Sunday, January 5, 2014

How Much Hours?

As I type this, there is a digital timer running downstairs counting down the hours and minutes until we go to the Sobe Ice Arena at the Fiesta Hotel here in Las Vegas to enjoy what the schedule calls "open skate," and I call "hopefully not a trip to Urgent Care."

This comes immediately on the heels of our trip to SeaWorld over the holiday school break, where our friend's daughter fell down and broke her arm on the snow they pump into a special kids' play area during the Christmas season. She was only walking. On shoes. On feet. Our kids will be balancing on ice skates. Never before attempted. Fast forward to the next blog title, "Scenes from an Emergency Room."

Anyway, perilous thoughts and potential Four Stooges choreography notwithstanding, we're going ice skating today because Grandma Judy sent us a Groupon, and we are not one, two, three or four to turn down a freebie. Thank you, GJ.

The timer is running downstairs because open skate doesn't start until 2 pm, and in Justin's world, that's a million years away. It's either start a timer for him or listen to him ask out loud every five minute interval, "How much hours until we go?" I tell him it's "how many hours" ten times a day, but to Justin, "how much hours" is the way to go. It's stuck in his immoveable syntax, just like "panties," which he still uses for "underwear." Future Mrs. Justin Reisman, I really apologize, but by all ongoing indications, you're both going to call your underwear panties. You'll want to encourage him to keep his voice down in Target.

Developmentally, Justin has made great strides in the vexing and perplexing way only boyhood can illustrate. He can shoot amazing baskets from the free throw line -- impossible shots for someone four feet tall -- then come up to me two seconds later and ask me to tie his shoe. He can build Lego sets that require an advanced engineering degree, but still flip his plate off the table attempting to cut his baked potato. He remains a combined enigma of total grace and oh shit, watch out.

Intellectually, the kids are growing too. They still hate losing games to each other, but the DEFCON 1 tantrums have turned into DEFCON 4 sulks and bad manners, and now they're over chess and backgammon instead of Chutes and Ladders and Candyland, which is cool to watch, even if the good sportsmanship is still a work in progress.

I read two books this past month by arguably the best elementary school teacher in the United States, Rafe Esquith. Rafe teaches children of immigrants in inner-city Los Angeles, most of whom speak English as a second language. Not only do his fifth graders score higher on standardized tests than all others around him -- (he thinks standardized tests are a load of crap, by the way, and I tend to agree) -- he also teaches them, in the course of a year, to read music, play rock songs note-for-note, behave impeccably in public, including an annual trip to Washington D.C., and oh-yeah-in-his-spare-time after school, rehearses with them daily to put on an annual Shakespeare play. Unabridged. A different play every year. Front to back. Cover to cover. The guy is a scary-good teacher. Stunningly good.

And his whole philosophy boils down to a sort of humble, "aw shucks, anybody can do this...you just have to be organized." And balls, he sure is. Every moment is accounted for...on the clock, or the thousands of hours of personal time he "gives up" for his kids. His fifth-graders often grow up to be some of the brightest college graduates in the nation. He's the only teacher in the nation to receive the National Medal of the Arts. Oprah Winfrey gave him a $100K "Use Your Life Award." Queen Frickin' Elizabeth made him a Member of the British Empire. Mother-a-God, Rafe, take a day off.

Anyhoo, the books have inspired me greatly -- not so much to cram education down my kids' throats 28 hours a day -- but to at least understand that "education is ongoing...it doesn't stop at 3 pm," as Esquith writes. I feel challenged to give just a little extra in 2014, and be just a little more organized in delivering it. If Esquith can teach 40 fifth graders how to read music and stage Shakespeare, I think I can spend ten minutes at the kitchen table with a globe, playing games and pointing out Brazil.

So, yep. I actually made a weekly schedule for learning games we'll play at home. Geography, art, math, music, dictionary, writing, science, organizing, Torah, theatre. They're all in there, mapped out daily in easy-to-stomach ten minute segments. This is on top of "D.E.A.R. - Drop Everything and Read," which we are already doing. How far we'll get with the new mini-segments, I do not know. Where it might take them, I have no earthly clue.

But it can't hurt to try, and it is fun to be involved in their learning lives proactively, and not just as a disinterested observer, picking school sheets out of their backpacks at night and throwing the "done ones" away. It might be good for a while to remember I'm a teacher, too. And if I can make it fun, maybe learning will always be fun for them. That's my job, too. There's nothing noble or braggy about that. It's just part of what I'm supposed to be doing. Besides, what else am I going to do? Sit around here writing blogs all day?

I want them to read better too. I want them to learn to love to read, like I do. I don't quite know how to do that yet, but I'm open to your ideas. How do I foster a love of reading in these two kids? The boring online basal readers they use in school certainly aren't lighting any fires. I think it's up to me to find material that sets their minds ablaze and their desire to gobble up more and more.

"I want my students to love to read," writes Rafe Esquith, in a quote I'm typing up and posting on my wall. "Reading is not a subject. Reading is a foundation of life, an activity that people who are engaged with the world do all the time. If a child is going to grow into a truly special adult -- someone who thinks, considers other points of view, has an open mind, and possesses the ability to discuss great ideas with other people -- a love of reading is an essential foundation."

Amen. Now how do I make that happen? Your ideas are more than welcome.

Meanwhile, with ongoing thanks to Irving Naxon, beloved inventor of the crock pot (because right now I'm cooking a hell of a pot roast and writing you this little update at the same time) we Reismans will embark on 2014 with a little more planning, a little more organization and a little more learning, to make up for early days of falling, floundering and shell shock. We're finding ways to use our time better lately. We also have a weekly menu planned out here at home now, too. We started that a few weeks ago. The kids know what's coming up every day for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack time, and I don't have to scramble at the last minute with last minute shopping and wondering what the hell I'm making for dinner. It's working out great. But yeah, that part's just me bragging.

So, there you have it. That's the New Year's Resolution in our house. Better organized dads, more enlightened kids, and little tiny ten minute attempts to make learning something they love, not something they have to endure.

How much hours will it take? I really don't know.

But I think it will be an awfully great adventure.

"Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire" by Rafe Esquith, c.2007 Penguin Books, New York
"Lighting Their Fires" by Rafe Esquith, c.2009 Penguin Books, New York

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