A Fine Line

“My Child Says He’s Bored.” Truth be told this is one line that makes me roll my eyes. There should be no way a child is bored. Pensive, maybe. Relaxed, sure. But bored, no. This is a case where parents have an assumed definition that they have created for themselves over time. Children learn that telling their parents they are bored gets a reaction, lots of questions and possibly a trip to the principal. They get attention. If children only knew the power of the “I’m bored at school” statement. After the dust dies down, the principal has been contacted, teachers have been put on notice that they’d better ratchet it up a notch; the child is left in his own soup. Now he has more math problems, an extra book, harder questions to answer in every subject, the expectation that he’ll work on independent long term projects and no time to just breathe. I’ve seen this so many times. Parents complain. Teachers do what they’ve been asked to. Child is miserable and resistant and then the once big deal is no deal within about 6 weeks. Hornets nest calm and quiet.

When a child says to me that he is bored, I ask him what bored means to him. I don’t assume we share definitions. He usually repeats the statement, shrugs, says work is too easy or too dumb. Sometimes boring means that work is too difficult and he’s embarrassed to admit it. Sometimes boring means he just doesn’t want to do it. Sometimes it means that he doesn’t like using a dictionary when he’s writing a story, sometimes it means he thinks he knows everything already. Sometimes it means that he wants to sit next to his friend he was just moved away from. Defining “Bored” in child English is a crucial first step which parents often neglect before snapping into action.

Secondly, there seems to be an assumption that bored is a bad thing. The times we do some of our best thinking are times kids may describe as boring. Sitting on a beach wondering why there are so many colors of water, watching an ant pull twice its weight across the sand, watching interactions between people, looking for stones, shells, answers to why you just got dumped. We parents need to change the vocabulary a bit and we can change the gestalt. When a child declares boredom, get excited and tell your child that is a signal from your brain that it is time to think about or do something new. Watch something closely, wonder about something unanswerable. Boredom is a sign that your child has not developed intellectually enough to make use of that space in activity. We all know adults like that, too. Adults who are very uncomfortable without their children or spouse around forcing them to some reactive or obligatory action, people close to retirement who have no idea what they would do if they didn’t have work to go to. Bored means we’re not seeing the possibilities.

We have created children who are uncomfortable and “bored” if they are not told the next thing to do the minute after the one before has been accomplished. They take their leads from adults who keep checking off endless lists of things they think their kids should learn, memorize, perform, accomplish or master. Teachers are forced to give those students more and harder work to do after they have met standards acceptable and developmentally appropriate. It’s not enough that a child is doing work extremely well; they have to be given work so hard that the feeling of mastery will forever be just one reach ahead of them. Some people may think it’s good for children to feel incompetent. I don’t know. It sure doesn’t do much for adults and it hasn’t been my conclusion after over thirty years of teaching. I find children at their finest, most exuberant and most excited when confidence can be worn like a soft, comforting garment.

If your child comes to you and says he’s bored, give him a smile and tell him how lucky he is to have a mind that is finally unoccupied.

If whoever thought up Secretaries’ Week really wants to do a service to our secretaries, I have some ideas better than the ones Hallmark and www.flowers.com have come up with. These are ideas that address the daily pains in the feet, hands, brains and butt. It’s funny with elementary school secretaries because this “holiday” is usually around Earth Day. The irony of 640 kids making cards out of folded paper from the copy room and tissue paper flowers may get lost in the love. Maybe next year we can save up all the memos they’ve had to type for the past 9 months and make bouquets out of them. They can be red taped around the top of the pencil stems we’ve all lifted from their desks throughout the year. I have to hand it to them, though, secretaries have tried everything to get us to not steal their pencils. The chain stuck to the counter and to the pencil trick, the big fake flowers on the top trick, they’ve had them made to read “from the desk of…“ , I even taught at one school where the secretaries suspended them from the ceiling so they couldn’t be stolen without them being snapped back and found theoretically guilty.

Secretaries want simple things. They need good chairs. They shouldn’t have to wait around for the staff member with the most comfortable chair to retire. They should have a CEO chair, one that doesn’t have a wheel stuck in lock, tilt back too much or not lower enough. It should have adjustments so her feet can actually touch the ground, not a purse, a box or book. She would like state of the art equipment with excellent training opportunities, service agreements and a cute repair guy. If you can’t give her that, let her use the old stuff she’s used to and trusts, even if it is a typewriter. Give her an ipod so the sounds of requests, complaints, and the hundreds of questions that are thrown at her every day are dulled. Get her one of those number ticket machines so she can talk to people in numerical order when she is good and ready.

Bosses, tell your secretaries where you’re going when you leave and when you’ll be back. You’re the teenager and she’s the mom; the one who bails you out of tough situations, makes you look prepared and cleans up after you literally and figuratively.

Once a month arrange for a masseur to come in and take care of her hands, neck and feet. That will give her something no words on a card, or buds on a flower can. It’s a good psychological move too, because just about the time she gets fed up with you and starts looking for a new job, it will be time for the next massage. Who could quit then?

With the money they make, perks shouldn’t be confined to the top of the coffee pot they were just asked to clean out. Peggy and Laura…I think I got ‘em all!

Happy Secretaries Week.

Summer. The pressure of its approach is already felt in schools. Teachers are looking at the stuff they’ve accumulated throughout the year or kept beyond their expiration dates. Like rangers marking diseased trees with red spray paint, we mentally mark the dumpster items long before the clean in June. We like to keep everything in the room in place until the children are gone. It gives the impression that although the rest of the school is preparing for summer vacation, our class just might be the one that keeps on going.

Administrators are convening. We look for the white smoke arising from the High School in signal that a decision has finally been made about the budget. The guillotine is set up on the athletic field readied to make the cuts. Whisperings in hallways and lunchrooms begin rumors about who’s coming and who will have to go; whose hours will be cut or who travel between two schools. Announced retirements bring longing, envy and party planning responsibilities no one has time for, but will do anyway. It’s the end of the year, when we have the least time and the most is required. It’s frantic and much like election night will be in seven months. You know there will be changes, but what that will mean nobody knows.

It may not be obvious from the outside, but from now through the last day in June there is a lot of tension. The secure, predictable loping of the school year becomes a Tilt-a-Whirl day to day news cycle marathon. Awards Days are planned, which means you have to remember who did something award worthy since October. There is a talent show in the works, concerts by bands and orchestras and performances by classes determined to prove to their parents that they learned something. Assessments take a huge amount of time, especially with the youngest kids who must be tested individually because they can’t read directions or keep track of where to write answers, which many can’t do anyway. Records must be updated, new classes formed, materials ordered after spending weekend hours going through catalogs and writing up the orders. Books need to be reorganized, straightened and stored. Crayons need to be fetched out of the heating systems and furniture, marker tops matched to the dried up marker bottoms, rejected pencil stumps need tossing and the paint you accidentally stained the rug with needs to be lifted so you don’t get moved down on the carpet replacement list. Down to hauling out their potted plants, staff members are worker bees.

Here is the first installation of tips to make the end of the school year easier on everyone.

1. No vacations between now and the end of the year. We need children to get work samples from, give tests to and verify that the distance we think they have come is accurate. Besides, by this time in the year we’re already envious of all the trips kids that are way better than we’ll be able to go on.

2. No unexpected end of year cakes, especially if there is no knife, plates, napkins or time, which there won’t be.

3. Bring all our books back. It’s a little annoying to find them stacked up outside our doors or on a table when we come back in fall. Total amnesty if they are returned before the last week of school.

4. As the weather warms up, remember no shorts shorter than where the fingertips fall when arms are down at sides, no spaghetti straps no belly buttons showing and understand that Crocks are worn at your own risk.

This all goes for students too.

Politicians need to take a strategy used in many early childhood classrooms. They need to have a “Tattle Ear”. I think Earl is the name of the one across the hall. This has proven to be an effective response to the endless tattling that some children enjoy engaging in. The tattling that doesn’t lead to any important information about bleeding, shattered glass, or bone breakage. It’s little whiney stuff. Sometimes, apparently, the simplest solutions are the most effective. Just draw an ear on a piece of paper. It becomes a symbol of caring and patience. The ear never swivels and says "Talk to the hand."  It never hurries, judges or shushes the troubled. Children find weird solace in knowing that when Mrs. Busyteacher doesn’t have time to listen to their rantings, Earl will.

Wouldn’t it be good for politicians and pundits too? Instead of passing off a string of tattles as news or commentary, they could dish it all to Earl and we wouldn‘t have to listen to it. It would clear the way for conversation about things other than lapel pins, whiskey, and recipes. If you want to wonder if a politician’s tears have been evoked as a matter of strategy, ask the ear. If you want to whisper gossip about the other candidates, tell the ear and spare the rest of us. If you want to indict someone for the bad choices made by a surrogate, hash it out with Earl. This technique can also be adapted for use by real people with ears. As a classroom job along with emptying the recycled paper or line leader, make “listener” one of the ways kids can contribute to the smooth running of the day. Every week someone will be appointed to stand and listen to whoever wants to complain, tattle, rant, rave or vent. Make sure everyone gets a turn or you may still have students who are unclear about just how irritating it can be to be tattled at.

Funny how that tattling thing never leaves us. Shoe sizes increase, wrinkles appear, candles on cakes multiply but still we never seem to shake that primordial urge to stick somebody we are consciously or even subconsciously intimidated by.

If kids in school tattle or whine, they become the “nobody wants to play with them” kids. Hear that candidates? We’re doing our best as educators, to make clear to children what is and isn’t tattle worthy. It will help the next generation of voters discern issues from game playing if we adults make the difference clear right from the start. Let’s unite and accept no more tattling from any aged child. Here are some replies, if putting off people isn’t your forte:

“So, what can you do about that? “

“That must have been annoying (or frightening, or frustrating, or …)”

“How did you handle that?”

“What strategy did you use to cope with that?”

“It must have taken a lot of self control not to punch him out when he said that.”

If we can do it in our schools, it may just trickle up to cable TV and talk shows. After last night’s debate, I’m sure I am not the only one thinking realizing just how much that old tattle bug has seeped into our political lives. It must be squished.

Lots of kids across America come home with corporate advertising every day. For example, little toys that say Rony’s all over them. Maybe they were given to kids who bought spaghetti lunch at school. Guess where the spaghetti was from? The association begins. Spaghetti/toy/fun. To me, someone's spaghetti could be made of sun’s rays, vitamins and mother’s milk, and my opinion would still be that promoting it and then providing it as the only entrée item doesn’t pass the stink test.

I’ve nothing against spaghetti. I’ve nothing against nutrition, or even Rony but I’m dead set against using kids for product promotion. When they want spaghetti next, Rony’s will come to mind, obviously. Once the door is open there will be lines forming to break into the business of bulk sales to schools across the country. It would be like serving organic Runkin’ Roughnuts at a senior citizen men’s club breakfast and giving out hands full of Riagra as a take home prize. They’ll make the connection, Riagra/doughnuts/fun.

I’m sure this is done with the best intentions, because afterall, Rony’s tells us this is healthghetti. But bringing any brand name to the fore, as may be done, would make me wonder where the connection to a place like Rony's might lie. I wrote a piece once called, “You Don’t Get Something For Nothing” and this is the motto that keeps me from giving rewards that entice students to have their parents take them to a specific business place. Now if Rony lived over on Morris and was a parent of a Shorewood student, I would be torn. Part of me would want to support his local business (if it wasn’t a link in a chain) and the healthful alternative he is at least attempting to provide students. The other part of me would wonder if Mr. Wal-Mart or Mrs. Roundy’s would move into Shorewood so we would stick store flyers into the Thursday folders.

I would hope that if Shorewood did this, it would be a one-time occurrence. Sure, kids get excited about getting a prize, and giving a few huge ones would be a darn clever way to get kids to want another chance at the grand and now most coveted prize. Kids will eat things for a long time in hopes of getting something free out of it. You don't believe me? Try this word association game: Say "Cracker Jacks" to a Baby Boomer and the word "prize" will be the first and possibly only response they give. I'm pretty sure that if the Rritt Rnn buried twenty-dollar bills in their fish fry occasionally and made that fact public, my intake of cod and Ruinness would skyrocket. That was NOT an advertisement for the Rritt, of course.

I’m just sayin’…

Enough with the prizes already. I know I’ve written about this before but I see an ironic escalation of this in our schools. Eat pizza, get a toy. Eat your vegetables, how about a whistle? Buy school lunch and bring a cheap plastic thing back to the class to shove in a backpack or taken away by a teacher because you‘re playing with it during group time. Food and prizes don’t go together well. I understand that money needs to be made in food service, but kids don’t ask parents to buy lunch because they might get a soccer ball eraser. Do people really need a reward for eating? That just feels wrong, when on the other hand we have food drives, Trick or Treat for UNICEF and penny wars to provide people who would love the reward of eating to be that they can continue to live another day.

I also don’t get attendance awards. Why should a kid take a hit because he had the flu, or broke an arm? They can’t control their attendance in schools. Obviously kids don’t crawl out of bed with a fever getting ready for school because they’re afraid of not getting an attendance award in May. We tell kids not to come to school if they’re sick. I think if we are going to give awards let’s give them to kids who insist to their parents that staying home when ill shows respect and care about others.

Imagine if we had parent award day. Everyone’s parents would be expected to attend. Awards would be given for how many books their children read, if they had perfect or near perfect attendance, if homework assignments were turned in on time, if no trips were taken during the school year and if their child played a musical instrument or ran the mile in less than a couple hours. All the parents would watch, for the opportunity to be inspired by the hard work of other parents. They will relish the delivered message that just because their child didn’t get an award this year, there’s always next year. Sometimes, you’re told, you have to feel your reward inside. So you wonder why you were all dragged out then, if only 55 of the parents are getting rewards, 20 of whom more than one. They have the kids who awards are made for. Kids who are great in academics, athletes, actors and don’t forget healthy. Parents who have children who are winners are asked to stay a few minutes after the ceremony for photos.

My theory is that nothing would change if no rewards were given out. Just like food; kids would still eat hot lunch if their parents made them, prize or no prize. Sure, the recipients enjoy the rewards, and some actually deserve them, but these could be given out in classrooms by their classroom teachers, sent to the homes, or handed out by principals if some sort of faux prestige is what we’re going for. Speaking of whom, why don’t we line up the four Shorewood principals and have an award’s night over at the village hall? Categories can be determined by staff members. We could call it “A Night of Inspiration”. Principals from all over the North Shore will be invited so they can determine their own worth while listening to the achievements of peers.

A writing contest will determine that night’s keynote speaker. Submit entries to high school students who have won at least one president’s award for academic achievement. They’ll select the winner who will take the mike that evening, and then go home with a nice plastic toy podium. Congratulations.

I like the idea of merit pay. Pay teachers according to the progress students make on a standardized test given once a year. This makes it so much easier and the pressure is off by winter break. I will know exactly what to teach and how to teach it and during which weeks of the year. There are plenty of practice tests out there. We could do one every day from the first day of school until the administration of the test. I wouldn’t have to worry about integrating math with art or music with science and I sure wouldn’t have to send kids to Spanish anymore. That’s not tested. P.E. time could be better used working on timed math tests anyway. It will give us teachers a clear picture of what we have push the kids to do well. Cram schools. How international.

Merit pay ought to be a consideration for all professions. Wages gauged by how well the people around you do. Supervisors will get paid according to the advancements of the supervised. Parents will receive tax refunds based on how well their children do. "Well" meaning they get good grades in reading, writing, math. Your kid gets in trouble at school. Oops. Sorry, but that will be a deduction. Susie and Harold skipped a grade? Hold out your hands. We like that. Here’s more money.

Hey Doctors! Let’s set up a merit pay plan for you. If all of the patients you started with in September are cured by June, you get paid your salary. You can get a bonus if the person qualifies for the New York City Marathon the year after being in your care. True, physicians in other climes may have the edge on this one. There are lots of pool owning, bench pressing, body conscious people in the west and south where one can actually enjoy the outdoors. There are a ton of joggers and pilates people, home gyms, beach biking, volleyball and surfing, but if we start making conditional allowances, how will we ever know who is better? Rules are rules.

Let’s have merit pay for politicians too. Why not take what they think is so good and replicate it? It shouldn’t be that hard to make judgments on our elected officials. Measures are already standard. Is the stock market up, yes or no? By a lot? Not enough? Are people earning a living wage? If not, get a cardboard box and a dolly. Are interest rates reasonable? What about home mortgages? Do we owe any other nations money? Oh, that hurt. Let a bunch of teachers work out those scores and we’ll figure out your salaries for the year, senators. Then, you’ll have 180 days to show improvements or we’ll shut the whole country down. Maybe Toyota could run the government, or Honda. They seem to have a handle on things.

I think that idea has merit.

If your house was a school district and it wanted to save money, here’s how you could do it. First of all, be sure you don’t tell any of your family members how much money they can spend or on what. Make them come and ask your permission before getting too attached to that shower nozzle they wanted or that machine that sucks air out of bags so they don’t have to get rid of old sweaters so often. No matter what the request, tell them they will have to put it in writing, attach an item number, quantity, fax number, phone number, total, and punctuate it with tax and shipping.

Let’s say you’re a kid and you want some new toothpaste because the family toothpaste makes you barf. Okay, fair enough. You’re off to order your toothpaste and you hand in your form. Two days later it is handed back to you with a mad person note on it about not having a budget code on it. Hey, you’re a kid. You don’t know what a budget code is so you go to the one you think will know. Your mom says, “You‘ll have to get the code from your father.” So you wait.

When he comes home he says in reply to your inquiry, “Give the form back to your mother and she will get you the toothpaste.” So you do. Two days later your mom gives it back to you and she tells you you can’t order the toothpaste without the number. “It says it right on the bottom of the sheet! “ So you ask what the budget code is for toothpaste and your mom says she doesn’t really know. You tell your mom you really want the toothpaste and will search for the number yourself if she can tell you where to find it. You are told that only your dad has the code and he only gives it out on Tuesdays. Shoot. It’s Wednesday and he’ll be out of town on a business trip next Tuesday. You’ll have to wait a couple weeks for that code, for that form, for that stinkin’ tube of toothpaste.

You’re getting perturbed about now so you go to your bank and shake out enough money to go buy your own toothpaste. You can’t stand the taste of that baking soda stuff one more night. You remember to take the receipt back home and give it to your mom thinking she can just pay you back for the toothpaste. “Sorry,” she says, “You can only turn in credit card receipts.”

“Dude, I’m only 9 years old. I don’t have a credit card!” Your mother goes into some long explanation of how the bank demands things be done a certain way in a certain order with a certain number on a certain kind of paper and a certain kind of receipt. And it’s not for cash.

You turn around and walk away because the things you want to say, nobody’s mother would want to hear much less yours. You go to your room after a nice hearty door slam and scream into the pillow. After a few cathartic minutes of that, you decide to give up and go to bed. You head for the bathroom to brush your teeth. You grab the toothpaste you paid for all by yourself and decide that from now on you’ll buy everything out of your own money because it’s just easier. It’s quick, efficient, doesn’t involve combat, and you actually end up with something in your hands at the end of the day.

If you are going to fool a child this April Fool’s Day, please remember a couple things. Children don’t get subtle jokes. They are more the slip-on-a-banana-peel or chicken/road type connoisseurs. It’s no fun fooling someone only after you’ve had to take ten minutes to explain why what you said or did was really funny. Children also aren’t fond of scary pranks, so no matter how funny it was when someone pulled it on you, think twice before sticking a fake horse head at the bottom of the bed or coming in the house limping, grabbing your throat gasping for air.

I still remember when I was little; my brother had taken a tiny box and poked a hole in the back of it through which he stuck his finger. If you took off the top, like I did at his urging, you would see what looked to be a finger lying atop the pillow of cotton home once to a little gold bracelet. He couldn’t have left it at that. A finger in a box. No, he had to drizzle ketsup over it to further convince me that this index digit got cut off and he was now destined to carry it around in a box for the rest of his life. I suppose that after a few minutes of my crying and screaming he probably pulled his finger out to reassure me that he, the brother I adored, was absolutely fine.

Another prank occurred just after I had fallen asleep in my safe, little all pink room. My brother somehow got hold of one of my physician father’s cigarettes and carried a puff of smoke from the living room to my bedroom in his mouth. He blew it in my face and yelled at me to wake up because the house was on fire. I hightailed it out of there, out the front door and into a darkness that only slightly hid the fact that I was in my baby doll pajamas. Yes, that‘s what they were called…pretty much underpants and a foofy flowered top. I turned around to wait for the smoke to introduce the coming of more smoke with an all out fire finale. All I saw through the no smoke was my brother and sister bent over laughing and rolling on the lawn pausing only long enough to point at me laughing, “I can’t believe she thought the house was burning down, can you?” Mission accomplished. They definitely made a fool of me.

An April fool.