Smart people (not me)
Jun 10, 2004 Writing
My friend B. is ridiculously smart and I’ve been asking her for help with my article that’s due ANY MINUTE. Ok, next Tuesday.
I keep thinking I’m there and happily sit down to type away and find out that I’m not there at all. I finally figured out what I should say last night during Madison’s 2am feeding.
I sent B. a question and then told her what I wanted to do and this is how I talk, “ad ajdkajd aiera e LM akfjadkjf” and B. can do this, “Did you say LM? This is how you do LM.”
See, she cuts right through all of my blathering and points to my central text even when I didn’t know I had one.
My weaknesses as a writer include but are not limited to:
–Procrastination;
–Difficulty sticking to my thesis;
–Assumption that the reader is at the same starting point that I am and so knows what I’m talking about already;
–Falling in love with quotes, sentences and entire paragraphs that don’t help the piece and fighting my necessary edits.
Playdate today! Tonight, I write.
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Tags: Madison
Communication 101: Pop Quiz
Jun 9, 2004 The Story of My Life
Select the correct responses to the following statements:
A: Yikes! Are you ok?
B: Well what are you wearing heels for?
C: Ohmigod, I know, I totally tripped the other day.
D: Maybe you should have your driveway repaved.
A: That’s why I like wood floors; so easy to keep clean!
B: Man, that’s frustrating.
C: Have you thought about wrapping something around his cage to block the shells?
D: I told you not to get that stupid parrot.
A: Have you tried hanging them out in the sun?
B: Yeah, I kinda noticed that but I didn’t want to say anything.
C: Hmm, what have you already tried?
D: Whites schmites — who cares when Bush might win the election???
A: Of course there isn’t, don’t be a twit.
B: Of course there is, and you better watch it or you’ll burn in hell for even asking!
C: I had a spiritual crisis last year and let me tell you what helped…
D: [nod encouragingly and look interested]
Read the rest of this entry »
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A good book
Jun 8, 2004 Homeschooling
I just read a really terrific children’s book titled The Report Card and wanted to let you all know about it. As an unschooler, I didn’t think it went far enough but as a regular person, I thought it was pretty damn subversive.
The book is about a 5th grader named Nora who is profoundly gifted. Only she’s been keeping it to herself for the past ten or eleven years, making a special study of passing for average so she can live like “a normal kid.” One day, after seeing her best friend Stephen’s self-esteem annihilated by a poor showing on the 4th grade proficiency exam, Nora turns her attention to the subject of grades and test scores and she decides that there’s something deeply wrong with the system.
All the kids started keeping track of test score and homework grades. School was suddenly all about the competition, and grades were how you could tell the winners from the losers. Every assignment and quiz became a contest. I even saw a couple of kids cheating on a spelling test.
Then in the middle of fourth grade, three kids from our class were chosen to be in the Gifted and Talented Program. The gifted kids went to special classes. They read special books. They had a special teacher, and if they worked hard, they were moved ahead. They could even skip grades. It felt like school had turned into a big race, and it looked like the gifted kids had already won.
Which was one more reason that everyone in our class started sorting themselves out into the smart kids and the average kids and the dumb kids. And that was terrible bcause Stephen started thinking he was one of the dumb kids. It wasn’t true, not at all, not for any of the kids. But that’s how Stephen felt.
So Nora hatches a plan and the story of how that plan plays out is a terrific opportunity for the reader to start thinking critically about the nature of grades, standardized testing, giftedness and the pressure to succeed.
Now like I said, as an unschooler, the ending pro-school message wasn’t quite my thing but I think it’s absolutely appropriate for its audience of mostly schooled children. And I liked the way it talked about how teachers feel about testing, parental reaction to scores and also the way it assumed the best of most of its players. (For example, even the ingratiating school psychologist is shown to have good, if misguided, intentions.)
I also liked Nora’s snappy personality — she’s a great girl role model — and the way she saw all of what made Stephen a valuable person.
Stephen wasn’t one of the smartest kids in the class. I could see that. But Stephen was such a good worker. If he couldn’t’ do something, he was patient and he didn’t give up. … Also, when Stephan played a game, he always played fair. And the most important thing to me was that during all the time I watched him, Stephen never said or did one mean or angry thing. Not once. To anyone — even if someone was mean to him first.
I give this book an ironic A+.
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Tags: unschool
An inside view
Jun 8, 2004 Adoption
J. volunteered to speak with potential adoptive parents at our agency’s training. I was excited to hear that she was doing it because I knew that she would do a great job. She’s confident, articulate, and was able to advocate for herself effectively throughout the adoption process. I do wonder, though, if she scared any of the people there. She would have scared me. I know she told them about our First Mother’s Day celebration and she may have told them that she named Madison. Brett and I would have been intimidated to hear about such an open adoption that early in the game, which is certainly ironic.
J. brought a big huge stack of pictures of Madison to pass around. She said, and I quote, that the families there, “All looked at Madison like she was a pork chop or a juicy chicken leg.” I thought that this was a very colorful way of sharing a basic truth: Waiting adoptive parents have severe baby lust. J. said that one woman began to cry when she saw the pictures. I hope that it was because she was heartened to see that Real Live Babies do happen in adoption and sometimes they are especially nice and round and chubby.
I asked J. what kind of questions they asked and she said that one woman who has an open adoption with her first child asked about mother’s day. She had never called her child’s birth mom on that day because she thought it would be too painful.
“Do you think I should?” she asked J.
“You have an open adoption?” J. asked.
The woman confirmed this.
“Then you should ask her.”
Good answer. And I’ll remember that because sometimes I forget an accurate answer is only as far away as a put forth question.
Someone else asked if it made her sad to get pictures. She said no way, pictures were the best thing.
“Send big stacks of them,” she told everyone. “Stacks and stacks of pictures!”
(We try to send pictures once a week. Having an open adoption is a good way to be sure that the second baby gets as many pictures taken as the first one!)
I wondered out loud if J. had known what the group of waiting adoptive parents were like in person (with their baby hunger naked in their eyes), would it have changed how she felt going into the adoption. She said it wouldn’t have. Then she talked about some of the other profiles she got back then.
Now this was really interesting to me because some of the profiles she got were people who were in our training. Why not them? Why us? She says that she’ll bring them by to show me. We figured out that she had the profile of a couple who were downright obnoxious at our training. She said their profile was obnoxious, too.
“They tried to shove their money down my throat in every paragraph. I have no respect for that. It disgusted me. And,” she added, laughing, remembering one of our first discussions. “I didn’t like their paper; it had ugly little baby feet and I was like, ‘No!’”
It just goes to show you that there’s a match for everyone because you may recall that I was very worried that our modest means would be off-putting to a potential birth mother. J. said that having lots of money just wasn’t an issue to her and it bothered her that the other couple assumed it would be. As for that obnoxious, rich couple? They’re matched with a birth mom. So there you go.
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Tags: Brett, Madison, open adoption, our agency
Finally!
Jun 7, 2004 Writing
I finally figured out what I want to say in my article. I spent yesterday doing nothing but thinking about it and avoiding my laptop, which is where I work. I trimmed hedges, I pontificated via email, I did laundry and I wrote one paragraph. But I thought about it all day while Brett did the majority of the baby holding. It’s strange how hard it is to think when holding a baby — even a sleeping baby.
My article is due on the 15th and my brother is coming in this Thursday with his partner. I’m planning on dropping anything at the last minute if my brother should so much as glance over at me because I haven’t seen him in about forever and I miss him. I can’t wait to meet his girlfriend and I’m planning to be on my best behavior. In fact, I may come across as slightly hysterical, which happens when I’m trying to be bright and charming.
Anyway, back to the article. I can’t figure out how to start it. Once I get a decent start, I think it’ll start rolling.
I read the New York Oberver’s piece on Caitlin Flanagan (aka the woman who wrote the bit about nannies for the Atlantic Monthly) that I found linked to over at the so good it’s intimidating Apartment 11D. She says it took her two years to write that nanny article. Now I don’t feel so bad for taking three months to get practically nowhere on this one.