School Family

Lots of conversation about the recent Common Sense Media report on how many kids are cheating (and how) these days and how they’re using new technology tools to help.

Obviously, some cheating is still just cheating. Has been happeing since beginning of time and should be policed and discouraged (and we should continue to talk about why honesty matters).

But Robin Raskin (among others) asks the interesting question of whether all of these uses really are cheating. Isn’t learning to access information efficiently and smartly a 21st Century skill?  There’s a point there. How do we balance these two items?

Really like this idea from the Washington Post “On Parenting” Blog.  It’s a summer reading challenge for the whole family starting now and ending Labor Day.

Our guys have done the program at the local library the past few summers, but I like how this one brings mom & dad in, too, and gets the whole family working towards a goal together.

Do see some complications that we may have to customize.  Our three-year-old needs to be read to (and her books are short).  Whereas Mom & Dad typically have much longer books.  Thinking that reading books *to* the three-year-old will count towards family goal and maybe we can even set some individual quotas for each of our clan of 6 readers. (Am I over-engineering?  I do that.)

Also need to think of a good prize.  I’m sure I can get lots of help with that at home.

Our family is right in the middle of summer planning season.  I know that those “organized” families have already booked all their camps and trips and classes (you know who you are…), but I bet we’re not alone in still figuring all this stuff up right up through August.

That’s why I really love this new piece one of our talented contributing writers, Patti Ghezzi, just penned on the Top 20 Summer Destinations for Learning.  I’m sure our family will hit our share of not-much-learning-going-on fun spots like water parks and beaches, but we’re definitely going tor try to mix in some neat learning/experiential spots into the summer.  I can see the Intrepid Museum in NYC in our future….

Quick highlight of two other articles on similar theme.  First =  Avoiding “Summer Amnesia“ (that fun trend where kids have to spend the first two months of the new school year reviewing all that they forgot over the summer).  2nd = Sneaking Learning into Summer Fun.  Think that one is self-explanatory.

Man, I love writing about summer…

Recently ran across this column from Newsweek about a very involved mom wondering why her own daughter listed “dad” as role model on a school assignment.

The column itself — especially the fairly heated stay-at-home vs. working mom debate in the comments section — isn’t exactly warm, fuzzy Mother’s Day stuff, but it is thought-provoking.  Is getting involved worth it? (I say yes.)  Will the kids recognize its worth? (Maybe, but not likely while they’re still kids.)  Is there a proper balance between not involved and too involved? (Definitely, as there is in all things.)

Anyway, it’s a good read.  Love to hear your thoughts on it.

I like how Teacher Appreciation Week and Mother’s Day are connected this year on the calendar.  For me, the son of a long-time grade school teacher, they always have been connected, even when the calendar says differently.  And now I’m married to a teacher, too, cementing the connection further.

It’s always been easy for me to make the connection between a good teacher and a good mom. Both bring passion and compassion and a hard-to-define, hard-to-find combination of techincal know-how (long division and making a birthday cake) and soft skills (what’s needed to today, a pat on the back or a kick in the rear-end?) to their charges.  And both change the world every day.

I don’t recall Teacher Appreciation Week being so formal when I was a kid, though I do remember my mom having at least one of every type of apple known to man.  Ceramic apples. Real apples. Apple-shaped notecards. Apple ashtrays….  (Sidenote: I feel like Bubba from Forrest Gump – barbecue shrimp, fried shrimp, cajun shrimp…).  That memory does bring me to a quick appreciation tip — No Apples!  Just trust me.

Thought I’d use this blog space to say thanks and Happy Mother’s Day to the two special moms and teachers in my life.  Gracias Ellen and Louise!

If you’re looking to thank a teacher, thought I’d also provide a couple of links that making doing so online pretty easy.  There are several sites now that connect donors with teachers.  Instead of apple ashtrays (those are a bit politically incorrect nowadays anyway…), you can provide exactly what a teacher has asked for for her or his classroom.  Pretty cool.  Some choices:

Donor’s Choose

Adopt-a-Classroom

I Love Schools

With 4 active kids, I love running across a random playground where they can have fun and be active (read: use up all their energy before bedtime). 

And that’s what makes this little app from the KaBoom folks so neat.  They’re trying to map out every playground in America.  Do you know a few that aren’t on here?  You can even rate ‘em. 

Interesting to think about what the ratings should be based on. How high are the monkey bars? Coolest slide? How much goose poop? No local teens making the playground into a mini, offline MySpace page?

Anyway, give it a look.  I added a couple of playgrounds myself. Is your favorite playground listed? 

That’s the worry in this well done Chicago Tribune article on parents and homework.

Love the anecdote about the engineer parent and the $30,000 science fair project. Wait ’til my kids get a “make your own magazine” project, right?  Maybe I can bring in our art director and editorial staff for that one.

I completely get the temptation. Who doesn’t want the project to look just right?  But — as a former teacher — I can see the downside. If we tie our kids’ shoes for them every time (or just buy them velcro), will they learn to do it on their own? No way.  Homework is meant to be practice. Most good teachers use it to assess if the school lessons are taking hold and if more review is needed.  No way for teacher to make that assessment for your child, if the homework is done by you.

Homework best practices is right up our alley here at SchoolFamily.com.  Check out our complete parents and homework article archive for a good start.

Spent last week in New York (as part of an Advisory Council for Symantec’s new efforts around internet safety) focusing on how technology has become such a central part of our kids’ experiences these days. My take: where there used to be two different discussions — one about internet safety and one about parenting – today it’s really just parenting.  The web and connectivity (chat, text, social media) are that integrated into our kids lives.

It’s also why I was interested in this blog post describing one mom’s experience with her daughter and how her studying and web socializing are merging.  Is that a good thing? Or a bad thing?  Or just reality? How are you keeping up with this stuff?

I’ve been playing with this new Internet Safety program from Norton for a while now, and I really like it.  I’ve got a decent techy brain (I can figure things out if I have to), but I prefer simple, and that’s where Norton’s new product does its best work.  I don’t have to load a whole bunch of software and then remember to download updates and reconfigure and all that stuff i never do.  Instead, after a fairly easy set-up, I can use the system (and tweak preferences) easily and issues (son #1 trying to visit wrong websites or the like) are emailed directly to my wife and me.

As a parent who doesn’t want to be a spy or the secret police, i like the spirit of this program. It’s an open conversation between your child and you and then a system to keep that conversation going when it needs to be going.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this one.  There aren’t many parents out there who haven’t been hit with the Schoolastic book club flyers or the Scholastic book fair weeks.  We’ve got three in grade school at my house, so it seems like we have a flyer almost every week from one grade or another.

But the question of the day is: should Scholastic sell so much non-book “stuff” (didn’t want to use word “enrichment” and didn’t want to use the word “junk”) in its book programs?

One of the anti-commercialism groups is taking Scholastic to task for the practice. But Scholastic’s spokesperson is unapologetic, claiming that the additional materials (a game wrapped with a book, for example) encourages more reading.

Me? I love the classics, but it’s also easier to get my kids reading, if it’s a topic they love (whether that’s dinosaurs or Kevin Garnett) and/or there’s an element of fun. On the other hand, I’m skeptical that the merchandising decisions are all made with *only* reading in mind.

What about you? Scholastic wearing you out?  Or do you like the variety in the clubs and fairs sales?