The Trip West and Back, highlights

Before the trip the drama began.  My husband called me at work.  He never calls me at work. We had a new radiator put in our monster van, Bluehemoth, and the result was a pressure change in the engine that popped a couple of freeze plugs.  The prognosis from the mechanic was that we could drive it locally, but he wouldn't recommend that we drive it in the dessert or anything like that.  Um, most of the West is a desert.  We rapidly executed plan D or E or Q (I've lost track), found a relatively cheap rental for a mini van on Hotwire, and said we are going on this vacation this year dammit, and that stupid van will not get in the way again. (The computer in the van went right before we were supposed to go last year, so we cancelled and went to WV instead, fun, but not quite what we had had in mind.)

I went home and furiously started paring down the stuff in the pile to pack into the van.
I had had everything organized in plastic tubs, labelled with their contents, etc.  It was a work of art.  Instead we took tubs jammed to bursting, with stuff crammed in to take up less space.  There was a pile in the dining room of the stuff that did not get to go and a pile in the living room that we would attempt to cram into the van.

Then we went to pick up the rental the after work the evening before we are set to leave at 5AM. Because it was a Hotwire transaction, we had to drive 50 minutes to Baltimore to pick up the van at the airport, and then drive back home. They tried to get us to pay for an upgrade for an SUV, but we decided not to go with it.  Once we were in the garage waiting for our van, and waiting for our van some more, the attendant came over and broke the news to us that there were no more vans available and would we like a 2017 Ford Excursion instead?
 Sure! We got the SUV, but didn't have to pay the extra $$$ for it.  An Excursion was an aptly named vehicle for this trip. I climbed up into it, there's a reason they put running boards on the thing, and sat in it for the first time and was terrified by its enormity in the close space of the parking garage.  I pulled out of the parking space while warning a family standing nearby to clear the way, because I usually drive a compact car and this was out of my league. They stepped aside and chuckled.

We made it home by 10 PM, packed it to the ceiling until about 11:30 and collapsed into bed until the alarm went off at 4 AM. My daughter's friend, who accompanied us on the trip, showed up promptly at 5 AM and we crammed her stuff into our ginormous shiny black box of a vehicle and began our journey.

Now, every trip of this kind generate some stories and memes.  One meme of the vacation was the evil tissue box.  It seemed no matter where it was placed in the car it either fell out, landed corner first on someone's head or was no where to be seen when it was needed, right now!  By the end of the trip that evil tissue box was mashed and twisted, and pliable from all the bending, but it seems to have ceased to be evil.  It sits quietly next to my side of the bed, it seems contrite.

One song that we sang over and over again was  Dumb Ways to Die  
after hearing over and over again about tourists doing thoughtless things and doing themselves serious damage last year at Yellowstone (5 or 6 gored by bison while taking selfies) or the person who stepped into the acidic water to rescue his dog (who shouldn't have been near the hotsprings--the signs are everywhere--no pets allowed here--dangerous ground)...we saw some potential of the events repeating themselves, but we did not witness any injuries.  We drove along watching the huffing bull bison from our car and saw at least two women put their lives at risk to get good photos,

 we saw people walking out too far on unstable cliffs, people wrestling with their handbag dogs to keep them from hopping into the beautiful hot springs and mud pots, filled with boiling water. Whenever the girls proposed wandering off a little ways I told them that I didn't want anyone singing "Dumb Ways to Die" for them, so they better think before doing anything.

Some of the trip was a great surprise for me, Nebraska, for instance, the western side of Nebraska had amazing rock formations and fossils. 

I loved it.  I hadn't expected to.  The people were really nice, we chatted with one lady in a historic site for quite a while.  The site featured a barbed wire collection, the things I had never thought of. Lincoln Nebraska looked like a nice city (in August).

We were able to see the Cahokia Mounds, a place I had never heard of until I was around thirty.  A student in my class, Miguel, did a paper on the Cahokia. Puzzled, I did a search on the brand, new internet connection (we had just had it put in at the school, it was 1994-ish).  It turns out that in the late 1100's Cahokia was larger than London was at that time.  It had giant man made pyramids made out of what they had, soil.  Pyramids made with over 50,000,000 baskets of soil, that must have been some undertaking.  Since that time I have wanted to see these North American pyramids that history seems to have ignored, so we stopped in Collinsville, IL, which is near St. Louis, MO and climbed the mounds. From the top, I took a picture of St. Louis.

St Louis is under construction, everything seems to be getting dug up, the GPS was pretty useless, because the roads were closed and then there was the semi that tipped over on the bridge at rush hour, right after the GPS told us to turn down a road after we had passed it. It seemed run down and dirty. The experience did not make me wish to return to St Louis.

Then there was the time the GPS sent us on loop-de-loops around a small town, until we decided to ignore it and get back onto the highway. Then "U-Turn in 639 miles"...really?

There are little things we noticed along the way.  In order to be a campground host you must have at least one, if not two, cute little dogs.

This pooch was at Boysen State Park in the Wind River Canyon in Wyoming.  It is a beautiful spot with a river alongside the sites and the facing canyon wall.  There are notes to look for bighorn sheep, but we didn't see any there, we had to wait until we arrived at the Badlands in South Dakota to see those.

Our site in Boysen State Park

One of the most fun stories of the trip is from when we arrived in the parking lot of Old Faithful.  We had some time before the next predicted eruption, so we made PB sandwiches and ate them in the parking lot.  While sitting there we spotted a couple of ravens climbing all over a couple of Harley Davidson motorcycles, people kept trying to shoo them away, but they kept coming back. A few minutes later we realized that they were rummaging through the packs of the bikes and removing things.  They stopped when they scored what appeared to be a bag of nuts, soon other ravens appeared, as if on cue to share the booty.

There were so many things we passed by on this trip that seemed interesting, but we just didn't have time for it all.  Maybe next time.

Need Real Life Hacks!

You'd thought I had quit this blog didn't, you?

I have been working, and with that my amount of free time without interruptions (meaning alone time) has gone down close to zero, so the blogging just hasn't happened.

I just ran across a website that gives clever life hacks for women, I find most of them puzzling.  broken lipstick repairs (my kid was about eight looking through my purse for gum or my sunglasses and came across a lipstick, pulled it out and asked me what it was, because she had never seen it used), putting on bracelets when you're alone, using a wine bottle to store bracelets, making your own nail polish using loose eye shadow and clear nail polish... the only one that I thought was sort of useful was to wear big thick socks with new shoes around the house to break them in.  I've been doing that for years. The rest were silly.  It's time to stop treating women as if they are silly, we know better.

Here are real problems that I think there is need for a hack:

I want a life hack to help carry a sleeping 30 lb toddler into the house on icy pavement, with five bags of groceries, unlocking the deadbolt and the knob and keeping two cats from darting outside when the door first opens. (Clearly an old one, my kid is 14.)  I did it many times, I want it to be easier for moms in the future.  I have no idea how I did it, I just did. For many years when someone asks me if I need help with all my bags, I flash back to these instances and think, where were you then????

I want alarms to signal that an object that has been placed on the counter really needs to go into the recycle bin.

I also want alarms to go off if my glass of water is approached by a cat.  Apparently my little fuzzies prefer filtered water, they drink out of my ever-present water glass whenever it is left unattended. If they cannot reach the water because the level is too low in the glass, they just knock it over and drink the puddle, as it ruins everything around it.  I bought plastic cups with tops and straws, but I like to drink out of glass, not plastic, I'm weird that way.

I want a remote that will turn off all my kid's electronics at once from the far side of the house, and/or a microphone that cuts into her headphone Skype conversation to ask her to take the dog out or to join the world of the living, so that I don't have to stop making meatballs, wash my hands, place meatballs in a location where the dog/cats won't sample them, walk across the house, only to scare the crud out of her when I tap her on the shoulder to tell her she has to take the dog out.

 Now those would be useful hacks!!

Now for Something a Little Different

New years often mean resolutions, but for me this year it means trying something new. Every year my mom gives us an envelope of money to spend on something that we want and this year I decided to buy something unexpected.  I hadn't been thinking about it,  but I had.

What happened was on Christmas Day, everyone was either napping or staring at one type of screen or another, my  brother-in-law suggested that we grab some coffee and head over to his guitar practice space in an old mill. He gave me a tour of the spaces where other musicians practiced, telling little stories of them as we went along. My sister and I settled in a couple of chairs and chatted the best we could over the guitar music, sipping our coffee feeling as if we were getting away with something.

After a while he put down the guitar and picked up the bass.  He messed with it for a while, playing everything by ear. In between songs, we discussed his business of repairing used guitars and selling them. Since he and my sister had recently moved, he has been rebuilding the business in their new location.  He suggested that I give him a call if I ever decided to buy my daughter a guitar. I laughed and said that I wasn't planning on buying her a guitar...but I might buy myself a bass.

He paused for the briefest moment (contemplating his mild mannered, bookish, somewhat odd sister-in-law playing the bass, perhaps?) and told me that he could hook me up with a bass for less than the amount that was tucked into the long thin card from my mom. He then offered a small amplifier that he had sitting around. Suddenly, I had taken on a new aspiration, playing the bass. My involvement with music, excepting two semesters of guitar in junior high, and primer level piano lessons in my thirties, has been mostly one of appreciation.  I DJ-ed at the school radio station during college, playing alternative and punk, but that's about it.

 

Since I bought an MP3 several years ago, I started to collect digital versions of my favorite songs.  Buying CD's was a pain, I had to store them and then if I only like a couple of songs on it, I'm stuck with the whole thing and figuring out where to put all of the CD's. Downloading the two or three songs that I really like works better for me.  Being able to switch from one favorite song to the next without having to stop everything and move things about is wonderful.  My collection contains an odd assortment, mostly 70's-90's and a couple from the last few years, with a little classical tossed in.  I spent most of the early 2000's listening to Raffi, so I missed out on whatever was going on at that point.  Folk, pop, punk, alternative, ska--whatever I happen to like is in it.

 

When I bought my tablet a year ago, I transferred the music onto my tablet. My dog then promptly chewed my MP3 to bits. I regularly hook my tablet up to my husband's 1988-ish state-of-the-art-bachelor-era stereo with speakers that could blow out the windows of our little house, it's fun.  

 

Once all of the dross was removed from the record collection, a pattern appears--bass lines, lots of them. For example, a band I love The Jam (didn't get much airplay in the US). For a bass line they are one band to go to, a couple of examples: A Town Called Malice

 

 

 

 

Eton Rifles

 

 

The English Beat, Mirror in the Bathroom

 

 and, of course, Nirvana

  I started a folder on my tablet for songs with good base lines and realized that some of these bassists are incredibly fast.  Yikes.

 

I've been doing more listening than playing, than I had originally planned.  Between the time when I decided to get a bass and when it arrived at my house I had a bit of an incident. I was holding my hound by the collar and she decided to spin a couple of times twisting my fingers  in a loop so tightly that I couldn't remove them and then she panicked and pulled with all her might, crushing and twisting my hand.  When I managed to extricate myself, I immediately removed my wedding band, fearing that my fingers would swell up and I would have to have it cut off.  It was a good move.    Watch her in the video, she is one powerful mutt.

 

Two and a half weeks later, I still cannot get the ring back on.  I can do most things, but the most painful is grocery shopping  with all of the picking things up, putting them in the cart, taking them out of the cart, then carrying heavy bags with narrow handles and putting it all away, what ever motions that process requires really feel awful.  I'm a bit achy when I'm done practicing, but it's nothing like grocery shopping.  Here is my blue bass sitting in the kitchen out of the way, so that I can sit down a random times and practice.

I try to practice in short intervals.  I started following some bass lessons on-line, haven't made much progress yet, but that will come.  I was trying to play right handed, but I may switch to left handed. I realized that when listening to my bass selections on my tablet and following along, I was playing air base left handed. That makes complete sense, but playing left handed means that I will need to convert all instructions in my brain before applying them, which makes learning anything more challenging.  I've been doing it my entire life, I'm used to it, but it makes everything a harder.  I need to search for a youtube bass lesson program that is left-handed, almost everything else exists out there, why not that? I'll keep you posted.

Self-Created Pre-Holiday Project Frenzy

We have several family members coming to visit this year.  We will have more house guests than we have ever had, excepting a slumber party or two.

I guess I am into creating extra pressure for myself. In preparation for the family coming I have been pulling out my "To Do" lists from the past 3.5 years and doing all of the stuff I have avoided, for various reasons.  Most of the items will have no effect on our guests. They probably won't even notice the difference, but their visit gives me a deadline and motivation.  I have been playing "Beat the Clock" for a few weeks now. I was slowed down at bit by adding "rearrange the garage to fit ladder",  "sand garage ceiling"  and "2 coats of paint on garage ceiling" to the list, but things seem to be moving along well now.

 

I have re-painted a table and two chairs. It was time. The table had been hidden by a table cloth since my daughter's preschool art projects went wrong  and this evil stuff that never came off the table a decade ago. 

The robin's egg blue chairs are now teal.

 

The hidden under the tablecloth white table is now green like our dining table.  This picture makes the color more yellow than it really is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now the days are shorter, and we need to see the pellet stove to adjust it, we need more light in the living room.  I went to the thrift store nearby and spotted a lamp that had an interesting shape and pattern.  It was off-white and dingy, I'm guessing by the cord it is from the sixties. The cut outs reminded me of plants, so I bought it for three dollars and the shade for three more. I had just done the table and thought that a little more green might do the trick. With the addition of a little gold paint on the bump pattern and an LED bulb, I brought it up to my version of the 21st century. Did I need to do this? No, but it was more fun than grabbing one off the shelf at Home Depot.

 

I then painted the bedroom  and closet doors and trim, a project I started and stalled on a year ago. It looks so much better, I wonder why I never finished. I touched up where some of the wall colors meet to straighten the edges.  I remembered why I started buying better quality paint, as I had to paint two coats when I should have only needed one.  I also remembered that sometimes the paint leaks under the tape making it still uneven.  Oh well.

 

I bought a cabinet for the bathroom about two years ago, but it was so heavy I didn't dare hang it from the 1970's era fiberglass panel walls. I am making a table/support for it.  It should help clean up a couple of areas that keep getting cluttered.  The glass doors will help keep our little wild thing dog from snatching odds and ends, which leads to why I really bought it--for the previous thieving dog. I started priming the pieces yesterday, but it was chilly and the primer took a long time to dry, so I will finish priming the back sides today and will paint it tomorrow. The assembly process will occur possibly on Tuesday.

I've been picking up, sorting, cleaning along the way, but we are living here and any progress I make can soon be undone.  I'm trying to figure out how my pets have any hair at all from all the fur I sweep up, by my calculations they should all be bald.

Then there are the projects that I was planning to do this fall, that still aren't done. The irises have been dug up, and divided, but not re-planted.  

 

 

Then I was to rake the leaves into the flower beds and garden to protect the soil and add organic matter. The pine needles need to be raked around the blueberries to acidify the soil, but maybe I'll delegate that one. Today is supposed to be in the sixties with less bluster than yesterday, so maybe today after I prime I'll get these things done.

All this along with cleaning and prepping for a houseful of guests, I am hoping to sneak out for a day to see the new and improved Smithsonian Renwick Gallery (http://renwick.americanart.si.edu/). It was one of my favorites before the renovations, I hope it still is!  That may have to wait until afterwards though.

No sound track this week, I'm hopping all over the place and doing things that are too messy, plus the quiet can be meditative in my self-created project frenzy.

The Fruitcake Soundtrack, a new tradition

I'm glad so many of you read my last post, the only thing that disappoints me is that usually something dangerous or tragic has to have occurred to get more readers!  Some of my more everyday life blogs are better written and frankly funnier than the, "OOOOh jeez, she fell through the ceiling but didn't hit the concrete floor!" or "the chicken coop burnt down" posts.  I can see why, "If it bleeds, it leads." became the standard for local news stories.

Mostly, suburban life is pretty mundane...so I guess I'll have to spice it up a bit.  I had planned on writing a blog on making fruit cakes using my grandmother's recipe a few days back, but ended up relating my gravitational/deconstruction issue, so now back to the fruitcake with a few (true) details to spice it up.

This is the second year that I am making Mimi's fruitcakes.  Many thanks to the two friends who lent me vat sized bowls to accomplish the task. I need to get them back to you very soon, I miss my counter space very much.

First the sound track, I hooked my tablet up to the speaker system and told it to play songs randomly and turned the volume up just a little too loud. Be sure to click on the youtube links and have the volume up, so that you get the true feel of the mood while I was at least the third generation preparing the family's fruitcakes. The tablet could have played anything from Mozart to folk to pop to punk and this is what it chose to set the mood for this traditional activity:

First I gathered all of the ingredients to An A Bomb in Wardour Street by The Jam.  I chopped up the dried fruit into smaller bits, dumped all of it into a bowl to macerate with orange juice stirring to the tune of Sunday Morning by No Doubt

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next for the eight eggs from my crazy chickens, cracked to the tune of  Broken by Jack Johnson.  (I didn't plan that, it just happened)  Creaming the pound of margarine (a recipe change due to a milk allergy) and sugar into a mush with a wooden spoon, then once the chunks were small enough switched to a whisk to Supervixen by Garbage, it took a bit of work, so it led into Dangerous by Depeche Mode. At this point, I really started paying attention to what music was playing, after all someday my daughter might want to participate in the family tradition and she'll need to do it properly. I may have snorted when I laughed.

 

 I stirred up a cloud of flour, baking powder, and salt and alternately added that and almond milk to the  egg mixture to E-Pro by Beck. 

 

 

 

 

 

I finished up that song while pouring the bowl of fruit and nuts into the wet ingredients. 

 

 

Cleaned it up a bit for the photo!

Then, I crashed the Pyrex dishes around in the cupboard to get the right loaf pans lined them and  smeared them with margarine and made a total mess to Building a Mystery Sarah Mclachlan. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I filled the dishes and put them in the oven to Stand Down Margaret by The (English) Beat.

 

Mimi would have had one of her headaches. 

 

When they were thoroughly cooled I poured a little something on them that Mimi didn't write into her recipe, but we know she used and wrapped them.  I'll open them periodically between now and the holidays to check on them and moisten them a bit more. 

A friend gave me Emily's Dickinson's Black Fruit Cake recipe, it looks interesting, especially since all of the fruit is just dried, not psychedelically colored in a factory.  Maybe that one will have a sound track too!

Little Common Sense and Gravity a Bad Mix

Apparently the previous owners of my house made a few adjustments up in the attic.  Two days ago I went up there to check on something, quickly, because I don't trust it up there I wanted to get it done before my daughter's bus came in five minutes. I stepped on the plywood to peer into a corner and suddenly the floor beneath me gave way.  I stepped back further onto the plywood and it slipped right between the joists and hit the concrete garage floor twelve feet beneath me.  It all happened in slow motion.  Next thing I knew, I was hanging with my hips wedged between two joists and my daughter was below freaking out. 

I was dangling half in the attic, half in the garage.  I hoisted myself up onto the joists, while assuring my daughter that I was quite okay.  She wasn't convinced.  From the joists I stepped over to the attic fold-down ladder, and returned to solid ground.  My daughter thought that she was about to lose her mother, her face was blotched and she was shaky and now her bus was due in three minutes.  She was in no state to be by herself in the wilds of a pre-k to 8 school bus. Luckily, the bus doubles back down our street and picks up kids on the other side about 15 minutes later, so I drove her across the street (the road has a 50 MPH speed limit and at commuting time 65 seems pretty standard, and cars just pop over the hill and surprise you, especially the Prius') and she caught the bus in a somewhat calmer state.  The bus driver inquired if she had overslept and she replied, "No. I wish."

Yikes!

 

 

 

 

 

I asked a neighbor  at the bus stop if he had a ladder tall enough to reach a 12' ceiling and he said he thought he had one at work and that he would take a look.  He showed up a few hours later with the ladder offering to help fix the hole.  First, I had to move 79 forty pound bags of wood pellets out of the way to make room for the ladder. I relocated the bags to the other side of the garage on top of another pile of pellets, making a giant tower of pellets.  I then dragged the pallet out of the way and swept up the debris, which contained a couple skinny broken screws.  I won't write what my husband said when I sent him the photos at work.

The Tower of Pellets

Back to the recalcitrant flooring, it turns out that someone had installed the piece of plywood that was a bit too small by screwing in a few #6 screws halfway and using them as supporting pegs to hold up the plywood.  Of course, I didn't know this, and when some of the screws broke beneath me, then gravity did its thing, sending the plywood and then me through the drywall ceiling. For a bit there I thought I must have done something really stupid, but then realized that it was the person who used the #6 screws who did something really stupid, but I just don't have the ability to see through 1/2 inch plywood...#10 screws might have held or maybe they could have used a couple pieces of scrap wood screwed in place to hold the board up like a shelf...or something!!

My husband stopped at Home Depot on his way home to get the new dry wall, so we could start the repairs the next morning.

Much better!

Our neighbor has come a couple of times, fit the drywall in, taped and mudded the joints and voila, it's ready for a skim coat!

 

I baked a garlic-rosemary focaccia for him this morning.  It smells too good, I may need to make another this afternoon for us.

Schools Appropriate for Kids or Convenient for Adults?

Are schools set up to meet the needs of children or to be convenient for adults?

Think of a preschooler, any preschooler, describe that preschooler.  Odds are there will be descriptors like energetic, bouncy, loud, exuberant, excited, moody, thoughtful, playful, joyful, inquisitive...

Take that child and place him/her in a kindergarten (which resembles first grade more and more each year).  Tell that child to sit still, be quiet, listen to the adult talk, listen to the adult read, raise your hand, follow directions, line up, be neat, ask questions only at the appropriate moments...

Suddenly, many of the children are having "problem behaviors" because they are acting as if they are five years old, which they are. Humans, especially young ones, are a boisterous bunch. Many of the things we expect of them in school are contrary to human nature and possibly contrary to their individual nature.  Does this make them a problem child?  

 Is it reasonable to ask a child to sit for the better part of a day?  Is it healthy? No. Knowing what we know now about the human metabolism and obesity, should we be doing this? Probably not.  The chairs in a classroom are bought by the thousands, they are durable, easy to clean, and stack.  Are they a comfortable place to sit for the better part of six hours? No.  Just going to Back-to-School night for an hour or two is enough to remind me how awful the chairs are. Is it good for the kids?  Does it meet their physical needs? Nope and nope.

Once seated in those chairs a student must be still.  Fidgeting has discouraged in the classroom, now it has been shown to help the kids with ADHD focus on what is being taught. Some teachers get it, some do not, it is one of those "problem" behaviors, which often indicate a child is a kinesthetic learner, which means that the child learns best by moving and touching things. Kids who are dominant in this learning style can grow up to be excellent artists, mechanics, plumbers, engineers, inventors, dancers, athletes...if they survive the stigma of being the "bad" kid who can't follow directions and do their worksheet quietly, as their brains are starve for appropriate input. Is it good for the kids? Nope.

I worked (very briefly) in one school that had the most silent, still atmosphere that I had ever seen.  Walking through the halls while classes were in session was eerie, not even the teachers were doing much talking or moving about.  Everything was quiet and controlled, until lunchtime, when they herded several hundred students into the large cafeteria for lunch and the students went wild. Every. Single. Day.  Maybe the kids aren't the problem, hmmm?

 

It is easier for the adult to manage a large group of children if they are all seated and silent.  Do they learn oral language skills? No.  Are oral language communication skills one of the things employers are looking for in employees? Yes.  We are not teaching that, except in occasional lessons, it's an everyday thing though.

Are they encouraged to ask questions?  Surprisingly, no. They are just supposed to do as they are told, questioning the teacher is often seen as challenging the teacher.  The questions they come up with when asked to form questions are staid, because they are rarely asked to form good questions.  They are supposed to passively answer the questions, not actively seek out information in American classrooms. I have taught in several states, they all seem about the same.

Teachers complain the students aren't curious, sure they are, they have just been taught to shut that down in the classroom, because it gets them into trouble. If you give those same kids a scoop of moist forest soil full of critters or a scoop of pond water taken from the edge, they will ask all of the right questions when working in their small groups, but once the teacher asks them to share whatever questions they have the room goes silent.  I have walked around the room writing down the questions kids gush out when they are faced with something unfamiliar in a small group.  Then when I asked for their questions, there was only silence.  Then I pulled out my notes and told them what I had done during their small group observation, and worked with them to answer the questions that I had overheard. They seemed embarrassed at first when their question came up, but when it was taken seriously they seemed proud.  We should take kids' questions seriously, and listen more, they are asking them, just not in front of 25 other people.

During my years in the classroom I read research that stated that teachers ask the most questions in lessons and that most of those questions are rhetorical, never expecting an answer.  The quality of the questions posed by the students was low. I set out to teach my fifth and sixth graders how to ask good quality questions, it was a long, painful process.  They were very frustrated in the beginning, but as time went on they became more skillful.  Sometimes, I had them use the phrase, "I wonder why..." and "I wonder how" (excluding the use of the words --many or much).  The other technique was to ask a type of question that could not be answered with a "yes" or "no" response, or other single word responses.  The question had to elicit a story.  The moment of victory for me was during the sessions of career presentations that parents gave to the classes.  One of the students who had consistently performed below grade level, but who was starting to awaken in the classroom, asked a parent what she needed to do to prepare for her career.  Not "Do you like your job?" or "How much money do you make?", but a real question that required a bit of a story in response. This student then beamed as the next five minutes were devoted to answering his question. 

A few years later when I had moved out of the classroom and into a museum I was asked to judge science fairs and the biggest issue that I found with the projects was that the students' questions weren't any good or they just lifted a project from a book of science projects and didn't really care about it at all.  Some who had a bit of curiosity and interest in the project doomed themselves with poorly worded questions. We need to have the kids ask more questions, but this doesn't happen often, because it will sometimes lead the children into material that is not on the required test later that week.  Do employers need employees who can ask good questions? Yes.

Not every child thrives when they are constantly with others, especially in large groups. Are they allowed a few moments to themselves?  Usually, no. As an introvert myself, I remember feeling relief just being allowed to walk to the office to deliver a message (written on paper, imagine!) or to go to the restroom.  The hallways were blissfully empty and quiet and I felt I could breathe.  Luckily, I was deemed a reliable child and frequently was chosen to do these things, but not often enough. When I was older and stayed after school for extra-curricular activities, I felt the same way, the impenetrable crowds were gone (my school had several hundred more students than it had been designed for) and I could relax.  I enjoyed school much of the time, but nearing the end of the day I often was ready for everyone to go home, it was just too much stimulation.  Kids are not allowed time to themselves, they are thrown in with the herd and stay with the herd, all day. Is it good for the 50% of the kids who are introverts? Nope. Why are they in large groups?  It's cheaper.

School start times are another of my little peeves.  We've known for years that later start times are better for teens, they miss less school, have less car accidents, and get better grades if schools have a later start time.  Any parent of a teen knows that they just don't wake up early, they might be walking around because they have to, but they do a pretty good zombie impression.  Why do we have early start times?  Tradition, sports teams need the after school time for practice, it builds character, and it is convenient for the parents and teachers to have normal working hours.  Is it good for teens? Nope. How about sending the little ones, who tend to wake up at the crack of dawn (if given an appropriate bedtime) to school first? Then when the buses are freed up later, send the teens in to school.

Children who are given choices learn to make decisions.  Very few things are left to be decided by the children. Adults like to be in control, they control the kids walking in silent lines down the halls, they control the student's bodily functions by withholding the hall pass...The kids are assigned seats on the bus, they are assigned tables at lunch and have to earn the privilege to sit with their friends, they are given "assignments" that have little wiggle room in the manner in which they can be done.  My daughter says that the only choice she is given during the day is what to have for lunch, and since she brings her lunch most of the time, that is because I give her a choice.  She laughs at "the land of the free", she can't pee without permission. How are kids supposed to manage their own behavior if they are never given an opportunity to make a choice?  We want great decision makers--well then train some!!  Give them decisions, give them a bit of freedom!  Of course, some will not make the right decisions, but there is an opportunity to learn.  Will some abuse the privilege? Certainly. Let them face the consequences and let the others learn, rather suffocating all of the students.