DC Metro Moms

Unpacking Memories One Ornament at a Time

The yearly ritual of getting a tree, fetching the boxes of ornaments from the attic, and winding the lights around and around is fun but what I really enjoy is unearthing each ornament and the memories it holds. 

My red and green boxes are filled to the brim with ornaments that have been collecting through the years.  My childhood love of rabbits reappears as I unwrap the tissue paper clad ornaments.  Memories of trips we’ve taken materialize in the form of a handmade fish ornament from Thailand, a bicycle found at a local street market in Brazil, and trinkets that were never really meant to be ornaments from elsewhere around the world.  I watch my kids grow before my eyes as I pluck out the frames with their photos and hang them on the tree.  Strong cardboard boxes hold the fragile vintage ornaments passed down to me from my parents that I recall hanging on our family tree as a child.

Learning with Sesame Street

As a kid, one of my favorite days was Sunday.  On Sundays my brother and I would wake up at 6 am for a 3 hour Sesame Street marathon on KQED, our local PBS affiliate. We didn’t watch a lot of TV in our house but my parents never objected to Sesame Street.  Perhaps they realized what I now know as a parent- that Sesame Street was children’s television at its best.

As Sesame Street celebrates the start of its 40^th season this week, it reminds us that it is the show that changed children’s television forever.  From the crazy cookie eating antics of Cookie Monster, the loveable Mr. Hooper heart to hearts talks with characters that frequented his General Store, the sibling-like bickering between Bert and Ernie, to the letter and number of the day…Sesame Street’s goal has always been to teach in a fun way.

Sing along as you count with the ladybugs in Ladybug Picnic who not only educate about numbers and one to one correspondence, but also teach rhyming through their song.  Laugh with the always ravenous Cookie Monster as he tries to hold back from devouring a chocolate chip cookie but know that cookie is shaped like a letter.  And The Count…Well, he’s the master at teaching numbers even if he isn't the best elevator operator.  Those tiny little Twiddlebugs that inhabited Ernie’s flowerbox were master recyclers and environmentalists before eco-chic became part of our lexicon as they populated their dwelling with furnishings made from tiny found objects.

H1N1 Vaccine Worth the 3 ½ Hour Wait

Would you wait 3 ½ hour hours for the swine flu vaccine?  I never thought I would but I did.  Call me crazy but we recently crossed the border into DC and stood in line with tons of other families for the opportunity to get the highly coveted H1N1 vaccine. 

As a teacher, I consider myself in a high risk group.  Just as health care professionals are classified in a risk group due to their exposure to sick individuals on a regular basis, as a teacher, I am on the front lines of dealing with sick kids every single day.  The almost 400 students in my school circulate through my computer lab on a regular basis.  I can only imagine what kinds of germs are living between the keys on the keyboards or multiplying on the mice.  I am borderline obsessive compulsive about washing my hands at work because I know I am a carrier of seasonal flu, cold germs, and swine flu and it is only a matter of time before I bring illness home to my own children.

I Quit the PTA

I must confess...I quit the PTA.  I walked away from being knee deep into one of those we-need-your-leadership-and-your-experience PTA leadership roles two hours before the first big preschool parent meeting of the year and I feel no regrets.  For the past two years I have been on volunteer overdrive.  I readily admit to having a problem with volunteering and needing a 12 step program to curb my desire to over commit myself to events at school. 

It first started when my daughter was 3.  I was new to the school and I wanted to get involved.  To meet other parents, I decided to attend the PTA meetings.  It seemed like a good idea at the time but realize those meetings were the beginning of the end.  Those meetings sucked me in and before long, I raised my hand to volunteer because no one else did.  I should have learned my lesson after the first year when an inability to sit on my hands and bite my tongue was the reason why I ended up coordinating the school silent auction.  Then when no one else stepped forward the following year, I volunteered again.  Sucker!

Plagiarism is Never Ok

“Plagiarism is never ok.  It is never ok to take someone else’s work and write their exact words down on your paper.  That is stealing.”

During the first week of school I found myself saying repeating those sentences over and over again as I conducted computer orientation to each class of 3-5^th grade students and went over the county’s rules and regulations for computer use. Orientation is required for every class and a prerequisite before students get their logins and passwords to use the school computers and certainly before they begin to word process, use interactive games to practice skills, and conducting research using online resources.

The irony of the situation was that while I was telling my students that it was never ok to copy what they read in World Book, Encyclopaedia Britannica, or any of the other online resources we use, my own work on my blog was being stolen and reposted on another blog. 

A Presidential Moment

Some family outings are just too perfect that they seem too good to be true.  After fabulous seats at a Washington Mystics WNBA game and dinner at Clyde’s, we decided to take a drive around DC.  The lighting was perfect for some pictures, weather was a good summery kind of warm without the usual August humidity, and since it was Sunday evening, parking spaces were plentiful in the District.  We parked right in front of the Willard Hotel to get out and gawk at the White House like tourists.  Our two kids went skipping towards the Treasury Building, played chase around the statues in front, and then stopped briefly to peer through the side gate of the White House.

Onwards we walked towards the money view of the presidential manse.  The kids got a foothold on the cement and clung to the fence while my husband and I stood behind and took in the grandeur of the White House.  The tourists next to use were playing count the snipers who were quite actively moving around rather than crouching in their normal positions.  I admired the First Lady’s vegetable garden towards our left and then looked back at the White House.

Memories of Michael

Thriller was the first album I ever purchased with my own money.  I remember walking by the music store at the Hillsdale Shopping Center while out shopping with my parents when I was 10 and needing Michael Jackson’s album so badly.  At the time, Thriller was all over the radio, along with Madonna and Huey Lewis and the News, but I wanted Michael’s album more than any of the others. I handed over the $8.99 plus tax and proudly carried my tape home with me.  I pulled the cassette out of its plastic box so many times to listen to Thriller, Beat It, Billie Jean, Wanna Be Startin’ Something, and others over and over again on my Sony Walkman, memorizing the lyrics to all the songs on the album. 

Tonight when my husband came home, we talked about the death of Michael Jackson as we were preparing dinner.  We reminisced about some of his great songs, our failed attempts to learn to do the moonwalk, humanitarian efforts through the recording of We Are the World, and all the sensationalistic news that the media loved including Michael’s hair catching on fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial, rumors of sleeping in an oxygen chamber, a marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, and his appearance on an MTV awards show to accept a fabricated award.

The Effect of the Recession on Public Education

Dear Recession,

You know it is hard to be a teacher.  It is even harder to be a public school teacher in a recession.  The budget shortfalls have finally trickled down into the schools meaning that positions are being cut, cost of living raises are being overlooked in favor of keeping class sizes small, and budgets are basically nonexistent.  We have a new president who has a vision of this generation competing on a global level but I just don’t see it happening unless you turn around soon.

How can we do an effective job of imparting the knowledge to this generation of children when we lack funding?  Enrollment is projected to increase again next year but where will the money for teachers come from?  You can’t hire teachers and not give them a salary.  Everyone wants smaller class sizes but having 20 students in a class means more teachers that our school system just can’t afford.  Remember earlier this year when you cut our staff by 4 teachers?  Not cool.

PBS and Me

PBS has always been part of my life, beginning in childhood, following me throughout my career as a teacher, and now as a mom.  As a kid, I woke up early on Sunday mornings to watch 3 hours of back to back Sesame Street episodes on our local PBS affiliate each Sunday morning. As a teacher, I’ve taught PBS TeacherLine online professional development courses for educators and now work as the Community Manager for PBS Teachers in a role that connects me to the education division, a select group of brilliant Teacher Leaders, and 40,000 teachers in our online community. And most importantly, PBS has been instrumental in providing high quality programming that my children are exposed to on a daily basis.

As a parent, I’m very particular about our children’s screen time.  I scrutinize what my kids watch and limit the amount of time they spend on the computer and watching television.But I grew up on PBS and I think I turned out pretty darn well so it was natural for me to turn to PBS when my children were old enough for some screen time.

As my kids have grown, their preferences for shows has grown along with them. First Sesame Street was replaced by Clifford, then Super Why came on to the scene, and now our DVR is loaded with on demand episodes of Between the Lions, Curious George, Word Girl, and Sid the Science Kid.And of course both children like to get on PBSKids.org or PBSKids Island to play interactive games and video clips that accompany their favorite shows. 

Make Teacher Appreciation Week Last All Year!

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week.  As a teacher, I have to say that while I love the gestures by our fabulous PTA, I would like to be appreciated all year long and not just one week during the year. 

Before you throw rocks at me for thinking that I’m greedy, I’m not asking you to spend money on me.  I don’t want you to organize lunches for me and my colleagues every day, have your children make me cards as part of their homework, nor do I want fistfuls of flowers on a regular basis, or teacher tchotchkes to adorn my desk.

Instead, I’d prefer to be appreciated by ongoing gestures that occur throughout the year.  They aren’t grandiose but I always loved it when parents showed up on time for conferences, kept their child home if they were sick, checked their child’s backpack on a semi-regular basis, kept the lines of communication open (even to complain), and displayed a genuine interest in their child’s learning.