The Silver Platter

photo from: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/ via google search. No copyright infringement intended.

A number of totally non-related happenings lately have caused this house to be having a conversation based around the proverbial 'silver platter'.

Responsibility, ownership, accountability, consideration, even everyday thinking skills all seem to be slipping away, floating ever so far from our fingertips. It seems as though society is fuelled by a "me, me, me" mindset. We see it in adults, kids, professionals, online... everywhere. It seems like the more we can provide for kids, the seemingly better they will be.

Oh, you don't want to carry your hockey stick, as I juggle your younger sibling, your hockey bag, a coffee, the car keys, the phone? No prob, sweetie... I'll grab that for you, since you just left it on the ground next to the car.

Oh, that kid in kindergarden called you a "meanie"? You get your older sister to jump in there and "fight that battle" for your 5 year old self... using more hurtful words than a 5 year old can understand, but words from which a 5 year old can still feel the sting as she tries to comprehend them. Better yet, you find out what that kid's mom is so I can tear up her mother on Facebook.

Oh, you forgot your gym / dance clothes at home? Hhhmmmm? Did your teacher get upset with you? Talk to you about responsibility? No? 

You saw your kid blatantly push and shove another kid, target another kid? You sat back and laughed at little Johnny because he's so "out of control... all I can do is laugh at him."

When do you start to teach about responsibility? Is it an age-bound lesson?

In our house it's a constant conversation.

Our almost 5 year old son can get himself almost 100% ready for hockey. He carries his own stick, sometimes his own hockey bag which is almost twice his size. Why do we do this to our kid? (Someone actually commented that they couldn't believe we would make our son carry his own stick after an hour long practice!) It's simple: we want him to realize that he has to have responsibilities.

When my 8 year old daughter showed up at dance class with only one dance shoe, I didn't have sympathy for her. I had a conversation for her about responsibility. Guess what? The next week she made damn sure both her shoes were in her dance bag the night before dance. And, they were ready to go by the door.

I've seen plenty of catastrophic moments in my day when someone who had been given everything in their life on silver platter all of a sudden has to think for themselves, or do something for themselves. The result? Complete and utter breakdowns. Tears. Arms flailing in defeat. Frustration. Blame.

What do you mean I have to buy that myself? What do you mean you won't give me $200 for that? What do you mean you can't call my prof to get me excused from my exam? What do you mean I have to actually do that myself? What do you mean you can't totally rearrange everything to accommodate what I want?

Disaster. Defeat. Disbelief.

Our point is, eventually all of those silver platters start to tarnish at some point. The money runs out, people change, circumstances change, hell... the real world comes into play! And when reality comes knocking, you have to have some kind of tools to step up to the door to answer... or you're going to get that door smack! in your face.

We don't want that for our kids.

We want them to be able to have a good look at that seemingly tarnished platter with the insight and tools we've taught and instilled in them.

We want them to be able to:

• Have the know-how to simply pick that platter up off the ground.
• Realize that it may be tarnished, but it's not the end of the world.

And if we do a real good job...

• They'll realize that with some hard work and a little common sense, that platter can be shiny again.

Can you cope with a tarnished silver platter? Can your kids?

It's a juggle...

I'm a working mom in rural Nova Scotia. In fact, I'm a teacher.
Lately I've been at the brunt of or reading / hearing many insults flung at teachers over school cancellations and snow days.

Call it PMS. Call it mom-craziness from the staying-at-home-with-the-fighting-kids storm days. Call it pure bitching.

Call it what you want.

I'm gonna rant...

I'm not gonna rant about how good I've got it as a teacher. I'm not even gonna step on the "You-Could've-Chosen-This-Career-Too" soapbox. Been there. Had to do that. (Got no further ahead, by the way.) Instead, I want to shed some insight into what the past week / next couple of weeks will mean for me.

It's a reporting period. On each of those storm days when I wasn't being a mom to my kids (and had internet service) and every night when my little darlings are snuggled into bed, I've been sitting at this godforsaken laptop til 11 or 12 at night planning lessons and writing report cards. See, I don't want to half-arse them. I want them to say something. I want these report card comments to really mean something. (After all, I am a parent, too... I at least know the kind of jargon I don't want to hear.) This process takes time. It takes lots of it. Add to that the frustration of many storm days when students couldn't finish the last bits of their final projects... or couldn't hand them in... or didn't have the means at home to finish them... all of these things, to me, are very important considerations as a teacher and a parent.

I have a heart...

With reporting period comes parent/teacher interviews/ conferences, whatever you want to call them. (Personally, I think the ones in my school are useless because I would much rather have my 10-13yr old students be a part of the conversation... something which is seen as a no-no for reasons I won't/don't/can't understand... and all of this is just simply something you'll have to read one of these days on my teacher blog.) These parent interviews happen on a Thursday evening and Friday morning to accommodate parent work schedules. Wait. What was that? Parent work schedules? Oh yes... right... I'm a parent, too. Frig that in this case. It doesn't matter.

See, in order for me to participate in this aspect of my job... as I'm expected to.... after hours... I have to arrange for alternate childcare for these two days.

• Problem A: On the day where parent teacher interviews happen in the evening, I do not have sufficient time to drive to the sitter's after school, drive kidlets home, and drive back to school in time for the interviews. (Remember I said I live in rural NS. That said amount of commuting equals almost 90 minutes of driving... way more if I follow the speed limit and watch for icy conditions or take roaming large wildlife into consideration.) I tried this once. It wasn't pretty. 
• Problem B: Because it's of my own volition that my child(ren) can't be at the sitter's, I still pay her. (Fair enough. I think of it as vacation pay for her.) But... if my husband can't take off work that day, I have to get someone else (usually my mother) which usually means at the very least paying for gas money for the replacement sitter. 
• (Also, my sitter usually takes the Friday of these parent teacher interviews to travel with her family since her children, like mine, are not in school. Again... understandable. Long weekends are nice. She's a mom to her own children, too! Holiday pay. Deserved.)

So, I pay double (or more) the money in childcare to stay after school for these interviews, as I'm contractually required. Fine and dandy. Done. Signed. Sealed. Delivered.

Breath.

Also happening in the next few weeks are ski trips for our school to the local ski hill. YAY! We are so lucky to have a ski hill close by for our students to enjoy. But, wait... for me... that working, rural mom... this ain't so easy.

Do I want to go with my students to see them wow me with their moves on the hill? Yes!
Do I want to go so that kid who I know won't bring lunch money will be able to have a hot lunch on that day at the chalet and will really be able to feel as part of the whole experience? Yes! Of course. I'd buy that lunch for that student in a heartbeat.

But... it isn't that easy. Sigh. And... some people think I'm trying to cop out.

• Problem A (or should it be C? Frig it. I'm calling it A. A different scenario here.) Because we're rural, and because of bussing times and schedules and all that jazz, when our school goes skiing, they go to the hill for 10am and stay until 4pm to make the whole trip worthwhile. (We, as a school, have a heart!) This means we do not return to school until 5pm.

Not a problem for most. But for me with one child at the sitter, one in school... it's a problem. Kid A isn't old enough to be included in the ski trip. Kid B is at the sitter's. Kid A leaves school on the bus after school to get home at 4pm to... no one. It doesn't work. Hubby doesn't get home from work til 4:30. Kid A would have to walk a kilometre up our rural road... all by herself... to be home by herself... at 7 years old. Can't happen. (Besides, if it's a Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday, she's got lessons to get to after school...which are another 20 minute drive away, too.)

But, wait. Shit. We forgot Kid B. Oh yes... he's crying at the sitter's and the sitter is calling cuz she has somewhere to be and I don't leave him at her house until that hour... and even if I could leave him there...I still won't get home until after 6pm... and where's Kid A again?!

(Oh...And before it's suggested, hubby works an hour and 15min drive in the other direction from the sitter. Sigh. Rural working life.)

So, I can't be one of the chaperones on my students' skiing trip. It bothers the hell out of me. But it bothers me even more that people don't even try to understand why it can't happen. (I wonder if these glaring-eyed people would like to find me a concierge to coordinate/babysit/chauffeur my children on these days?)

But wait. Wait. It will happen... it will!

My husband has booked... over a month in advance... a vacation day... a day off work to be with Kid B, so that our kids  (that some people think can't be my priority in this scenario) will have someone to care for them and be home to meet Kid A getting off the bus and drive them to lessons so that I can go to the ski hill with my class...

And not get home until after 6pm... And probably spend a bunch of money on hot chocolates and lunch for that student, (if he goes skiing that day)...

But, I've got it easy. And I'm a lucky, plush-arse-jobbed witch-with-a-B, to have those storm days off.

Yep.

Breath. Sigh. Shoulder slump.

/End Rant.

I'm gonna say it out loud

Bikinis really bother me. I don't like them. I don't like them especially when I see young girls -- tweens, teens -- wearing skimpy and skimpier versions of them to attract male attention. Lately, I've seen pictures splattered all over Facebook -- or, as some of my relatives call it, "The Facebook".

Take a look at that word now, will you?

Facebook.

A compound word. (You would have learned about those in grammar, that foreign ancient subject in school days of lorn.) First word being face. Meaning that upper part of your body; the front of your head. Second word being book. (For more accurate definitions with those fancy spelling and phonetic thingies, seek out your favourite on-line dictionary.)

On the Facebook, I like to see pictures of happy, sad, grumpy, humorous faces. I like my feed to be a welcome sort of, open book, to the faces and lives of my friends and family.

It's not called "Boobbook".  I don't need to see people's knockers hanging, barely suspended by dental floss like pieces of material. I do not need to see the supposed red carpet pose (complete with duck face), as these scantly clad people stand next to a spruce tree at the local 'beach'.

But, I digress...

It's not just about my Facebook feed. It's about the image that these females are portraying to young men. It's about the seeking of attention... full body, gawking, LOOK-AT-MINE-ME! attention that these females are seeking to draw to themselves. Image. That's it. Maybe it's not the bikinis I loathe, but the foreboding image that comes attached with them... to them.

I have a young daughter. I've felt the need to start talking to her at this early age about bikinis. We talk about why people wear them. We talk about swimming at the beach. The need to be comfortable. The need to be comfortable in the skin you're in. We talk about skin cancer. We talk about drawing unnecessary attention to one's self. We talk about tankinis and how they can show a person's athleticism and can still look "cool". We talk about a lot of things when the topic of bikinis comes up, or when we're at the beach.

Maybe I'm just a prude. Maybe I see bikinis in too much negative light. But, in my value set, I see the need to educate my daughter openly about the choices we make as females, the images that prevail, the images that are portrayed, the hurdles to come, and the hurdles that have been overcome.

And, she and I will visit this blog post 7 to 10 years down the road if we have to.
It's a long road... and as I walk it right now... I don't like bikinis.

What I lawned today... I mean... learned today...

Did you learn anything today?
I did.

It was a long time coming. It was a first for me. But, I did it!
I learned  lawned  learned a few things today:

1. A big orange lawnmower has a clutch that you need to employ before you start the stupid thing.
2. After several attempts at starting the stupid orange thing, and finally engaging it, you will see puffs of black smoke. (Smoke can't be good... especially black.)
3. A lawnmower has a reverse option... which, evidently goes relatively fast out the garage door.
4. When shifting from reverse to forward (using aforementioned clutch, of course),  be sure not to have the other gear thingy at the rabbit. 

5. Hills are not your friend... especially if you're short and not as heavy as your husband. Gravity comes into play lifting one's arse off the seat in a sort of leverage action, which, then, causes the lawnmower to stall because it thinks you have fallen off the seat.

6. Children wave... then laugh and point... when you're on one of these rigs.

Nonetheless, one thing remains...

I did it. I mowed our acreage for the first time...

and I'm sure he'll come home and need to "fix it".

The ever popular "Snow Day"

My husband swears that as part of my education in becoming a teacher I became a meteorologist. While I disagree wholeheartedly, I can tell you that I've sat glued in front of the Weather Network's forecasts in giddy anticipation of the tight isobars and the red weather warnings going across the top of my tv screen. As a student -- way back when -- the anticipation of a snow day meant one thing: playing for the whole day outside! (It did not mean sleeping in.) Then, as I got older -- junior/senior high age -- it meant days of comfy jammies and reading, reading, reading, all day long.

Enter now into my professional life. Before I had children of my own, a snow day meant sleeping in, lounging around watching the tv I never get to watch and usually planning some lessons or doing some correcting. Oftentimes, it meant a huge scoff prepared for my hubby for supper that evening, maybe even with some baking thrown in for good measure.

Much like today, Kids and teachers alike would banter and rally together for that possible day off. I was a music teacher not too long ago; I created and taught my students a snow dance and song to help bring on snow days. The usual traditions of wearing pjs inside out to bed, putting mittens, ice, any number of things, under one's pillow didn't seem to be enough for us all. We did the snow dance, too. It caught on, because, ironically, it worked for one whole school year. Whenever the students and I would do it, we'd get the next day off. Embarrassingly, it has spread to several other schools with its popularity. LOL

Another snow day tradition was started by a friend of mine. Whenever a storm day would happen, he always found that the weather would clear by noon, and he'd be off to Walmart... which his grandmother called "The Woolco" (Walmart is located in the former Woolco's location). Thus, he started putting a Woolco symbol as his Facebook profile picture on the eve of a storm. His colleagues have found solace in his "flag" and so he "raises the Woolco flag" in hopes of storm days. It's fun.

A recent news program spoke of schools NOT closing due to inclement weather. The discussion had to do with students missing too much class time and the option of simply allowing buses not to operate on these days. Whomever gets to school, learns. THose who do not get theere, well... til tomorrow, I guess. We discussed this in the staffroom over lunch one day. There were some interesting points:
a) 100% of the students at our school are bussed. What would happen in that scenario?
b) If RCMP / police are urging people to stay off the roads and teachers are required to head out on those roads to report to school, that's 10,000 people in our area on the road, some of whom are traveling long distances on likely unploughed roads (been there, done that MANY times)
c) If only 2 of a normal class of 20 showed up on these non-snow days, what kind of constuctive learning / teaching would take place? WOuldn't it be a "wasted day" anyway?
d) What would happen if there was an accident on the way to school? Ultimately it IS the parents' decision whether or not to send their child to school, but could the transport to school for a teacher be considered something under Occupational Health and Safety?

There are many angles, many sides to the debate.
As a mom and a teacher, I'm still going to hold on to the hope for the snow day. The thoughts of having a day to play in the snow with my kids for the whole day sounds just right to me! Heck, when I was on mat leave with my daughter, I still got giddy with hearing of a snow day. I can't shake that feeling, sorry!

Happy Snow Day, to you!

School Thoughts: Thanks to @CoffeesCommutes

Wow. Decisions, decisions, eh?


Like Christine (@CoffeesCommutes), my daughter will be starting school in the fall. While we didn't have the Catholic vs. Public debate that Christine and her hubby had where we live, we did have the choice between the small rural school where I teach vs. the larger slightly more (and I stress *slightly* lol) urban school down the road.

Our decision was fueled by many thoughts:

• I teach at the school so I would be there -- Bonus.
• Originally I was going to be teaching her for 2 subjects -- Wasn't sure how that would go.
• She has been going to the school with me for different events her whole life. She knows the school, the staff, the students. -- Bonus.
• To go to the other school would mean having to arrange afterschool childcare at my home -- not exactly easy.

What secured our decision to send her to the small school where I teach was values & morals and the way other children who go to that school are raised. We want our daughter to be surrounded by wholesome children...  where having the best brandname clothing doesn't necessarily matter and it's ok to be 11 and still believe in Santa Claus, for instance. I can honestly say there's something about the children I teach at this school. They're good kids; they're wholesome!

However, this spring saw some disheartening attitudes and scenarios with regards to the school, some parents, etc. Some people were hurt (emotionally) and discouraged. And, we were left wondering if we wanted these darker moments to possibly influence our daughter when she goes to school. After some longgggggggggggggg thought processes, discussions, rants, etc, we decided that what makes the school special is the teachers, the students, the community... it's way more complex than just a few instances.
As @KidsCrafts told Christine on twitter,

School whether Catholic or public is defined by teachers that hopefully inspire, but there are no guarantees.

Her heart is set on starting school there. MY heart is with that school.
Sometimes you just have to follow your heart.... and there are no guarantees.