Books: Education (Opposing Viewpoints)

For a book less than two hundred pages long, this took me a long time to finish (and not only because I mislaid it for two weeks). The subject is interesting and relevant, and each viewpoint is short enough to finish easily in one sitting, even with a dog whimpering for attention (or maybe it’s the food I’m eating while I read) and staring at me with her big dark eyes. But as with the previous book that I read in this Opposing Viewpoints series (on Islam), I felt that the viewpoints were addressing various aspects of the issue without answering the points made by other writers.

Partly that is a result of these books being compiled from previously written materials, rather than essays written for the purpose of the book. The best books I have read that present opposing viewpoints allow each author to directly address the points made by other authors in the same volume – and better yet, to respond to their responses. One article did directly criticize the views expressed in the previous one, which had been written by then-President Clinton and was no doubt widely distributted. But its objection was that too many people would jump on what Clinton said to do without noting that he said one had to go about it the right way.

That probably applies to just about everything written on the subject of education, and accounts for a great many of the problems in the system at all levels. It is folly to take any one recommendation about education and try to apply it across the board, without consideration for how it will work out in a specific situation, and often without heeding the cautions that accompanied the initial recommendation. The best piece in the book, I think, is one that emphasizes the need for each local community to have authority for and take responsibility for implementing educational programs that meet their needs and their goals. That author also stressed that it is a long, difficult process, with no quick or easy fixes.

There are some places where bilingual education is done well. One of them happens to be in a community near ours, where elementary students (whose parents choose to have them participate in this program) learn to be fully bilingual, regardless of whether their first language is English or Spanish. Other bilingual programs have been found to be dismal failures. It is a mistake to say that bilingual education is best based on the success in West Liberty. But it is even more mistaken to say that the whole idea is flawed because of the places where it has been done so badly.

Time for a HALT

On a warm evening in mid-September, the idea of taking my son on an overnight campout at Loud Thunder sounded like an opportunity for fun and character-building. I left the choice up to him, but since he wanted to go, I signed us up. A month later, huddled in my sleeping bag and not quite shivering but not warm enough to get back to sleep, I couldn’t help asking myself if this was worth it.

It was our third HALT (Halloween at Loud Thunder), and I had tried to be prepared for the problems we had had on previous occasions. Make sure he packs his pajamas. Extra pants, extra socks, extra underwear. Hats and gloves – although it seemed an unneeded precaution on an October afternoon that was brisk but not so cold Al felt he needed to change from shorts (because the pants had been in the washer) to pants.

By the time we got to the Council Ring for the after-supper campfire, we were grateful for our hats and gloves. He was eager to crawl into a warm sleeping bag, but agreed to go first to the observatory. Even without the telescope, we could see far more stars than here in town (and here we no doubt see far more than in even a mid-size city). But with the telescope, we could see Jupiter, amazingly bright and white, and three of its moons.

Usually s’mores are too sweet for me (though I loved them when I was younger), but last night they were delicious – although Al did have trouble biting through the cold chocolate bar. When we returned to our very small dome tent (a neighboring Scouter was surprised that two of us could squeeze in there), moisture had condensed on the outside, and frozen. I was glad for the Hollofil 808 in my sleeping bag, and hoped my son’s would be warm enough.

Happiness is a new book

The school gymnasium was generally not one of my favorite places as a child. (Outdoor gym class wasn’t as bad, as I could handle kicking a ball and running. Indoor gym class, however, meant gymnastics or volleyball, or “Mr. King Soccer,” which involved trying to knock down the other team’s bowling pins while keeping your own from being knocked over.) But when it was set up for the annual book fair, it suddenly became the best place in the whole school.

Across the street, the public library usually had the best selection of books at a price I could afford (free). But the book fair meant a smorgasbord of new books that the library didn’t have yet, and at prices reasonable enough that I could always count on my parents to get me at least one. (At the supermarket not a penny could be spared to buy name brands, but they were pretty generous when it came to buying books. They always let me purchase books from the monthly Scholastic take-home flyers, and they also let me buy all the books by L. Frank Baum and Marguerite Henry that I could find.)

I still have a pop-up book that I’m pretty sure came from a book fair in the New Meadow Elementary gym. What Do You Get? asks riddles like “What do you get when you cross a duck with a cow?” (milk and quackers) or “What do you get when you cross a blackbird with a mad dog?” (a raven maniac). I’m not sure if the jokes are all that funny except to kids (my son does crack up over most of them, though he’s not sure why crossing a worm and a porcupine should produce barbed wire), but the implausible pop-up pictures add a lot to its entertainment value.

And the tradition continues. This week is the Scholastic Book Fair at my younger son’s school. Monday he announced that he needed $5.99 for Tentacles. I always like to check out his book choices myself, both to know what I’m getting him, and because even at age 47, I still love browsing at a book fair. I like seeing what books kids are reading, getting ideas for possible Christmas presents, and checking out the bargain table. I didn’t end up getting there when the book fair was open, but fortunately I could check out the book just as easily online. (Perhaps even more easily, because at amazon.com I can get the opinions of other children and their parents.)

I quickly decided this was a book we could both enjoy. Mystery, legendary animals – and a reading level high enough to challenge him a little and be enjoyable for me also. It also turned out that he had more than enough money saved up to buy it, even without my giving him the proceeds from selling his Leapster on ebay.

The one problem was that Tentacles turns out to be a sequel, and I always like to read books in order if I can. But the internet again helped me, as I looked up our local library’s online catalog and found that I could (and did) go pick up Cryptid Hunters at lunchtime. Now the question is just who gets to read it first.

Reading Buddies

I am now a Reading Buddy.

Considering that google reported approximately 21 million hits when I searched on “reading buddies,” it’s hardly a new idea. Somewhere in those 21 million pages, I might possibly find who started the first program, whose success was copied over and over again in schools across the country. At least one of them has been around since 1994. So I’m somewhat surprised I never heard of it before.

I have known of programs pairing adult volunteers with students who struggle with reading. When we moved to Michigan in the fall of 1998, I volunteered in such a program at a nearby school until I found full-time work. But there, it was the students who did the reading, and our role as volunteers was to listen, help with difficult words, and ask questions to check for comprehension. I’ve no idea how much my participation helped the girl I worked with – six weeks is probably not long enough to make a big difference. (They assured me before I started, though, that they were glad to have me even for a limited time.)

In this program, though, I do the reading – at least most of the time. According to the school principal, who presented the idea of the program to our church a few weeks ago, many of the children in his school have no one read to them at home. Most of the children live in poverty, and statistics show that they get read to about a tenth of a percent of the time a middle class child is read to. One of the many websites I looked at said that in households living in poverty, there are often no children’s books in the house, and often no adult able to read them anyway.

I’ve no idea how many hours I read to my boys over the years, or how many hours my father read to us as children, but it’s sad to think of a child getting only a tiny fraction of that time. My own boys are long past the age when I sat and read to them at bedtime (though once in a while my younger son does ask me to read something). I’ve always felt a bit awkward with children until I get to know them (I was very relieved to discover that I didn’t have the same problem with my own children because I’ve known them since birth), but I love books, so I decided this was a program I had to get involved in.

Books: The Fairy Tales Detectives

Having never seen the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show as a child, my introduction to fractured fairy tales was James Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories. I was on a business trip in St. Louis, and I had an extra night at the hotel before the conference started (in order to take advantage of Saturday-stayover low fares). I was doing a bit of Christmas shopping when I came across this slim volume in the bookstore. I was going to buy it for my husband, but it was so good I read the entire book before going to bed.

From then on I was hooked. I bought Garner’s Once Upon a More Enlightened Time and Politically Correct Holiday Stories when they came out the following year, along with Chris Fabry’s Spiritually Correct Bedtime Stories. Later I added David Fisher’s Legally Correct Fairy Tales to the collection – though I don’t think any of the latter books were quite as good as the first one.

When Jon Scieszka’s The True Story of the Three Little Pigs came out in 1996, we bought a copy, and enjoyed it so much that we kept it on the coffee table to share with guests. I still think it’s one of the best in the genre. Of course, by then the idea of fractured fairy tales was getting so popular that they started springing up all over the place, many of them not nearly so funny.

My initial impression of the Sisters Grimm, based on the first book in the series, was that it belonged to the “not nearly so funny” class. As another disappointed reviewer on amazon.com points out, it begins with a compelling premise (which is why I happily picked it up from the children’s section in the library). Orphaned sisters Sabrina and Daphne Grimm find themselves in the home of a strange woman who claims to be their grandmother, in a small town in New York where all the fairy tale creatures from the old stories (which turn out to be true history) now live.

Unfortunately, Sabrina is not a particularly likable character, and the rest of the characters in the story aren’t much better (some are more appealing, but not developed well enough for me to care much what happens to them). There is a mystery to solve, related to a farmhouse flattened by a giant, but the eventual solution does not seem all that satisfying.

Of course, the books are written for children, not adults. But I often enjoy children’s books. (I’m looking forward to reading Alcatraz versus the Knights of Crystallia once our library get a copy.) Some parents do very much enjoy reading these books along with the children – there are hardly any critical reviews at amazon.com from either children or parents. The one critical review I mentioned above does point out that the first book seems to be a setup for future books in the series.

As my 10-year-old is in the target age range, I’ll have to see what he thinks of it (when he finishes the Harry Potter book he’s reading now).

What does it mean to be “under God”?

I remember reciting the Pledge of Allegiance every day at the start of the school day at New Meadow Elementary School. After the pledge, we all sang “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” and I’m not sure how old I was before I realized that the third word was not “tizuvthee.” I really didn’t give much thought to the meaning of the words of either the pledge or the song. They were just part of the daily routine, like getting dressed or walking to school.

I’m pretty sure one teacher did make sure we knew what some of the big words meant. “Republic” was a word for our country. “Indivisible” meant that the country couldn’t be split up (which just reinforced my impression that the distinctions between different states were not very important). We probably talked about the meaning of “liberty” and “justice,” but I don’t remember any teacher ever saying a thing about the phrase “under God.”

I don’t know if that was because they were afraid to broach a subject that might generate complaints about church-state separation, or if they simply took it for granted that we knew what the phrase meant. They had all grown up when prayer and Bible reading were still common in public schools, and virtually everyone could be assumed to belong to some branch or other of the Judeo-Christian tradition. I imagine that most of the students, like me, also took it for granted. Whatever “under God” meant, it was, like being an American, simply part of how things were for ourselves and everyone we knew.

My 10-year-old son is growing up in a world that is different in many ways from the one I grew up in. But I get the idea that the Pledge of Allegiance is something he says every morning without thinking much about it, just as I did. As a part of earning his Webelos badge, we are starting to work on the Citizenship requirement, and one activity is reciting the Pledge and putting it in his own words. The first part is simple; the second has him at a loss what to say.

Games: The Alien Game

Have you ever played a game and thought the rules didn’t make much sense, or that the premise of the game was weak, and that you could probably come up with a better idea yourself? If so, I can tell you that coming up with a game that works well when you try to play it is not an easy thing.

Al is learning that also. Together we’ve been working on The Alien Game, borrowing ideas from Clue and Where in the U.S. Is Carmen Sandiego?, as well as, of course, his very fertile imagination. It started because he wanted a new game to play, and my stash of games (I pick up inexpensive games when I find them at yard sales, thrift stores, or dollar stores, and save them in my closet until an occasion comes when I think it’s time to bring one out) was depleted.

It’s not that we don’t have games in the house. We have at least four shelves of games downstairs, ranging from little kids games like Candyland to strategy games, party games, and a variety of card games. But Al has outgrown some of the simpler games, and is not ready yet for some of the more advanced ones. Having neither extra money nor a good idea what to get, I suggested making our own game.

I didn’t have anything particular in mind – perhaps some kind of card game where we designed our own cards. Or a simple board game where we tried to get from start to finish, encountering a few obstacles on the way. But Al tackled the project with enthusiasm and much grander aspirations. This game, he decided, would be a space adventure version of Clue, modified so that it would only require two players.

Books: Sword of the Rightful King

Until this week, it had been quite a while since I read an Arthurian novel. For a long time I read any that I could find. As a child I read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and as a young adult I read T.H. White’s The Once and Future King and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon. The first three books Stephen Lawhead’s Pendragon Cycle are among my favorites.

Then Arthurian books started to become more and more common on the bookstore shelves. I bought and enjoyed quite a few (over the years I collected about three shelves worth, which fill most of the bookshelf next to me). But then I found that fewer of them appealed to me. I don’t know if the popularity of the genre attracted too many authors, or if I had just read so many variations on a theme that after a while nothing seemed original.

Last week I decided to browse the Young Adult shelves in the library. I was in a mood for some easier reading, and a lot of good books have been written for this age group. I don’t remember if I looked specifically for books by Jane Yolen, but when I found this one I decided it was time to try another Arthurian book.

I’ve read a few books by Yolen, and I’d read more if the library had them. Sword of the Rightful King intrigued me because of one line on the flyleaf – “someone else pulls the sword out first” (that is, before Arthur). That is certainly an approach I hadn’t read before, and I was amazed to find that I read nearly the whole book before finding out who had done it.

The story is told primarily from the view of Gawen, a boy who has come to King Arthur’s court hoping to become a knight, but who ends up becoming the assistant of the mage Merlinnus instead. He is clearly hiding the truth about his past, and I thought I had some idea what that was – but it turned out I was completely wrong.

Told from Gawen’s perspective, as well as sometimes from that of Morgause or her son Gawaine, the story brings to life the familiar cast of characters. Many versions of the legend focus on Lancelot, and at least one had Bedwyr as Arthur’s bosom friend. Kay is always in there somewhere, depicted in a wide range of ways. I have also read versions that focus on Morgause and her ambitions for her sons, but none that take the same story arc as Yolen has done here.

I don’t think I’ll find Yolen’s version as memorable as Lawhead’s, or as original as T.H. White’s or Mark Twain’s. (And I’m glad it’s not as disturbing as Marion Zimmer Bradley’s.) But it’s a very well told story, and a great introduction to either Yolen’s work or the Arthurian traditions.

Movies: Abe and the Amazing Promise

I used to buy every Veggie Tales video as soon as it came out, but disappointment with some of the more recent ones, combined with family financial difficulties, made me reluctant even to spend money renting the newest one. (Well, almost the newest one – I just went to bigidea.com and discovered that Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah’s Umbrella just came out but I haven’t seen it in the store yet.)

It occurred to me this weekend, when I picked up Al from his class in the KidzTown area at church, that the KidzTown Public Library just might have Abe and the Amazing Promise. Sure enough, there it was, so I checked it out, and tonight Al and I watched it. He laughed a lot, and commented afterward that its lesson on patience is one he needs to remember. So I have to conclude it’s a good show.

Watching it, though, I couldn’t help thinking that it just wasn’t the same as some of the earlier Veggie Tales shows I enjoyed so much. King George and the Ducky is a family favorite, along with Where Is God When I’m S-Scared? and Are You My Neighbor? I really like Sumo of the Opera, but most of the other recent ones just miss somehow with me.

I’ve read speculation that it has to do with Big Idea having been bought by a larger company. I’ve wondered if the creative minds behind the series have used up their best ideas, and continue to churn out shows because that’s “what they do” even when the inspiration just isn’t there. But I read a customer review at amazon.com that points in a different direction.

Abe and the Amazing Promise is apparently “the first full-length episode directed by John Wahba. … Wahba’s emphasis seems to be more focused on bringing to life a film that plays to a child’s sense of imagination and humor, rather than engaging in the asides and in-jokes for adults that adult fans are used to finding sprinkled throughout the VeggieTales series.” Other reviews commented on the lack of wittiness that Veggie Tales fans have come to expect.

It’s hard to say whether this change in direction will work long-term or not. One reason for Big Idea’s big success was that parents enjoyed watching the videos with their kids. Parents do get movies just for their kids sometimes, but if they’re like me, they’re less likely to stick with a series that they don’t enjoy themselves unless the kids beg for it. And since Veggie Tales isn’t advertised all over the place where kids will see it (at least not where my kid sees it), they won’t even know a new video is out, let alone ask for it.

By the end of the DVD, I have to admit it was beginning to grow on me. Most of the songs – even the silly song – seemed far from memorable, but as I headed up to the kitchen I found the last one running through my head. And the second story (unlike most Veggie Tales videos I can think of, the Bible story came first and a purely fictional story was the longer one) really was quite creative, and I think also effective, in getting its point across (about taking the time to do a job right).

Now I just have to be patient until the church library gets a copy of Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah’s Umbrella…

Books: A Friend Like Henry

I don’t normally take an interest in a book about someone else’s pet. Of course that pet is wonderful to the people who know and love it, and its particular habits and quirks are endearing to them. But I suppose I’m not enough of an animal lover to want to read about the animal whose love is tied up with someone who is a complete stranger to me.

This book didn’t interest me until I notice the word autistic in the subtitle: “The Remarkable True Story of an Autistic Boy and the Dog That Unlocked His World.” We had just gotten our new puppy when I decided to buy the book, and I wondered how she might help Al, even if he is hardly “locked” in his own world the way Dale Gardner was.

Somehow the book got buried in a pile of books, and I just unearthed it recently. I read nearly the whole book Tuesday afternoon and evening, while Al was enjoying music and crafts and other activities at VBS (see my recent post Overnight with Noah). This afternoon I finished it – and managed to choke back some tears near the end.

Thinking of our experiences with Al, I can recognize in this account much of what we dealt with. As his autism is much milder, we never went through the total lack of communication that the Gardners had to deal with. I do remember, though, the terrible frustration both he and I felt when he couldn’t tell me what he wanted, the sense that he was sometimes looking through me instead of at me, his indifference as to what adult took care of him, his unwillingness to get near other children, extreme pickiness in eating, throwing up at will, running around in circles, arm flapping, and so on.