Actual People

Actual People

Teachers and parents generally get along. Both share the goal of supporting children. But once in a while, disagreements or misunderstandings arise. Once in a while, tempers flare.

When I began teaching, we had only one phone in the office for teacher-parent calls. Picture this: A parent, miffed about some issue concerning their child, sends a questioning note. The teacher, busy with several children, interprets the note as a personal criticism. Said teacher waits until her lunch break, charges down the hall to the office with steam pouring out of her ears, jabs the phone number into the phone, and waits as the phone rings. Boy, is she going to give this parent a piece of her mind!

Then the parent answers.

“Hello, Mrs. M? This is Mrs. C. How are you? First, let me tell you how much I enjoy having Tommy in my class. He is such a curious learner and has such good manners. I got your note. How we can work together to solve the issue you mentioned.” 

After a pleasant conversation, the parent and teacher hang up with a much better opinion of one another from which Tommy benefits most. What happened to the steam? It disappeared the minute Mom answered the phone. Why? Because the teacher realized that she was talking to an actual person. A person who loved her child. A parent who wanted the best from his teacher. A parent who was the greatest ally a child and teacher can have.

Actual people share the same qualities, worries, hopes, and fears that you do. Actual people are behind every note, email message, Instagram, and Facebook post. Actual people write the books and articles you love or hate. Politicians from your party and opposing parties are actual people. Reporters on all the news services are actual people. Children and senior citizens are actual people. Celebrities are actual people. Service workers who patrol, clean, or cook are actual people. Immigrants are actual people. Incarcerated persons are actual people. People in other countries are actual people. People with physical and mental challenges are actual people. People with differing racial, gender, religious, or national identities are actual people. People who disagree with you, work against you, or are disrespectful to you are actual people. Actual people are worthy of respect.

One of the first lessons taught in every classroom is to treat others the way you want to be treated. This golden rule is part of almost every social and religious tradition. When did it go out of style? Why do we today feel that our anger, our fears, and our righteous indignation supersedes this most primary of lessons? Why do we feel that others need to treat us right but that we can treat others any way we want? Have we forgotten that others are actual people?

Parents and teachers share many things. Both want children to succeed. Both want children to feel secure and loved. Both want children to act responsibly and kindly. They share the responsibilities of caring adults towards growing children. They know that they must work together. Children need to see actual people getting along.

We are all actual people who share many things. We want to succeed. We want to feel secure and loved. We want to act responsibly and kindly. We need to get along. We must work together. Actual people need other actual people. Before steaming up and charging in, remember to look at the other as an actual person worthy of respect. 

Just like you.

Open Your Ears

Open Their Ears to Reading

Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify the small units of sound (phonemes) which make up words and how these can be segmented (pulled apart), blended (put together), and manipulated (added, deleted, and substituted). Phonemic skills include rhyming, alliteration, and counting syllables. Hearing the sounds of language is important in learning to read.

When learning to speak, children accumulate thousands of sounds. In order to read, children must recognize these sounds as individual units which are used to make up written words. Teachers and parents can help with explicit instruction (teaching children to connect sound with the letters of the alphabet) but playing games with sounds is a lot more fun.

Even the youngest children love to play with sounds. Here are a few examples of some “sound games” for parents and children to share. 

1. Sound Rounds! Model sounds with exaggerated pronunciation. “I Love Pickles!” YuM, PoPCorN! Add movement. “Jump when you hear a /p/ sound.”

2. Mix Them Up! Combine sounds to make nonsense words: Brush-em-be-too-tee-boos! Doo-da-diddy-cums! Dr. Seuss’s books are full of nonsense words. 

3. Break Them Up! Pull words apart: Say, cowbell. Now say it without /bell/. Start with compound words and move on to syllables: Say platter. Now say it without /ter/.

4. Rhyme Time! Read rhyming books. Add new rhymes to those in the book. Ask your child to add some more. Rhymes don’t have to be actual words: Pop, stop, hop, mop, vop, yop etc.

5. Rhyming Riddles! These answers rhyme with /bat/. I sit on your head. Who am I? (a hat). I sit on your lap and purr. Who am I? (a cat). Kids can make up rhyming riddles too.

5. Clap, Clap! Clap if these words start the same: (cup, cow); rhyme: (neigh, bray); have the same beginning (or ending) sound (pool, cool) etc.

6. Strange Change! Start with a word (hop). Change the beginning (or ending) sound. (top, stop, hog, hot, etc. ) Challenge your child to do the same.  

7. Stretch and Blend! Stretch words into their individual sounds or blend them together. Stretch, cheep, (/ch/-/ee/-/p/); clack, (/k/-/l/-/a/-/k/); blend /s/-/p/-/i/-/n/, (spin); /b/-/u/-/k/,, (buck). Demonstrate stretching or blending with large arm movements.

8. Sing!  Learn some silly songs and belt them out with your kids.

As children become more aware of phonemes, games can be made more challenging. Sound games, which be done anywhere, keep children occupied and happy. Help your child become a great reader!

(This is the second in a series on reading success)

Mona Lisa's Smile

Mona Lisa’s Smile

When you think of a beautiful smile, who comes to mind? Someone famous, like Julia Roberts or Tom Cruise? Someone closer to home, your mother or father, your spouse or your child? One of the most famous smiles in history is that of Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo Di Vinci. 

Leo (as a fellow Italian I feel free to be familiar) started painting Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a Florentine merchant in 1503 and continued to refine his painting until his death sixteen years later. Leo was a slow worker and often didn’t finish projects he started, but this one painting held his attention. Leo was more than a painter, he studied anatomy, engineering, mathematics, optics, warfare, literature, poetry and whatever struck him as interesting. His investigations into human anatomy helped him create Mona’s haunting smile.

Walter Isaacson, in his book, Leonardo Di Vinci, details Leo’s interest in bones, nerves, organs, muscles, and skin. Leo dissected animals and cadavers to unravel their mysteries. He was especially interested in lips: “The muscles which move the lips are more numerous in man than in any other animal.” In his journals, he includes detailed diagrams showing the many positions the lips can take “One will always find as many muscles as there are positions of the lips” he writes. He concludes that the positions of the lips convey the emotions behind them. 

This is what makes Mona’s smile so memorable. Leo shows us the inner emotion behind the smile but with a veil, a mystery, because Leo realized that, as Isaacson writes, “we can never fully know another person’s true emotions.” 

The lips do more than smile. They frown, they pout, they purse, they pucker. Each position of the lips is a signal for the emotion behind it. Our lips telegraph our thoughts and feelings, yet our signal readings may be off. Some mystery lurks — hidden in the minds and hearts behind the smile. 

Mona Lisa’s smile reveals little of her inner self. Is she happy, amused, pensive, reflecting, or planning? Does she think of someone special or of the artist painting her into immortality? We will never know. But we remember her and her smile. Isaacson writes that the painting, “became more than a portrait of an individual. It became universal, a distillation of Leonardo’s accumulated wisdom about the outward manifestations of our inner lives and about our connections between ourselves and our world.” Mona’s smile connects her world with ours. Our smiles connect us with others. 

Smiles may mask our true inner-selves, but as with Da Vinci’s masterpiece, it is the observer who benefits. Every beautiful smile adds light to the world. Mona Lisa’s smile inspired centuries of artists and poets. Your beautiful smile inspires also. Use it often. Make your smile as lovely a memory as Mona Lisa’s. 

(All quotations from Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson, 2017)