My Pen

Writing about the evils of a pencil the other day reminded me of my Pen Story. I too got in trouble, only instead of suspension it was the old "put your desk in the corner" shaming.

It was second grade. Wait, first you have to know that I have "lived inside my head" since forever. An avid reader, I was always creating different narratives in my head and doing illustrations when time permitted - like after school.

Back to the story. At the time I was in second grade, and one of the popular shows on TV that I had the good fortune to watch before bedtime involved secret agents. They were the coolest! They worked for good and always stopped evil. Week after week, dressed in suits and raincoats, they solved the crime or saved the world. At least one of them wore a brimmed hat in addition the the belted raincoat.  When they were at their most secretive, they communicated with secret pens. All you had to do to use it was unscrew the middle and place the top under the bottom. Nifty, for sure.

When my parents bought me a non-yellow non-plastic cloth raincoat complete with a belt and a brimmed hat, I was thrilled. Now I would look just like the agents I so admired. Never mind that their coats were beige and mine powder blue, this would work.

I waited with baited breath for a forecast of rain so I could begin a mission of my very own without parental knowledge. About a week later my dream came true: morning showers. Off I went to school in my belted new coat, brimmed hat and hands thrust deeply into my side pockets just like I'd seen on TV. Clutched in my right hand inside the pocket  was my special pen - the one I would be communicating to Command Central with.

This pen is particularly notable because at the time second graders were not allowed pens, only pencils and crayons. Pens were for third grade on up. I had brought my pen from home.

The morning started off okay. I was to report in on classroom activities. Since I was working, I did not hang my coat in the cloakroom with the rest of the class. I needed to be in uniform. My teacher didn't seem to mind that I was sitting at my desk in a raincoat and hat for at least an hour. Then we had recess. From time to time, I would cautiously bring the pen out of my pocket and whisper a short message before reassembling it and placing it back inside. I was a good agent!

After recess I attempted to sit down again without removing my coat and hat. I checked in again with Command Central. "I'm back inside at my desk." I whispered. "We are doing Spelling."

My teacher noticed my cover at last. "Go hang your coat up with all the others and take off that hat."

"I can't, " I replied.

"You can't?!" She snapped.

"I just can't...." I said hopelessly.

Returning to my job, I unscrewed the pen and informed Command Central that I had to take off my coat.  I trudged to the back of the room and hung up my coolest spy outfit ever and returned to my desk. I was so engrossed in my mission, the incredulous stares from the rest of the class did not phase me one bit. This was my mission.

Seated back at my desk, the teacher resumed the spelling lesson and I dutifully resumed reporting in the status of the class.

The teacher noticed me whispering comments into the pen in my hand and indignantly told me to stop being a distraction and to put that pen away. Once again I sincerely informed the teacher, "I can't."

As she marched down the aisle, her spelling book clutched under her arm she repeated her command using both my first and last names. I kept reporting in.

The last message Command Central received from me that day was when I half stood and sputtered into the pen as it was being yanked from my grip, "She - is - taking - my - pen - right - now!!Sorry!!"

I would have to wait until after school to continue my mission...

Let's Have A Longer School Year

Just the other day I heard that there is some legislative discussion to lengthen the American school year. The reasoning is three-fold: kids in other countries score better, American kids are forgetting too much over the summer and finally, while they are busy forgetting, they are getting fat.

Hmmm.

I think the school DAY is too long, not to mention an entire school YEAR. The school system with its mandated number of days, attendance and hours required is based upon herding large groups of people to and fro, getting their attention and then teaching. As a mom who home schooled both kids for chunks of time, I can attest that we did not need to include classroom transition, getting everyone's attention or ensuring that 27 others also understood something before we proceeded. By eliminating this lost teaching time, and teaching specifically to the personality and strength of each child, we made the most of each day and our school days did not need to be 7 hours long for me to believe "learning" had taken place.

Everyone needs a break from what they are doing so that they can be refreshed. In the past hundred years, American kids get the summer off. Workers look forward to 2 whole weeks off. Presidents golf. I don't fault any of this. When I worked in an office and stared at a computer screen all day I was told to get up every 45 minutes. When I was in college, I pioneered the idea of "taking a break" to an extreme, but the point is real - our brains need a break while assimilating new information.

A break does not mean sitting on the couch eating potato chips for hours, it simply means a break from what you were doing. I have had many little "work starters". The things I do while fully invested in a work project but use to deflect my mind for a bit. I play games and return to the project at hand refreshed and ready to tackle more mental challenges. My current "work starter" favorite is crocheting. While I am "not working" and developing finger callouses from yarn, my mind is tracing and moving in ways not used when I am reading or speaking or on my laptop. When I jump back in, I am crisper and ready to go for another long stretch.

Summer is a time for camps, vacations, jobs if you are old enough, and family. This is all educational. When I was at camp, I learned a craft. On vacation, I learned how to meet other people from around the country. I still refer to the learning experiences of my very first jobs. Everything we do and experience is about learning. Learning is not limited to a school day during a certain month.

And... what about all the things that happen after school? Just because they are not under the umbrella of a school system does not mean these experiences are not educational. Sports, volunteering, music, arts, clubs and yes, even good old play. That thing where you use your imagination - not a controller - and don't wait for something to do the thinking for you. The list goes on and on.

I know people who work 7 hours and get an A. I know people who work 3 hours and get an A. Is the "A" measured by the time it took to get there, or the final product?

The real problem is the American attitude about education, not how long the school year is. If our nation thinks it is about time spent at something "or else", we are too ignorant for our own good and will sit around and get fat, we are missing it. If our nation thinks it is all about competing with other countries so we should be looking over our shoulders and seeing what we can do to catch up, we are really missing it.

What happened to a defined educational plan and instilling the idea that it is an honor to be able to learn? That being educated is not a fill-in-the-blank process with easy answers? That an education is personal and has to be earned? Cheating only works for awhile. Learning how to learn lasts for a lifetime. So, I guess I did just vote to extend the school year...

Mandatory School-Based Sex Ed?

The International Planned Parenthood released a recommendation that children as young as ten years old should be taught “the pleasures of sex.” They did not mean the mechanics of sex, but how to enjoy it!

At the age of ten, a child is still very much a concrete-thinker. Abstract thinking begins to trickle in around age thirteen and takes the rest of the teen years to fully evolve. Concrete-thinkers are still absorbing what is told to them and are not able to filter nor understand adult concepts.

To burden a fifth-grader with the idea of sexual gratification at such a crucial development time is outright abusive. Why would anyone want to infuse a formative mind with something so controversial and devalue the true meaning of sex? The manipulative reason behind this surely has to be to encourage the financial profits in an industry that includes birth control and abortion available without parental consent in many states. This would retrain impressionable minds to become numb to something God-given, pure and beautiful and remove it's incredible value by turning it into a mere function or some kind of "right".

We can't teach kids the how before the why.

This issue will continue to challenge parents as our culture continues to water down the sacred. What do parents want to be considered special in their children’s lives? Will it be something moral or something material? Are all “special” things equal or are some so precious they should be reserved for...marriage?

Our obligation as parents is to teach our children the difference between purity and sex. Thanks to a world leader, a generation of kids now believe they can have oral sex and that their purity is not compromised. They still haven't really had sex, or have they?

Our kids need to know the why behind our reasoning when we tell them to wait until they are married to consummate their love. If we just say “don’t” and fail to give them a why, they won’t have anything to anchor the "don't" on. Let's tell our kids that the why is centered on knowing God - His perfect desire for our lives and therefore what we do with our bodies, with whom and the big "when".

My philosophy is to make sex education a natural, on-going process based upon our parent-child relationship. There is no single “big talk” but hundreds of little ones starting as soon as they can talk. Additional elements are introduced based on maturity. And at the right moment, you bet my kids know that it’s fun and feels good. But before they find out about that, they’ve been taught why God cares, how their body develops and what they can expect.

Communicating the truth about sex is probably the most important topic (aside from faith) on a parent's job description. It will impact futures and the lives of others – depending on what the kids understand and how they respond.

My favorite book that coaches parents on this topic is Dr. Kevin Leman's A Chicken's Guide to Talking Turkey With Your Kids About Sex. If you have a child, don't wait to read it. Read it when they're little and re-read as they grow. That pituitary gland gets into gear as young as second grade!

P.S. One of my favorite parenting workshops to lead is all about getting ready for adolescence and targets parents of kids second grade and up