Student Leadership

I’ve stumbled on (without even visiting StumbleUpon) Tim Milburn’s organisation, Student Leadership Inc.  

In a recent blog post An Open Letter To Teachers, he writes this:

“Often, we don’t know what ’students’ are capable of until we give them an opportunity to test out, try out their leadership skills.”

I have the utmost respect for a man who has respect for children and teens.

And his idea was proved to me just twenty minutes before I read that post. My 6th grader son told me over breakfast that – earlier in the week – his teacher had been distracted and had to leave the room for a considerable amount of time. Not her fault, she’s a great teacher. I personally think it had a lot to do with the ‘debacular’* way of conducting business at his school at the moment, but I can’t prove that so I’ll let it slide.

So let me get this clear for you: the class was left to make their own way for a time without adult supervision.  You’re imagining total mayhem, aren’t you? (So was I at this stage of the story).

However, one of the students simply got up and lead the class. With humour and focus he got them working. A twelve-year old. There was teamwork, there was fun, there was action … and my son told me there was MATH! Imagine a 6 Grade class willingly doing their mathematics with no teacher present?!

That’s leadership. That’s what our kids are capable of.

*Debacular. Thanks to The Molk for inventing this word for me to describe the school situation. He should patent it…

Dental Braces are the New Black

I took Oldest Son to the Dentist this morning. I was not looking forward to it. Last year we spent $4000 on Youngest Son’s teeth, at only 7 years of age.

Yes, I did say thousand. Four of them!

So it was with great relief that I heard the Dentist say to Oldest Son ”You’ve done a great job of looking after your teeth.” I even paid the bill of $30 with a smile.

However. The following (very strange) conversation did take place in the waiting room, one which may yet cost me that next $4000…

Oldest Son: Dad. I want braces. Can I get braces?

Confused Father: You want braces? Why?

Oldest Son: ‘Cause Tim has them. At school. He came to school with them yesterday. They look cool. Can I have braces? Please?

Is it just me, or has the world changed since I was a kid??

Feed me, Seymour – FEED ME!

Over at 100 Bloggers April’s theme is Proper Care and Feeding. There’s some great posts about nurturing ideas and about maintaining essential commitments.

It made me think more “prosaic” thoughts about what Generation Z kids get fed literally.

[No, it's not going to be a rant about childhood obesity. Yes, the word prosaic is somewhat pretentious, as is the word pretentious].

My oldest son eats almost anything. He’s a little like The Blob from the old horror film: a relentless eating machine. Oh, sure he’s slow getting started in the morning, but as the day wears on, his appetite moves up through them gears until even the dog is running for cover.

He’ll eat: all vegies except onions and peppers (fair enough!); any kind of meat including kangaroo (although he complains that steak is too hard to cut and doesn’t want it! Jeez!); most breakfast cereals (once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once again in the evening); and of course almost every junkfood known to child-kind.

3 days into the recent school holidays (and four days after our grocery shopping night) i go to the fridge to make lunch for both boys. Nothing. No bread, barely any cheese, no tinned food, no nothing.

“Where the heck did it all go?” I ask myself … and then – like Jerry Seinfeld realising Newman is behind some calamity - I hiss “the boy”.

The most annoying thing is at 11, he has the body most surfers aspire to complete with six-pack abdomen. I look at a cheeseburger and my belt pops its buckle. (double Jeez!)

Youngest son? He actually eats the right way round if you listen to dieticians: big breakfast and then less as the day goes on, so that dinner is problematic for getting him to eat anything (besides dessert which – let’s face it – relies less on appetite than it does on sugar-addiction).

He’ll eat: Brocolli but but no other vegetables (unless you are prepared to weather the emotional storm of forcing him to eat them, which we try to do); cereal and bread (but not toast); apples (if the moon is full or nearly full); honey but not jam (unless it’s the third Wednesday of the month, where this is reversed); oh, potatoes sure (if the wind is blowing from the south); corn (if it’s just the right shade of yellow); a nibble of meat; and if you serve him a fillet of any fish he’ll gobble up the entire thing (but tuna is yukky).

Up until now, Youngest Son has despised oranges. Yesterday his teacher asked his 2nd-grade class to bring an orange cut into quarters. Now he declares he wants oranges every day (yeah, like that’s gonna last!)

Here’s two questions that plague caring sentient parents everywhere (the non-sentient uncaring ones have different questions):

1. Is my kid getting enough nutrition? (e.g. is a diet of rice, wheat flakes, milk and oreos enough?)
2. How do I stop my kids eating so much junk? (junk = the salt + sugar + fats + chemical additives that seem to give even the most well-adjusted children double chins or irregular bouts of homicidal rage followed by superhuman feats of acrobatics)

To question 1, my wife and I agree that if the kid is healthy and not pre-anorexic, let em alone. As long as the diet doesn’t consist entirely of oreos, but contains grains protein and some stuff with vitamins somewhere – what’s the problem? Who says they have to eat like a horse? That’ll come with adolescence or pre-adolescence. I’m open to correction of course; I’m not a nutritionist. But Youngest Son doesn’t seem any less healthy for missing out on most of the food on his dinner plate.

To question 2, I laugh uncontrollably. “Stop them??” I exclaim: “Good luck with that!”

But, seriously folks, it’s a deep concern. It’s like a quote from one of my favourite books on parenting (which I won’t reference because they won’t give me permission to print any of their words – officially – the buggers!): “The child’s job is to test the boundaries. The parent’s job is to resist.”

Good news huh?

But if you care, you’ll just take a deep breath and control the junk food intake, without denying them the odd Happy Meal or Oreo … well, alright the odd 6 Oreos! Ya can’t stop at just one – hope you’re reading Oreo Company: see my contact details to get the advertising cheque ready…)

And heck! We need to find ways to become less dependent on processed foods for our own sakes as much as our kids…

…but that’s for a more serious blog…

Dinosaurs!

So, we were lucky enough to get to see Walking with Dinosaurs – the live experience – last weekend. What an awesome thing it was, too!

This Gen-X-er was one happy camper. When I was a boy, the best effects in movies were basically baby alligators and gila monsters dressed up to look like dummosaurus and whatthehellkindofdinosauristhatus !

So being metres away from something as well constructed and detailed as the monsters in this show was sensational. It was certainly aided by the huge sound system really driving the T-Rex roar straight through your stomach lining…

And then there was my kids’ response to it.

Oh, they enjoyed it ok, sure, but they were also very disappointed there were no FIGHTS. (Youngest Son complained all the way home).

And to be honest, I guess they have a point. I mean, how could you have a T-Rex and a Torosaurus in the same arena and not have a goring or two, followed by the herbivore losing a limb to the carnivore in a shower of blood? I guess that was another just $5 million that the producers weren’t prepared to spend …

Still, for ME, it was enough just to look at the marvellous craftsmanship.

The other thing that made me chuckle (and demonstrated the difference between Gen X and Generation Z, who are basically kids under 13) happened several times: here would be this enormous specimen of dino-kind, and Youngest Son would have his head cranked around 180 degrees looking at the monitor screen, complaining “Why don’t they put it on the screen??”

Kids these days …

 

Generation Z Power Struggles

The E-gap