Wiggly Little Boys, Recess, Harry Potter, & Epiphanies
This is a rerun, but it’s an issue I wanted to discuss again.
“No two people are alike, and both of them are damn glad of it.”
Mamacita says: That’s a quotation; that’s not me saying “damn,” although I frequently occasionally do. I am, to my shame, greatly afflicted with “potty mouth,” and although I managed to control it somewhat while my children were tiny (Thanks to the majestic epiphany), it’s back, in full force. Honestly? I need help.
But I digress. No two people are alike, but both of them are expected to progress at the same rate by our public schools.
Our children are expected to learn to read and write by a certain age lest they be labeled “special education” and given an IEP and pulled from the classroom to be tutored in the Reading Room. Most of them are little boys.
Old hippies like me sometimes have a hard time admitting that there really are gender differences that no amount of “environment” is going to change. One of those differences is this: a lot of little boys need a few more years than a lot of little girls need, to mature enough so that their bodies and brains can sit still, together, long enough to learn how to read and write. Whether we like it or not, it is 
a fact that while a lot of little girls are reading “Gone with the Wind,” the little boys sitting next to them are still struggling to recognize letter combinations. It is also a fact that some of these little boys who still can’t do it in the third grade, or the fourth, somehow have their own “epiphany” in the middle grades; something in their brain becomes aware of symbols and their meanings and how to translate them to Harry Potter. It wasn’t that these little boys didn’t TRY down in the lower grades; it was that their bodies and brains weren’t THERE yet.
I saw this miracle happen over and over again. With my own eyes I saw it. Sometimes, when I tried to tell other teachers, especially elementary teachers, about this awakening, they did not believe me. “I had that boy in third grade and I’m telling you, Jane, that he just doesn’t have what it takes to be a reader, a good student. He just can’t do it.”
And I’m telling you, Madeline, that I don’t give a rat’s ass* what the child did in your class. I am trying to tell you that in my class, the boy can read. One week he couldn’t, and the next week, he could. And he’s ecstatic.
My point? Do I have to have one? I guess I could drag one in by the hind legs if you must have a point. How about this one:
Hold off on the IEP’s and the labeling until the kid is in middle school. Tutor, yes. Give special help, yes. Hang a label on his forehead and put it in his permanent record? Not so fast there, Teach. Don’t do it Not yet. Not just for reading. Save the labeling for the children who genuinely need the help; don’t fill up the room with little boys who just need a few more years to mature.
Same-sex classrooms in the lower grades? Why not? It might work. It would certainly be better for the little girls who, most of them, just naturally catch on to the reading faster; they could move on! It would be better for the little boys, too; they wouldn’t feel pressured and might get comfortable enough to relax and blossom, too.
Many of our most highly esteemed scientists, inventors, etc, were late bloomers. Edison wasn’t even allowed to continue at his school; he was so slow, he held the others back!
Let’s give our little boys a break, what say, people? We worry because our little children are energetic and wiggly and can’t sit still? That’s how little children are SUPPOSED to be. What would be genuinely worrisome would be a little child who CAN sit still for hours and hours without any desire to be wiggly and energetic. There is the occasional child who genuinely needs Ritalin or whatever in order to function at all, but there are an awful lot of children (usually little boys) whose energy and creativity and imagination and, yes, wiggles, are being seen as “disabilities” by frustrated adults and drugged into mediocrity.
In the classroom, my “quick fix” for wiggly kids was to assign them two seats and allow them free passage from one to the other whenever they needed to move. There were conditions – no bothering other kids on the way, no touching other people’s things, no sidetracking or talking, etc, but when a person’s gotta get up and move, a person’s gotta get up and move. You feel that way yourself at times; don’t lie.
I taught middle school, but the students were still children even though they didn’t think they were.
And by the way, taking away a child’s recess because he couldn’t finish his vocabulary words quickly is cruel and unusual punishment. I suppose the boy would then be punished because he was extra wiggly since his ‘outlet’ was taken from him? Energetic little children NEED to be let loose on the playground several times a day!!! Taking away recesses for punishment or to make more room for standardized test review is the action of a halfwit who knows nothing about either education OR children and probably hasn’t been in a classroom since 1972 teacher, politician, superintendent, or some other administrator who falls into the ‘nimrod’ category of typical la la land unawareness of real people and how we live. Probably people who do that don’t know how to access their email, either, or use a computer. But then, that’s what secretaries are for.
I put up with this for 26 years. No wonder I had a potty mouth.
And by the way, this guv’ment standard of requiring our tiny first and second graders to sit still for NINETY MINUTES and read without interruption is ignorance in action on the part of whoever thought that one up. Tell me, Mr. Standards: Can YOU sit absolutely still for ninety minutes and read without interruption? I thought not.
*Dammit **, there I go again.
** Crap.
More Things I Haven’t Done Yet
Mamacita says: Just because I haven’t done these things yet doesn’t mean I’ll never do them. I ain’t dead yet. Then again, some things most people do all the time don’t interest me in the least, so, yeah, I’ll never do them. But you can. I’m not the boss of you.
1. I’ve never seen Dr. Oz. Couldn’t pick him out of a line-up.
2. Game of Thrones? Nope.
3. Reality shows? Not for love or money. Or even Diet Coke.
4. I still haven’t used an ATM for myself, but as my sister pointed out, she did run me through it for her once.
5. Duck Dynasty? Not even if it were a loved one’s last request.
6. I have passed a few bright, creative, hardworking students who for unforeseen reasons didn’t actually earn enough points, but I will never do it if they ask me to.
7. I never gave a pass to a student athlete who only became interested in grades right before a game. Let him sit on the bench and think about his choices. No pass/no play. I’m all for it.
8. My occasionally ill-timed talent for seeing through the bullshit has not endeared me to a few administrators, but it’s a talent I wouldn’t trade for free Diet Coke forever. It’s gotten me in hot water a few times, but it’s also saved the day. My day, or a student’s day, not the administrator’s day. I would far rather be the person being persecuted for justice’s sake than the person sucking up for easy street’s sake. The penalties can be severe, but right is right and wrong is wrong and never the twain shall meet. I have never sucked up, and there is no brown on my nose. And I have never backed down for the sake of compromise when students are at the heart of a matter. (Unlike a few administrators I know.)
9. I have never learned to like tomatoes or onions. 
10. I have never had a client whose products, philosophies, or services I have not personally used. I have never endorsed something I haven’t personally tried. The only exception to that would be the client who sold unique death and burial services. The services were cool, but I wasn’t ready to try them out.
It’s getting ready to pour down rain again. Must be southern Indiana springtime. The humidity is getting old really fast, though.
As are we all.
Remembering Dad, Before the Disease Changed Him
Mamacita says: This is my dad, back when he was healthy and strong. Actually, it’s just a few years before the diabetes became stronger than he was. It didn’t take long. . . .
I’ve posted several times about my dying father, blind, minus both legs, on kidney dialysis, stomach tube attached to a drip, etc. That was an accurate picture, but it wasn’t the only picture. It is also not the picture I have in my mind’s eye when I think of my father. At least, I try not to think of that phase of his life.
Before the disease began to affect his body and mind in ways we’ll never really know or understand, Dad was awesome. He was a really good father to my sister Teresa and me – so funny, and so talented, and so ready with the singing and poetry and nonsense. To our two younger siblings, Dad wasn’t like that. We all knew he was getting really crabby and selfish and sometimes actually mean, but we didn’t know why. I think we all assumed it was our fault, somehow, that Dad yelled because we messed up. We just never knew what we’d done wrong, which was scary because it meant we’d probably do it again, all unawares, and get yelled at again. Having a voice raised against me works like a whiplash. I know some people yell all the time and it means nothing bad, but to me, yelling means badness. The yeller is bad, and the yelled at is bad. Dad turned into a yeller, and it affected me worse than bullets.
But before the diabetes took away my real Dad and substituted the yelling cranky Dad, Dad 
was the best. I adored him, when he was himself. His real self. He could still see and walk when Sara was little, and loved to play and take her places.
I loved that Dad so much.
The self he became later, not so much. Much of it wasn’t his fault, but much of it was.
Today, on Memorial Day, I wanted you all to see my father before he was struck down. My REAL father. He was tall, and he was strong, and he was hilarious, and he was handsome, and he liked new experiences. He sang beautifully. He cracked terrible jokes. He was smart. He tried hard, and he did the best he could with what he had. I loved this Dad fiercely.
That was my brother’s motorcycle, but Dad liked to take it around town of a late afternoon..
So did I, in fact. Please don’t tell Mom.
