In my forty year education career, I implemented a plethora of educational trends: Back to Basics, Open Classroom, Brain Research, Collaboration, Cooperative Learning, Critical Thinking, Character Education, Inclusion, Standards Movement, Digital Learning, and more. Here are some of my stories.
Education trends drifed slowly through the clouds from West to East. From California the seventies produced the Open Classroom wave in education.
I taught in a high school fashioned on the Open Classroom design. Three teachers taught different subjects in one huge, circular classroom separated by tall, portable chalkboards. I taught English grammar, Mrs, L taught history, and Ms. O taught drama. On the day I taught students to conjugate verbs [lie,lay, lain], we overheard the drama teacher command her students,"Lie on the floor and breathe." A teachable moment, I thought! She didn't say "lay on the floor." My students' eyes, big as saucers, understood her to say, "Lie on the floor and breed." One brave English student asked, "Where do we sign up for that class?" Thus began my belief that educators should question the policy makers. "Why don't they pass a constitutional amendment phohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as well as prohibition did, in five years, Americans will be the smartest people on earth." Will Rogers
Conflict resolution I learned during my happy forty-one year marriage, I did not heed my mother's advice, "Never go to bed angry." I preferred to stay up and argue. Good marriages are based on trust, patience, and understanding; all these thrive with healthy communication. "In olden times, sacrifices were made at the altar, a practice that still continues." Helen Rowland
Parenting is frightening. Teetering on a seesaw, I balanced a career, husband, two children, more university degrees, and a household. Not uncommon for women of my generation. In neighborhood coffee klatches, I cringed when I heard stay-at-home moms recite exact day and time their children lost that first tooth or take a first step. What to do? I recorded these magnificent moments in baby books, but I didn't exactly carry these around with me every day. I insisted on family meals every night, used every snippet of available time to talk with my children, read their diaries, and checked out their assurances about spending quality time with friends. Lack of trust? Differ if you must, but call it a mother's love. As adults with their own children, they now understand. "Children are a great comfort in old age. They help you reach it faster, too." Lionel kauffman
Fashion, my Catholic mother insisted, meant that women should dress modeled on the Blessed Virgin Mary. Although I understand her statement was a metaphor for modesty, my fashion sense leans toward the eccentric bohemian. Fashion is fun. Mixing and matching, accessorizing, understanding body image, loving yourself inside and out can be accomplished with the right attitude. Remember that most magazine models are photo shopped. "Think highly of yourself because the world takes you at your own estimate." Author unknown.
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