Week 15 of 52

As is my custom, I have wonderful ideas and make great plans in times of rest, during my Winter and Summer Breaks. I can see great ideas and boundless possibilities when I am rested. I have always said that. This is how I start this entry because I am finding the constraints of the commitment to this process. I am feeling the commitment to honoring and completing this Project 52. What I feel I'm missing, for now, is the improvement of my abilities. I do see I'm able to 'see' the theme more easily out and about, but I'm not getting the type of improvement I was thinking I would get. That would be improving my photographic eye and getting the most out of my camera.

I've a relatively new camera, Canon SX130SI, that is a slightly advanced point-and-shot model. I purchased this because I wanted to see if I was serious enough about photography to purchase a DSLR. I own a manual SLR film camera that I learned on and love. I used it extensively but found that it was too bulky and cumbersome to just carry around and be ready for the next shot. It was one of the reasons I slowed down on shooting. So, I'm trying to make this transition. I want to focus on understanding lighting, white balance, noise, and relearn all that I know about photography, this is a digital age with it's own issues. I feel I'm missing that.

Well this week was the week before Spring Break, YEAH! and also I was away at a three day conference, which was great, check a later blog entries, so shooting time, was just not there.

This week's MCP 52 Project theme was How Others See You. Well, I would normally ask but I think I might know. I may be wrong, but I went with, this photo. This was taken in one of the session rooms at the Leadership 3.0 Symposium that I attended this past week. What is this you say? One of the chairs is a little out of line. I was looking for off center but couldn't find that shot, nor create it in the allotted time. I've never been told that I been out of line, but as I said, I'm more a-little-off-center kind of girl. So, here is a photo of me, the chair a little farther back. I'm still a part of the situation, participating and perceiving it all a little differently. That is me. If you all think differently, please let me know.

Hamsters, Trains, Chairs and Black Holes

Conversations with Kindergartners can generate some interesting topics.  On the first day of school, a Kindergarten teacher asked her class, "What do you want to learn in Kindergarten?" "How to buy a hamster!" exclaimed one, "How to drive a train."  shouted another and "How to make a chair." finished the third.  This kind of  enthusiasm and excitements held by these four and five year old boys and girls is rarely matched at any other time in a life.  

As a group of these same age students were sharing their recently dictated stories with me, some how we ended up on one student's understanding of black holes.  He explained to me, in a broken English, "that, not now but in long time, black hole will take all of earth in it.  In a time when there are no more people."  I said to him, "That's right.  In the future, the sun will turn super nova and then collapse into a black hole."  Of course I know, but he's five.  He looked at me and just shook his head up and down with a look on his face that said, "Lady, that's what I just said."  Needless to say, these questions and probably many others won't be answered this year in Kindergarten. 

 

What is the point to all of this?  The point is that these little ones come to us full of curiosity, knowledge, a connectedness to what's around them and just a lively different perspective on the world we live in.  Many American public schools don't seem to care about what these students come to school capable of doing or knowing.  We treat them like empty vessels to be filled or a puppy that needs training.  This negates all that thee children are and are trying to become.  

Our school district, along with many others, have returned to basics.  What that means, is Kindergarten is the new first grade.  The curriculum standards that are required for Kindergarten, a little less than ten years ago, were the expectations for First Graders.  The thought being that since these children need retraining or filling, it is perfectly okay to raise the bar and expect all students to meet it.  We just need to give them more information sooner.  

A saying I heard during when I was getting my teaching credential back during the last century. The saying was, Children come to school like and exclamation mark and they left like a period. Unfortunately, we are starting that process and ensuring that it happens earlier and earlier in the life of children.  Many times that is shown to us by our drop out rate.  These students are finish and moving on often times ill equipped for life.   Charter schools are pulling away students from the public schools like a slow hemorrhage.  These are all in response to what public schools are doing and not doing.  How can we stop these madness?