March 2009
More apologies for taking so long between posts, I will try to do better.
Quickly with the work update. I am working on a project to help teachers and students think differently about science by training them as science journalists. We have a grant that gives a pilot group of hs and ms teachers and students the technology, training, and access to expertise for them to create short media products explaining how science connects to everyday life. This pilot project will focus on virology and we have partnered with 8 outstanding virology research projects throughout the University of Nebraska system.
Amongst the many challenges is working on a project that I was not involved in the design phase. I believe very strongly that any kind of learning activity has to start with the learners, and I am a big proponent of scenario-based design. This project started with what resources do we have and what can we do not what will students do in a class. The result is that all of the partners and modules are oriented around the production of media and the quality of the product, and not the experience of learners in a classroom. These are not mutually exclusive perspectives but their different orientations require different questions at different times. As this project goes forward, my role is increasingly to ask the question: What are students actually going to do? What are they actually supposed to learn?
Kids: Of course I love them but man, the past few weeks have been really hard.Here are some good things first: Micah’s logic, math, and reading skills are amazing and improving rapidaly. He and I have been playing backgammon recently and he understands the math and is getting better every time at the strategy. He also is getting great at understanding orders of magnitude and has a sense of the difference of ten, hundred, thousand, million, etc. Wow! His reading is also amazing, I overheard him reading out loud ot himself from a Richrd Scarry book the other night; he paused looked up at me I looked at him, and then he kept going.
Noemi is learning how to write her name and loves everything about letters. She is also coming up with more and more complex stories all on her own including one about a cat that sneaks into her brain and steals letters until she is able to thrown him out of the house. She and I spend a lot of time together and she is great at giving spontaneous hugs and kisses, it is wonderful.
On to the stuff that therapists dreams and livelihoods are made of: I actually had the first “Daddy I wish you were dead” yesterday when we were walking home from school. Micah has been thinking and talking about death a lot so I know it is on his mind; I told him “I know you are old enough to understand what that means, so think very hard if you really mean that or if you are just angry” He clammed up and didn’t talk for awhile then seemed to get past it when he saw Sarah coming up the street to meet us. Hearing that was hard; even if I take in the context of a young kid going through a rough period of time and fully confident that he doesn’t mean it. Still hard to hear.
Noemi flipped the stubborn switch a few weeks ago and is now adamant about everything that hers is the only way and hers is the only voice. It used to take quite a bit for her to meltdown and now she seems to hit that melt down phase alarmingly fast. My memories – and admittedly already they are fried – are that Noemi certainly went through mood swings but they were so much more gradual and she was often open to persuasion or even outright bribes before resorting to confrontation. Wow.
So we’re hopeful that both of the kids are working their way through phases and that we as parents are also adjusting to the people they are becoming not who we think they were or should be.
I feel your pain with the parenting obstacles. It’s so hard to be alone with kids all day, they really abuse the ones they love sometimes. Ian is in a very “I hate you” phase any time I make him do horrible things like pick up his room. Micah will appreciate you 25 years from now when he becomes a father (talk about delayed gratification!).