Parenting for Peace, NY style

The renown 92nd St Y is putting on a parenting conference, and 2 of the 5 experts have spoken in Maine via our Parenting for Peace events!

"Parents: if you constantly worry your kid isn’t safe, you will make the world a fearful place. -- Michael Thompson, #92YParenting"

Watch the Live Stream here or learn more at the official site.

Or follow along on twitter

"Summer camp is Hogwarts." - Dr. Michael Thompson

"Some children come into the world with just a touch of Eyore. Trying to get them to be happy all the time WILL exhaust you."  -- MT

"iPads, iPhones light up pleasure centers of the brain like cocaine" -Joanne Deak #92YParenting http://huff.to/12EHhNr

 @DrGailSaltz, good enough parenting better than perfect parenting, prepares children reality of external world #92YParenting

Book Awards

Today is a big day for Children's Literature... The American Library Association announces it's Youth Media Awards... including the Caldecott and Newbery Awards but also many more.

On facebook & Web 

Recognition for Maine Author/illustrators includes Phil Hoose's Moonbirds, Toni Buzzeo's One Cool Friend and Daniel Minter's illustrations in Ellen's Broom !

Newbery 2013: “The One and Only Ivan,” written by Katherine Applegate

Caldecott 2013: “This Is Not My Hat,” illustrated and written by Jon Klassen, published by Candlewick Press

Coretta Scott King : CSK Illustrator 2013: Bryan Collier, “I, Too, Am America,”; 
CSK Author 2013: Andrea Davis Pinkney, “Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America,” illustrated by Brian Pinkney,

Stonewall 2013: “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe,” written by Benjamin Alire Sáenz 

I think we should find a way to get as many of these books as we can for the FSP library... use comments for ideas!

Also, check out this great resource for learning how to pronounce authors' names and then to dig in about them and their books... and check out #alayma  #alamw13 #titletalk  #kidlit on twitter for conversations about reading and teaching these books.

Climate Activism

FSP 7th and 8th graders are learning about Climate Science at the same time that climate activists are moving forward with protests against drilling for Tar Sands Oil and the building of a pipeline that would move that oil from Canada through the U.S. to be sold internationally.  And, the 350.Org project on divestment from fossil fuels is growing...

For me, mothering provides the impetus and courage to not look away.  Still, this video is a bit heart-wrenching.



There are so many opportunities for action right now.

Learn more about 350.Org Maine and actions planned for Wednesday January 23

See Chasing Ice at SPACE on Friday January 25th

Attend the super-big rally and march on January 26th

Learn more about Idle No More and their January 28th World Day of Action

Ask some 7th & 8th graders about what they've learned

Share your ideas in comments!

Ideas (that don’t require cleaning your house) for Winter Fun as a Group 


Book a pool party or just meet for “open swim” at a community pool (we’ve had good luck @ Cape Elizabeth’s pool - there’s a hot tub and it costs $5.00 for non residents (or book a music or bowling or gymnastics party and share the cost.) 


Bring some board games to the top of the Portland Public Market

Meet for Friday Night Open Gymnastics, or at the Children’s Museum (1st Fri $1.00) 


Take a winter hike / snowshoe @ Pineland and have cocoa in the visitor’s center. 


Gather at a WinterKids Winter Festival or the Portland Flower Show (preshow essay contest here – maybe a writing party at school one afternoon? 


Families with younger children – hire some eighth graders to entertain your kids; they need to raise $ for their trip to D.C. – and try Parent’s Night Out ideas from Maine.Today

Share more ideas at http://www.fspparents.blogspot.com

MLK Day Events

Curious City is planning MLK day events for kids, (as part of the larger Portland NAACP breakfast) which is so lucky for kids! 

I'm also reminded, at this time, of the wisdom imparted by Annie Sibley O'Brien and Krista Aronson during last year's "Books As Bridges" program... as much as this is a time to engage around questions of race and racism, poverty and economic inequality, and our capacity for justice, it is an opportunity to create new connections and relationships that honor ways we are similar to those different from us and ways we differ from those who seem just like us.

Scroll through some old posts for lots of links to book sites...

Improv

This comes from David LeGraffe, who helped bring Portland Playback to FSP for the arts intensive last fall... Playbacks happen during First Friday each month - it could be a great parent outing!

Commentary: Best-kept secret to creating social change is… improv 
 http://www.good.is/posts/best-kept-secret-to-creating-social-change-take-an-improv-class
Marc Evan Jackson, Good blog, 9/22/12

I hold the secret to the fastest, widest ranging, longest lasting, and certainly most fun path to positive, global social change: Everyone in the world should take an improv class. I have never been more serious about anything in my life. If more people improvised, there would be no war.
Improvisation is the art of making it up. Winging it. Often used in theatre, it is the creation of a scene or tiny play that arises from a suggestion from the audience, a tiny play for which the script is made up on the spot. If all you can think about right now is "Whose Line Is It Anyway?," then please allow me to elaborate. In order to be good at improv, you must adhere to a few pretty stringent rules. You must listen to others. You must agree with what's going on, and respect those you're working with. You must: Get along. Work together. Be fearless. Show up with energy. Be willing to look silly and even fail. Your job, while improvising, is to put yourself in the other person's shoes, and make them look good, and more than anything you must learn to obey the precept: Don't be a dork. As a result, a completely delightful by-product of improv is a set of unbelievably great skills for citizenship. Those who improvise become nicer, more informed, more interesting, more interested people. Full disclosure: There is a down side. Improv will make you realize how awful we humans are to one another. It will point that out to you every time someone begins speaking while someone else is already speaking, and make vivid who in your life is or is not listening. You will see the fear-driven, selfish, self-aggrandizing motivations behind what everyone is saying and doing as they interrupt one another. Once you are exposed to improv, Thanksgiving dinner with your family will become more unbearable than it has ever been.  I am an actor. I make my living improvising. But improvisation's beneficial impacts can and will help anyone, in any profession, of any age, in any circumstance. Seriously. We've taught this to prisoners - prisoners in prison - and they have raved about the good it's done in their lives. Surely it can help you too.
David La Graffe
www.lightsupimprov.com

www.portlandplayback.com

http://healingmomentswebsite.webs.com

207-799-3489

Twitter for Teachers /parents ~ Wonderopolis

I am constantly swinging from my awe at all the internet brings us and my horror at our collective obsession with screens.  As the first generation of parents to really contend with mobile devices, we are left to use some knee-jerk judgement that often expresses itself, in my house, as total capriciousness.  I am really looking forward to the spring P4P event on "digital kids, digital families" as a space to ponder more deliberately and with you all!

I have a thing for twitter, despite the way it fragments my brain, because it provides such a deluge of interesting links and information.  Somehow I wandered onto the #1stchat which allows first grade teachers everywhere to gather once a week and share ideas.  One of the most popular apps/websites mentioned was Wonderopolis and it really is super-cool, even for adults.  Featuring a new "wonder" everyday, it provides a nudge for non-fiction reading and provides excellent content - noncommercial, as far as I can tell (screen shot of some wonders, below) -- would love to know others' favorite apps/sites for kids -- use comments!

Also on twitter, #kidlit where great books and literacy ideas are shared, #edchat where general education policy is discussed, #plpnetwork for conversations about digital learning,  and #meschools for issues relating to Maine education policy / opportunity  (you do not need a twitter account to read these threads, just to post). 

For general thinking about media and education, KQED's Mindshift Blog is excellent and provocative and Commonsense Media is good for some grounding.

Article Round-Up

People have sent me some lovely reading / links for the blog over the past week or 2... here's a collection:

• Jane Brody on treating kids as individuals

• NYT article exploring running programs and the effects of pushing kids really hard

• "Are You As Busy As You Think You Are?" Wall St. Journal/Daily Good piece

• Courage in Schools Blog -- Parker Palmer is a Quaker Ed Guru!

• YES! Magazine on the Hazards of Manhood

• Harvey Melnick on "Parenting:  My Life Is My Message"

and finally, Maine's own Zoe Weil on "Educating for Freedom" 

A VLOG (video blog) that desribes sexuality diversity

If you missed Jennifer Bryan's talk, this 3min take on sexuality and gender diversity provides the basic context :



For more in-depth information about sex diversity, check out the resources on the now defunct Intersex Society of North America site - the 12min online video is particularly poignant and useful.

This TED TALK by Alice Dreger  (Is Anatomy Destiny) opens up a bigger conversation about what it means to maintain or deconstruct sex categories, knowing that they are not actually fully inclusive, descriptive, or "real" but that they do serve social, political and personal purposes.

Post-Jennifer Bryan

Jennifer Bryan's workshop and public talk on gender and sexuality diversity raised so many questions  and provided a strong and clear mandate to adults that if we want our children to have the fullest possible humanity and to include all children in our schools and communities we must become more educated about our potential differences.  Bryan used modifications of Kinsey's spectrum of sexuality development to offer a schema that helps us understand that individual sex, gender and sexuality potentially changes over time and place and involves an infinite number of ways of being, not just 2.  Sharing interviews with kids, in the evening program, Bryan asked us to be more empathetic to the hurts that come with being forced into a sex/gender binary system and then to be more thoughtful about the stereotypes that describe each type.

Some follow up links :

Jennifer's web site is here --  many reported wishing for more time with her; perhaps a school district could organize a whole-day training?

If nothing else, we should all pledge not to buy into the horror of super-sexy halloween costumes!

ABC did a story on the gendering of costumes / of kids in the choosing of costumes

 

"Feminist Frequency" examines the ways that legos' markets gender norms and sexism; Lyn Michel Brown's book "Packaging Girlhood" provides even more data on this and Hardy Girls, Healthy Women offers a lot of strategies for resistance including a Halloween tip sheet! 

Maine's Trans Youth Equality Foundation offers resources for families and supporters of kids whose gender expression doesn't "match" their assigned sex. Equality Maine offers political support and resources for safe schools.

Boys to Men offers trainings for schools interested in addressing gender stereotypes and the ways that they can support violence, and also support for parents wanting to help boys build a masculinity not centered on "Battle" (the biggest word in the "boy toy" word cloud).