I sit here tonight, fresh off five days at the cabin (with no wifi -- or any kind of "fi" for that matter), writing the coming week's to-do list. Here's what I've got so far:
* Call the a/c service people. I am quite literally sticking to my couch as I type this. Our a/c has been out for a week, but since we were heading out of town, we put off that phone call. Can you say REGRET? We're all sleeping in the basement tonight with fans blowing directly on us. And I'm not even a fan person. In fact, I'm SO not a fan person that I've written a column about what a fan person I'm not. I was going to post a link to that column here, but I just read it for the first time in years and decided it's kind of sucky.
* Go to the pool. See above.
* Watch school board candidate videos. The primary election is being held on Tuesday. If you live in Rochester, you know the school board election is a big deal this year. Videos (taped at a League of Women Votes forum) are available on the Rochester Public Library site here: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=rplmninfo#p/u/14/aHJjFpC9TP4
* Call the a/c service people back. And ask them if they can get here any sooner.
Showing posts with label School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label School. Show all posts
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
More School Stuff
From the "topic that won't die" file, I bring you another entry in the Rochester Public School budget cuts saga.
Tonight, at Willow Creek Middle School, there's a meeting for anyone interested in supporting the inevitable fall referendum. I don't know what to expect from this meeting, but I'll be attending to see how I can lend my hand.
Also, I got an e-mail recently from Chuck Briscoe, Century High School principal. He's always been kind and supportive of my work with the Post-Bulletin and I'd long hoped he'd be in place when my boys made it up the ranks to Century. Unfortunately for us, Briscoe has recently accepted an assistant superintendent position in the Anoka schools for next year.
Before he goes, however, he offered this advice for parents in answer to my, "tell us what we can do!" plea. Here's what Briscoe says:
I have shared this list of advice for parents for the past few years on how to work with teenagers:
For the past thirty-four years, I have had the good fortune to work with high school students. Each day at Century, I work with 1500 students. This does not make me an expert by any means. I have seen students and my own children make some very positive and, at times, courageous choices. I have had to love students at times when they may not have been the most lovable. I can promise you that 99.9% of all the students that I have had the privilege to work with will go down the right path, graduate from high school, and move on to the next level of learning.
The following list is what I believe you can do as a parent to, not only survive your years with your teenager, but also to be able to look back and say those were some of the best years as parents.
Ten Tips to Stay Ahead of the Game
Be a parent not a pal. As parents we need to be our teens’ anchors, not their best friends. Set clear boundaries, yet approach your teen with love and respect. Ignore the attitude. Save your energy for the big stuff. Is it really worth arguing about blue hair? You will find that by practicing my 24 hour rule (wait for one day before saying anything) many things will look different.
Talk the tough talk. Teens need to know your perspective on tobacco, drugs, alcohol, and their friends. Explain why you feel the way you do. Ask them are their friends taking them in the right direction or in the wrong direction?
Compliment your teen. Make it a habit to say at least three positive things to your teen every day. Some days this may be a challenge but there is something nice you can say each day. It is very easy to notice the negative; no teenager or adult who I know has complained about receiving a compliment.
Get to know your teenagers’ friends and their parents. Friends are a big deal, but connecting with the parents of these friends will become your lifeline. By consistently checking in with parents you will have your finger on the pulse of their activities.
Don’t be a maid. It is important for every teenager to have a meaningful role in the family. Every teenager is capable of mowing the lawn, shoveling snow, helping with laundry, and cleaning their own room. Who will be there to assume this role when they leave home?
Make respect and trust a two-way street. If you expect respectful behavior from your teen, parents and principals need to demonstrate how they handle issues in a respectful manner. Explain to your teenager that they will earn a great deal of trust by consistently doing what they say they will do.
Listen, don’t lecture. When kids are ready to talk, be ready to listen. This may not be at a convenient time for you, but please try and take the time to listen at that moment. Please resist offering too much advice but helping them think through their issue by asking them questions.
Agree to disagree. It may seem like you disagree about everything with your teen. Don’t worry, they are figuring out for themselves where they fit into the world and may be using you to try out different perspectives.
Have fun together. These can be challenging years as a parent, but there can be plenty of fun times and good memories. At this stage, you be the last person your teen wants to be seen with in public, but offer to drive them and their friends to school and athletic events. Listen to their conversation during the drive; it will provide a wealth of information about your teen. Remember to smile and search for things you can do together.
Tonight, at Willow Creek Middle School, there's a meeting for anyone interested in supporting the inevitable fall referendum. I don't know what to expect from this meeting, but I'll be attending to see how I can lend my hand.
Also, I got an e-mail recently from Chuck Briscoe, Century High School principal. He's always been kind and supportive of my work with the Post-Bulletin and I'd long hoped he'd be in place when my boys made it up the ranks to Century. Unfortunately for us, Briscoe has recently accepted an assistant superintendent position in the Anoka schools for next year.
Before he goes, however, he offered this advice for parents in answer to my, "tell us what we can do!" plea. Here's what Briscoe says:
I have shared this list of advice for parents for the past few years on how to work with teenagers:
For the past thirty-four years, I have had the good fortune to work with high school students. Each day at Century, I work with 1500 students. This does not make me an expert by any means. I have seen students and my own children make some very positive and, at times, courageous choices. I have had to love students at times when they may not have been the most lovable. I can promise you that 99.9% of all the students that I have had the privilege to work with will go down the right path, graduate from high school, and move on to the next level of learning.
The following list is what I believe you can do as a parent to, not only survive your years with your teenager, but also to be able to look back and say those were some of the best years as parents.
Ten Tips to Stay Ahead of the Game
Be a parent not a pal. As parents we need to be our teens’ anchors, not their best friends. Set clear boundaries, yet approach your teen with love and respect. Ignore the attitude. Save your energy for the big stuff. Is it really worth arguing about blue hair? You will find that by practicing my 24 hour rule (wait for one day before saying anything) many things will look different.
Talk the tough talk. Teens need to know your perspective on tobacco, drugs, alcohol, and their friends. Explain why you feel the way you do. Ask them are their friends taking them in the right direction or in the wrong direction?
Compliment your teen. Make it a habit to say at least three positive things to your teen every day. Some days this may be a challenge but there is something nice you can say each day. It is very easy to notice the negative; no teenager or adult who I know has complained about receiving a compliment.
Get to know your teenagers’ friends and their parents. Friends are a big deal, but connecting with the parents of these friends will become your lifeline. By consistently checking in with parents you will have your finger on the pulse of their activities.
Don’t be a maid. It is important for every teenager to have a meaningful role in the family. Every teenager is capable of mowing the lawn, shoveling snow, helping with laundry, and cleaning their own room. Who will be there to assume this role when they leave home?
Make respect and trust a two-way street. If you expect respectful behavior from your teen, parents and principals need to demonstrate how they handle issues in a respectful manner. Explain to your teenager that they will earn a great deal of trust by consistently doing what they say they will do.
Listen, don’t lecture. When kids are ready to talk, be ready to listen. This may not be at a convenient time for you, but please try and take the time to listen at that moment. Please resist offering too much advice but helping them think through their issue by asking them questions.
Agree to disagree. It may seem like you disagree about everything with your teen. Don’t worry, they are figuring out for themselves where they fit into the world and may be using you to try out different perspectives.
Have fun together. These can be challenging years as a parent, but there can be plenty of fun times and good memories. At this stage, you be the last person your teen wants to be seen with in public, but offer to drive them and their friends to school and athletic events. Listen to their conversation during the drive; it will provide a wealth of information about your teen. Remember to smile and search for things you can do together.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Homework
This summer, I'll celebrate 10 years as a freelance writer. And let me tell you, I know how lucky I am to work from home. My flexible schedule means I get to be the one who sends my kiddos off to school in the morning and greets them when they come home in the afternoon. It means I can chaperone field trips, meet friends for lunch, run errands before the 5 o'clock rush, and take off for a long weekend without submitting PTO forms. Frankly, the savings on shoes and dress clothes alone is enough to throw a party.
Funny thing, though: The benefits are also the detriments. My world is nothing if not a blurring of the lines. Without the 8-to-5, work wiggles its way in to evenings and weekends--while family and community obligations like to set up shop right there in the middle of the day. And those long weekends? You bet I take them -- but I also take my laptop right along with me.
Take today's to-do list: Chaperone the 2nd-grade field trip to the Olmsted County History Center. Write the end-of-program report for an arts grant. Answer reader mail from last week's column. Stress out over my sons' class sizes, and daydream about starting my own private school. Clean the bathroom, which was recently hit by Hurricane Christian and Bergen (and, yes, Hurricane Jen). Do the dishes. Wonder if it's going to rain like they say it will before hauling out the hose for the potatoes I finally planted yesterday. Attend a school volunteer dessert, which I really have no time to squeeze in -- except that it's DESSERT. Run to OfficeMax when I realize I'm out of the paper AND the ink I need in order to -- oh yeah -- work.
That last line best describes how my days have felt lately: "Oh yeah -- work." It's always the easiest thing to put off, isn't it?
Today, work entails tweaking an essay I wrote earlier in the semester. I have to send it to VCFA today in order to make my next workshop deadline. (A "workshop" is a session in which a writer sits in a room with a dozen other writers, listening to them talk about the pros and cons of his/her story or essay. Did I mention that the writer -- in this case, me -- isn't allowed to speak?)
I'm sending a piece titled, "After". The essay, which currently stands at 22 pages (but must miraculously top out at 20 by 4 p.m.!), intertwines two unrelated stories -- one of which explores how my grandmother is coping with my grandfather's death. I'll include a small excerpt at the end of this post.
Which, it turns out, is where we are now. (As much as I've stalled, it turns out that essay isn't going to trim itself into a tidy 20 pages....)
Wishing you the peace -- or the controlled chaos -- you long for! I've found that either option is fantastic, really, in its own way.
An excerpt from AFTER
My grandma and I take the boys to the zoo. We're checking out the blowfish when my grandma calls out in pain and grabs her arm.
“What happened?” I ask as my hand flies to my neck where I can feel my heart beating too fast. “Are you okay?” I'm the last person anyone wants nearby in an emergency. I panic.
“I'm fine,” she says. “Just a pain.”
By the time we get to the shark tank, it's happened again. Twice.
“Seriously, Grandma,” I say. “Do we need to leave?”
She takes a step closer to me. “If anything happens, my keys are right here.” She pulls them out of her shorts pocket and jingles them in front of my face. “See? Here.”
She returns the keys to her pocket and says, “I'm going to go find a water fountain and take an Ascriptin.” As she shuffles away, I hear her mumble, “I've learned just not to worry too much. If it's my time, it's my time.”
Two hours later, after feeding the giraffes, protecting our bags from the goats at the petting zoo, and taking a 40-second, $18 ride on the water taxi with the boys, we head for home. My grandma—who did not have a heart attack and die in the aquarium—sits low beside me, barely seeing over the steering wheel of her Park Avenue. We're just a few blocks from the house when she makes an unexpected turn. She likes to take odd routes sometimes just to shake things up, so I don't say anything. Thirty seconds later, she asks, “Where am I?”
“You just turned off Sun City Boulevard,” I say. “You're two blocks from home.”
“Oh!”' she says, covering her mouth. “I did that last time, too.” She slows down to pull into the next street.
“No, Grandma—you can't turn here,” I tell her. “This is a cul-de-sac, a dead-end.”
“I know where I am,” she says, annoyed. “I like to go this way.”
Funny thing, though: The benefits are also the detriments. My world is nothing if not a blurring of the lines. Without the 8-to-5, work wiggles its way in to evenings and weekends--while family and community obligations like to set up shop right there in the middle of the day. And those long weekends? You bet I take them -- but I also take my laptop right along with me.
Take today's to-do list: Chaperone the 2nd-grade field trip to the Olmsted County History Center. Write the end-of-program report for an arts grant. Answer reader mail from last week's column. Stress out over my sons' class sizes, and daydream about starting my own private school. Clean the bathroom, which was recently hit by Hurricane Christian and Bergen (and, yes, Hurricane Jen). Do the dishes. Wonder if it's going to rain like they say it will before hauling out the hose for the potatoes I finally planted yesterday. Attend a school volunteer dessert, which I really have no time to squeeze in -- except that it's DESSERT. Run to OfficeMax when I realize I'm out of the paper AND the ink I need in order to -- oh yeah -- work.
That last line best describes how my days have felt lately: "Oh yeah -- work." It's always the easiest thing to put off, isn't it?
Today, work entails tweaking an essay I wrote earlier in the semester. I have to send it to VCFA today in order to make my next workshop deadline. (A "workshop" is a session in which a writer sits in a room with a dozen other writers, listening to them talk about the pros and cons of his/her story or essay. Did I mention that the writer -- in this case, me -- isn't allowed to speak?)
I'm sending a piece titled, "After". The essay, which currently stands at 22 pages (but must miraculously top out at 20 by 4 p.m.!), intertwines two unrelated stories -- one of which explores how my grandmother is coping with my grandfather's death. I'll include a small excerpt at the end of this post.
Which, it turns out, is where we are now. (As much as I've stalled, it turns out that essay isn't going to trim itself into a tidy 20 pages....)
Wishing you the peace -- or the controlled chaos -- you long for! I've found that either option is fantastic, really, in its own way.
An excerpt from AFTER
My grandma and I take the boys to the zoo. We're checking out the blowfish when my grandma calls out in pain and grabs her arm.
“What happened?” I ask as my hand flies to my neck where I can feel my heart beating too fast. “Are you okay?” I'm the last person anyone wants nearby in an emergency. I panic.
“I'm fine,” she says. “Just a pain.”
By the time we get to the shark tank, it's happened again. Twice.
“Seriously, Grandma,” I say. “Do we need to leave?”
She takes a step closer to me. “If anything happens, my keys are right here.” She pulls them out of her shorts pocket and jingles them in front of my face. “See? Here.”
She returns the keys to her pocket and says, “I'm going to go find a water fountain and take an Ascriptin.” As she shuffles away, I hear her mumble, “I've learned just not to worry too much. If it's my time, it's my time.”
Two hours later, after feeding the giraffes, protecting our bags from the goats at the petting zoo, and taking a 40-second, $18 ride on the water taxi with the boys, we head for home. My grandma—who did not have a heart attack and die in the aquarium—sits low beside me, barely seeing over the steering wheel of her Park Avenue. We're just a few blocks from the house when she makes an unexpected turn. She likes to take odd routes sometimes just to shake things up, so I don't say anything. Thirty seconds later, she asks, “Where am I?”
“You just turned off Sun City Boulevard,” I say. “You're two blocks from home.”
“Oh!”' she says, covering her mouth. “I did that last time, too.” She slows down to pull into the next street.
“No, Grandma—you can't turn here,” I tell her. “This is a cul-de-sac, a dead-end.”
“I know where I am,” she says, annoyed. “I like to go this way.”
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