt smooth and moisturized like it hasn't felt in a very long time.  (And it turned out that it stayed moisturized all through my trip to DC.)

So I realized that it was crazy of me to think that I could spend the time to have a bath at least every week or so.  It's something that is cheap, relatively quick, and good for both my body and my soul.  And if I don't take care of myself, I can't take care of anyone else either.

So for all you other givers out there--I hope you find something that allows others to give to you (even if it is just leaving you alone for a short while) and make that part of your routine this year.  For me, that was the "other thing" I mentioned in yesterday's post--I spent a portion of my New Year's Eve in the bathtub, so I expect to be doing a lot of bathing in the coming year.

And speaking of giving... it is time to give away the curriculum package from Hands of a Child.

I used a Random Number Generator application from Random.org to pick the winner, and it came up with entrant #10.  And the lucky person #10 was Amy!  Congratulations, Amy--let us know what you end up getting.

I'm sorry that I don't have something for everyone who entered, but I enjoyed this, so maybe I'll do some other contests this year. And you might want to sign up for the HOAC newsletter, because when they do get to their 400th curriculum package (which is supposed to be soon), they will be doing some great giveaways, including a free Super Membership (2 free ebooks each month PLUS 15% off every purchase--a $65 value), a free Custom Unit (you tell them the subject and the grade level, and they will produce a curriculum on exactly the topic you want--a $75 value), and a free LIFETIME Super Membership (a $275 value).  Somebody is going to win....so maybe it will be you!