It’s happening…again. So, again, I challenge The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh to rethink their “Kindergarten Here I come” event and message to the community.
July 15, 2010
August 14, 2009
:: Monkey Platter :: Museum :: Mindfulness ::
Cats Crackers*, Almonds*, Raisins* & Toasted Nori*
Blueberries*
Black Beans* & Black Olives
Vegan Griller Patty & Ketchup*
Elijah & Collin
On Tuesday, we went to the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum (where one of the staff recognized me & mentioned that she loved my challenge that I sent the museum) with our neighbor and her grandson. We had a pretty good time and I got to spend some more time with my neighbor who is one hip lady!
Our neighbor said that they were going to go home, eat and then go to the store…once we were dropped off and getting food around for ourselves, Elijah said, “do you really think Collin wants to go to the store with his grandma…we should see if he can play Legos with me while she shops”. I called and it was a done deal; Collin skipped over after he ate dinner and the two boys played Legos, built with blocks and did a little drawing.
This is a perfect example of kindness & respect begetting kindness & respect…I know that I’ve mentioned before that Elijah doesn’t like going to the grocery store (or any major shopping place for that matter), because it is literally an assult on his senses. I arrange my shopping plans so that I get everything done on William’s days off, so that Elijah can stay home with him or so that they can be dropped off somewhere to hang out while I get business taken care of. Elijah thought it was only fair to extend that arrangement to his friend while our neighbor went shopping. I think it was a very kind & compassionate moment for Elijah — he didn’t want to see his friend have to endure (I’m assuming he thinks most kids are effected by stores the same way he is) going to the store when there was a clear option for him to avoid it.
I love my son 
August 2, 2009
More Community; Less Schools
Over at Radio Free School, there are excerpts from John Taylor Gatto’s We need less school not more-Families, Communities, Networks and the Proposed Enlargement of Schooling (1991)
Makes me think about my challenge I sent the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.
Gatto continues, “Networks like schools are not communities in the same way that school training is not education. By preempting 50 percent of the total time of the young, by locking young people up with young people exactly their own age, by ringing bells to start and stop work, by asking people to think about the same thing at the same time in the same way, by grading people the way we grade vegetables-and in a dozen other vile and stupid ways-net work schools steal the vitality of communities and replace it with an ugly piece of mechanism.”
Community on the other hand is a place “that faces people at each other over time in all their human variety, good parts, bad parts, and all the rest. Such places promote the highest quality of life possible, lives of engagement and participation. This happens in unexpected ways but it never happens when you’ve spent more than a decade listening to other people talk-and trying to do what they tell you to do, trying to please them after the fashion of schools.”
July 31, 2009
Kindergarten at the Children’s Museum
No, it’s not nearly as “cool” as it might sound. The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh is hosting it’s 5th annual hey-let’s-convince-parents-and-kids-that-prolonged-separation-and-early-indoctrination-is-awesome celebration. What’s better, you ask…it’s FREE and they give you stuff!
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Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh’s 5th Annual Kindergarten!…Here I Come! Celebration
A free celebration will be held from 9 am to 1 pm on August 15 for children going to kindergarten this fall. This is an exciting event to celebrate this milestone and create a healthy transition not just for children, but for their parents as well. We also work to strengthen the idea that community support that is essential as part of our kids’ development of character and emotional well-being.
Children can:
Meet Mr. McFeely
Receive a “Class of 2022″ t-shirt and kindergarten story book
Meet community helpers such as a crossing guard
Climb aboard a real school bus
Take part in activities such as making a craft for their first memories of school and a lot of other “fun” hands-on activities
Have free hearing, vision, speech and language screenings
Take part in a live radio broadcast
Parents and caregivers receive valuable information on preparing children for kindergarten and can consult with experts in nutrition, after school programs, bullying, proper immunization and more.
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While I do give the museum credit for having good intentions and trying to make the inevitable transition from home to school for lots of 5/6 year olds less stressful and seem fun, I have a much much better idea. Why don’t all these children whose parents think that they *have to* send their children to school, want to send their kids to school or need to because of family/financial dynamics get to spend kindergarten at the museum? What I mean is that instead of being trotted off to an institution and made to sit still, color in the lines and ask permission to go to the bathroom (this one really gets my goat — prison-like…no wait, most prisoners have toilets or at least holes in the ground in their cells), they would get to PLAY at the museum during normal school day hours. No actual compulsory “classes”, no testing, no grades, just an open building of fun stuff to explore and LEARN from. AND what is even best about this is that they would be exposed to older and younger children who are members and attending with their families throughout the day as well as an ever changing traveling exhibit and all the neat special events, story times, plays and so on that the museum is known for doing. The children would still experience (and better experience) the “community support that is essential as part of our kids’ development…” as the museum claims it’s Celebration thingy promotes, socializing with diverse groups of people and develop meaningful skills (aka, learn stuff).
What’s EVEN better…is that it wouldn’t have to stop with just kindergarten…
I don’t find this solution better than being free and at home or at worst attending an actual Free School, but it does sound better than going to school in the traditional sense of the word. I’d divert my tax dollars to this effort and even throw in a few extra dollars…
So, how about it? Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, are you up for the challenge?
March 17, 2009
Adventures in Crossing the Street
After MANY (too many) years of baton twirling, modeling and gymnastics in my youth and early teens, you would think I might be much more graceful than I really am. I think I am fooled most of the time as well! A week ago today, I was having an otherwise fantastic and easy going day with Elijah.
We got up, throw on clothing, grabbed a nibble of food and headed out to the bus stop. We left William in bed, snoring, on his day off. We had a lovely bus ride down the hill to the Children’s Museum and ran around there for a few hours. It came time to leave. Everything went as it usually does. Along the path we go towards our bus stop and all of a sudden E trips and falls. No huge deal…he scrapes his finger and is a bit shaken, but otherwise ‘alright’. We continue down the path, if only a little slower maybe. We arrive at the curb and prepare to cross the street.
“You have to carry me, because I can’t run across the street, because of my finger.”
“You don’t have to run.”
“But, we’ll miss the bus if I don’t run”
“Okay, I’ll carry you. Let’s go”
Bag on right shoulder, camera around left wrist, child on left hip with both arms around him. Walking, normally and not running. For some unknown reason ‘they’ decided that it was a ‘good’ idea to place a man-hole right in the middle of the street, so that I could trip on it — damn ‘them’.
I tripped and in what seemed like a fraction of a nanosecond, we were both sprawled out across the asphalt. I fell on top of E…all 250lbs of my fluffy ass. My chest slammed into his right hip bone. I fractured two, possibly three ribs and E bruised his hip. It felt like we laid in the street for hours, but I know it was maybe a second before I jumped up (cried out a wounded animal sound because I felt my ribs) and dragged our sorry selves out of the street.
We hobbled over to a bench. I assessed the kid, who was still clutching his scrapped finger. Scrape on his cheekbone, knees looked alright and he could walk. I sat up straight and was convinced by the pain that I had actually broken myself. However, I could walk and so could he and I knew that I hadn’t punctured a lung.
We made it to our bus stop and got on the first bus that I saw headed to downtown near the little grocery store we were on our way to before returning home. I was not going to go through such an ordeal and not have the bread, grapes and mushrooms when I made it home. Fantastically, this little grocery store (Rosebud) is more than a nice little place where people downtown can run in and stop for some basics and so that the people living in the apartments above it can have easy access to food…no, this little grocery store is right around the corner from my favorite bar downtown.
As everyone knows, the first thing you do when you have had a really bad fall is to NOT find medical help, but to sit yourself and your child down at the bar and have a beer. Thankfully, we are practically family it seems with the manager and staff, so it was no big deal for us to walk in 45 minutes before they were actually open and request a band aid & water for E and a beer for myself. I relayed our adventure, got sympathy faces and free beer. After pulling myself together and knowing for sure that I hadn’t punctured a lung (somethings you can easily figure out), we tipped, hugged and thanked our Backstage family. Off to the grocery store around the corner and then to home.
When we got home, William decided that I was just trying to make him feel bad for sleeping all day! If I want someone to feel bad, I need not go and break myself!
After a week of soreness and pain…I am still sore and still have pain! Elijah is back to ‘normal’ and advises that we not try all that again! I assume that sometime over the next two or three weeks I might feel like I am not ripping apart when I bend over to pick something up off the floor or reach up to grab something from the cabinet.
Yeah, let’s not try all that again.
