What  an amazing experience I had last weekend when I lunched with two women with whom I went to elementary school, one of whom I have not seen since I graduated from 6^th grade. Seriously! Keep in mind that I graduated from Seeds UES in Los Angeles, now called The Lab School (of UCLA), in 1960. That’s right, 50 years ago. 

 But this blog is not about all the catching up we did nor is it about the 50 year reunion we are organizing.

 In sharing our memories my two classmates and I discovered a common thread:  the profound impact, the indelible etching, that is made by a child’s relationship with each of his teachers.

 Do teachers know how much they matter to their students?  I had a teacher in sixth grade who made what he probably thought was a harmless comment about me. It is not likely that Mr. Moss knew that his comment wounded me deeply. But it flavored all my memories of that year. And it actually still stings when I think about it. Each friend had a similar tale to tell; neither of them had forgotten the bad…or the good …they had gotten from a teacher.  I remember my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Covington, fondly. I felt like it mattered to him that I was in his class.  What a memorable year that was.

 This is the time of year when parents are flocking to school consultants. What is the best school for their child?  What is the best preschool that will get him into the best elementary school and then into the best high school and finally the very best college? And he’ll live happily ever after? May I admit how this turns my stomach?  What does “best” mean, anyway? It makes me think of the title of the book by Rabbi Sherre Hirsch, We Plan,God Laughs.

 Much as a parent wishes she could chart the best educational experience (or whole childhood, for that matter) for her child, that just can’t happen. The school experience is more than the 3 R’s.   Schools are filled all kinds of variables that cannot be predicted or measured, filled with teachers and friends and relationships. The school experience is about people as much as anything else.  And there are really 4 R’s:  Reading, (w)Riting, (a)Rithmetic, and Relationships. Relationships with peers and relationships with teachers.  These are the things that enable the foundations for learning, the learning environment, and form the lasting memories.

 Along each step of their pathway, children have relationships. And it is through these that they practice and discover who they are, how they are, and how they need to be in various situations. I wonder why it is that schools don’t actually add that last R to their curricula? 

 Even the very best school might not be the best for your child. And if he has an unfortunate experience with a teacher one year it is the worst school. But the next year it just might be the best.

 Our school memories are composites of so many things. Robin, Joyce, and I marveled at that over lunch. But there is just nothing that sticks as much as your relationship with your teachers, bad and good.

A mom called me from New York today. In a panic she explained that her mother was in the last stages of   her life and what on earth would she tell her child.  She said she needed a crash course in death.  So sad for her, but good for her.

There are parents of young children who will read the title of this blog, shake their heads, and walk–no run– away from the computer. Don’t do it!  Children need to learn about death, and they should learn about it from you.  Death is the one great inevitability in life. Everything that is alive will die one day.

Take a minute and read the article I wrote on the topic last summer.  You’ll be glad you did. It’s always better to be prepared before you need to be.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/teaching-your-kids-about-life-and-death

P.S.  As if I am prescient, yesterday tragically a 13 year old girl was killed by a car as she crossed the street to catch the school bus. In front of her mother’s eyes, she was hit by the car, as she crossed against the red light. 

In response to the many inquiries I have received about  how to talk to your (older) kids about this horrible accident, I have written the following:

Points and Talking Points to Use in Processing

the Tragic , Accidental Death of Julia Siegler

1.  Your first job is to listen. Allow and encourage your child to talk, feel, emote without necessarily commenting.
2. Rather than trying to make it better, merely validate his feelings.  I know. I know. It is the most awful thing imaginable. It’s unthinkably tragic.
3. Answer his questions as best as you can. Share what you know, the whole story.
4. Be sad together. Don’t brush your or his feelings off.
5. Allow and encourage your child (especially teen aged) to be with his friends. The most comfort and support is found in groups of friends. 
6. People process and mourn in different ways. Just because your child isn’t crying or talking doesn’t mean he isn’t feeling. Sometimes your own sadness is a vent for your child. But be careful not to dwell or impose your feelings on him.
7. Expect your child to have a reaction. He may want to stay close to home. He may want to be alone. He may become sullen, fearful of going out, nightmares, lots of questions about safety. Questions about God, fairness in the world, BIG questions will come up. (How we all wish we had questions to these.  But remember, it was an accident; it isn’t about a greater plan or about fairness.)
8. Know this:  It was an accident. That is what the word means…it wasn’t supposed to happen. It may not have been anyone’s fault. Just an accident.
9. These kinds of accidents usually don’t happen . They are the exception. Remind your child about all the airplanes that get through each day about which we don’t hear. We only hear about the ones that crash. That makes it seem like they happen all the time, but they don’t. Accidents don’t usually happen; they are the exceptions.   Children cross streets safely all the time. This was an exception.
10. Your child doesn’t need to live in fear.  (see #9, above.) Help him to know that it is typical to be extra frightened or vigilant and cautious after an accident. Everyone is more aware and frightened right now.
11. People have a need to blame someone. It takes the anger and hurt and puts it somewhere. But sometimes there isn’t anyone to blame. It IS just an accident, a horrible accident.
12. There is energy and power that accompanies the anger one feels over this horrible kind of accident. Put that energy to use…write a note, cook a meal, offer to help at the house.   Helping in this way is symbiotic:   It helps you do something with that energy and it genuinely helps the bereaved.
13. As the dust begins to settle (and that will take some time), help your child to do (create) something to memorialize Julia.  Perhaps her friends (and their families) will start a foundation, a charity, raise funds for something in Julia’s name. Create a cause.
14. Keep her memory alive. Photos, memorabilia, discussions about what you remember help kids to learn that people live on within us.
15.  Listen Listen Listen Listen!

I heard a radio advertisement this week for a DVD , Your Baby Can Read, or some name like that.  Needless to say, it grabbed my attention.  This program promises to teach your toddler, even infant, to read.  A mother of a three year old claimed that she had been using it for a year, and now her child was reading on a third grade level.  Please save me from being sick!  It took everything in my body not to drive off the road…as I seethed.

 Why on earth does anyone want her toddler (or infant) to read?

 Then I saw in the newspaper today that Docia Zavitkovsky had died.  Docia, a matriarch in our field, dedicated her entire 96 year life to young children, to raising consciousness about the importance of our children’s early years as the foundation for a rich and satisfying life. She was the founding mother of Play Matters, a nonprofit organization that places play at the heart of early childhood. What would Docia have said about this advertisement? I shudder to think.

 I am not sure which part of the radio advertisement bothers me the most…that parents are pushing their children in the exact wrong direction? That parents are so competitive in today’s world that they are taking desperate measures to give their children a perceived advantage that can actually be a disadvantage?  That merchants and advertisers are taking advantage of naive parents, making money off of them? It all bothers me.

It reminds me of Baby Einstein. The inventor made a fortune off of all those parents who were convinced that pouring images into their infants and toddlers via a screen would actually make them smart. Have you all thrown out those DVD’s yet…or better, asked for a refund?

 How do you grow a child?  Our very youngest children are nourished by interacting with people and with their environment. They learn and grow by feeding the right hemisphere of their brains with sensory and emotional and social experiences, through interacting with all that they encounter in their world. Learning in the early months and years of life is about play, exploration, trial and error.  It is priming the pump, laying the foundation for learning to read and other left brain experiences at the right time, and that is much later. How interesting it is that you can teach a toddler to recognize a word by repeated (boring) exposures to that word, over and over and over. But show him that word when he is six years old, and he’ll have in a minute or two.  And to top it off, he’ll even know what the word means!

 Would it be too evil of me to cross my fingers that Baby Can Read is a total flop? I pray, for Docia’s sake, that not one more DVD is sold.