The Far Side of Normal

Isaac and Matt are in his bedroom reading while I write this. Why am I not joining in the bedtime story ritual, you ask? Because they are not reading stories. They are reading The Far Side. An entire book of collected cartoons. It's not that I do not enjoy Far Side comics. I just don't enjoy 100 of them in one sitting. But Isaac does, so at least once a week I banish myself from storytime so the boys can have their fun.

Matt introduced Isaac to The Far Side a couple of months ago. He has some books from his childhood that he pulled out to share. Some of the cartoons are skipped, either due to their complexity or their subject matter. Yes, we do have some standards when it comes to what is or is not appropriate for our 4 year old. For a majority of the cartoons, though, Matt reads the captions on the comic and talks about the pictures and many times Isaac does get the joke.

Since The Far Side has entered the bedtime ritual, our collection of Gary Larson books has grown. Matt has bought a couple more at Ed McKay and at yard sales mainly out of self-preservation. Even he gets tired of going over the same comics over and over.

Typically, Isaac gets to choose his own bedtime stories. When The Far Side comes out there are some rules. First, it is the only book he gets that night. (Have you ever read a Far Side collection cover to cover? It is not a quick read). Second, Daddy reads it. If Daddy is not available, sorry boy. It will have to wait until tomorrow.

I may hand off to Daddy on Far Side nights and refuse to be directly involved in the reading, but I do not go far. Even now I can hear Matt reading and explaining and I am listening eagerly for Isaac's comments and for his laugh. It secretly thrills me that Isaac's tastes are as odd as his father's. Yes, and mine, too. It probably means that middle school is going to be much more of a horror for him than for the kids who are obsessed with every mainstream, pop-culture phenomenon out there. But, I hope it also means he is going turn out to be a pretty cool adult who can think creatively and laugh at the absurdity of life.

The four basic personality types: 1) The glass is half full 2) The glass is half empty 3) Half full... No! Wait! Half empty!... No, half... What was the question? 4) Hey! I ordered a cheeseburger!

The Far Side, Gary Larson

It's been a while . . .

My last post was back at the beginning of February, almost exactly two months ago. I am not the world's most consistent blogger, but even I know that eight weeks of no activity is slacking. I would like to claim that I gave up blogging for lent, but, really, life just got the better of me these past two months and my blog took a back seat to, well, everything. But we have been reading and there are a couple of books that I have had in the back of my mind to write about when I had the time and energy to focus. So here goes . . .

One of the books that I bought on the last day of the AASL conference last November was No! That's Wrong by Zhaohua Ji and Cui Xu. It is published by Kane Miller, a publisher that only publishes childrens books from other countries. This book has many elements that appeal to boys: animals doing ridiculous things, pieces of clothing being worn in unusual ways, and, best of all, underwear!

The text is sparse, with some pages having none at all. On the first page all the reader sees is a pair of red, kind of frilly underwear, being blown off a clothesline. On the second page that same set of underwear ends up on rabbit's head. Having never seen underwear before, he assumes it is a hat, and a very nice hat he thinks it makes. The unseen narrator tells him that it is, in fact, not a hat, but rabbit does not listen. As he wanders through the forest and meets other animals, they all try on the hat, but it does not fit anyone as well as it fits rabbit. All the while the narrator is insisting that it is NOT a hat. Donkey is the only one who also knows it is not a hat and shows rabbit how the underwear are supposed to be worn. But they just do not fit his hind quarters as well as they do his head. On his head there are two holes for his ears, but as underwear there is not hole for his tail. And, of course, all of the other animals think rabbit looks ridiculous wearing his HAT on the wrong part of his body. So, back on his head they go and rabbit pushes the narrator out of the story and affirms that it is indeed a wonderful hat!

There is a message in this story about being true to yourself. The rabbit is happy and carefree when he has the underwear on his head, but confused and uncomfortable and even scared when wearing them "correctly." Then he is joyful at the end when he has decided to trust his instincts, even if it it means doing something "wrong." Coming from China, there are also cultural and political lessons in the story. You can discuss these themes, or just enjoy the story.

The text is repetitive and children will enjoy taking on the parts of different characters. The illustrations are watercolors, but they are not muted or faded. The colors are vibrant and help set the rabbit's mood. The end papers add an additional plot line to the story as the other animals, inspired by rabbit, seek out their own unusual hats.

Isaac enjoys this story and laughs at the animals antics, as I am sure many other boys will do. If boys must read about underwear, then this is a book to pass on to them.

It's All About Mindset

Matt had to read Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck. Normally, neither of us read "self-help" books and we both have a rather cynical attitude about them. But, he delved right in, to get it out of the way, and was surprised by how he was relating to the book's message. So, when he finished it, I began reading it to find out for myself what had caught his attention.

In a nutshell, the premise of the book is that there are two types of mindsets that people adopt: the fixed mindset in which people believe that their abilities are finite and the growth mindset in which people believe that they can become smarter, more talented, better at something, etc, through effort. I am sure you can guess which mindset is the better one to have.

Matt and I agree that some of the examples in the book are a bit simplistic and the author repeats her points ad nauseum. The book is also a few years old and some of the people she holds up as examples of the growth mindset have since fallen from grace. But there are lessons to be learned from it, especially for teachers and parents.

Dweck divides the book into chapters about business, sports, relationships and teaching/parenting. While the earlier chapters were enlightening, the teaching/parenting chapter was the most relevant from my perspective. It examines how we can instill a growth mindset in our students or our children and encourage them to learn for the sake of learning, rather than to appear smart. Dweck asserts that fixed mindset people shy away from challenges for fear of failing and proving that they are not smart. Growth mindset people, on the other hand, seek out challenges because they know that it will help them learn and grow. Teachers and parents can lead children along either of these paths depending on the message that we send through our teaching and how we model the mindsets in our own lives.

One way to instill a growth mindset is to take care about how we praise children. The parent modeling the fixed mindset tells her child how smart he is when he does well in school or solves a puzzle. A parent who models the growth mindset, instead praises her son's effort in attacking the challenge of learning new material or working through a difficult situation. According to Dweck, the fixed mindset praise teaches children that being smart is what is most important and causes them to only attempt something that they are assured of doing well at. Conversely, the growth mindset praise teaches children that the effort is what is valued, whether or not it is successful, and causes them to see learning as the sought after goal rather than gaining others' esteem.

Dweck accepts that this praise message may be difficult for many parents and teachers to buy into. We have been conditioned to build children up and worry about their self-esteem being dampened rather than to focus on what effect this unearned praise has on their ability to approach life's challenges. I never thought that by telling Isaac he was smart that he would fear that I would not love him if he failed at something.

I took a couple of messages away from this book. Personally, I have often shied away from trying something new because I believed that I did not have the ability or I could not learn it. After Isaac was born, I began changing this mindset on my own. I want to set the example for Isaac that it is important to face new challenges and that perfection is not what is important, but learning is. Professionally, I want to have a growth mindset in my approach to teaching. I want to help my students learn that success or failure on a test or project does not determine their academic ability. Their willingness to learn from their mistakes and use their failures to grow does.

The mindsets are not black and white. You are not either or. Many of us are probably a mix of the two, depending on what the situation is. The key is understanding what our mindset is and how we can change it if we choose to.

Matt and I are trying to be conscious of the mindset that we are modeling for Isaac. We are praising him for the effort he is putting into learning his numbers and letters and when he masters a task we are challenging him to move on to a harder one. But most importantly we are showing him that we love him whether he fails or not and helping him learn that failure is part of growing. He is going to struggle with some things that he tries. It is how he handles the struggle that will be important.

Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow!

For some reason I feel compelled to write about a snow book. Possibly because there is over 6 inches of the stuff outside my door right now.

Isaac loves the book Snowmen at Night by Caralyn and Mark Buehner. It is the prequel to Snowmen at Christmas. Have you ever wondered what snowmen do at night? What causes them to sag and look lopsided the morning after they have been created? In this book, the boy asking these questions imagines a world where the snowmen come to life once the town is asleep. They gather in the park to play, skate, sled, and have snowman races. They return home as the sun comes up, a bit worse for the wear, but grinning from snow ear to snow ear.

The text has a nice rhythm for reading out loud and Isaac enjoys seeing the snowmen act like little kids as they throw snowballs, make snow angels and generally frolic in the snow. But what really makes this book great are the illustrations. Buehner's pictures are computer generated, but they are much more layered and textured than most computer generated illustrations I have seen. The colors are vibrant, even though the setting is the middle of the night. The pages almost come to life as you turn them.

There us a bit of a gimic with the book. Buehner has hidden small images in the pictures that the children are challenged to find. They do not have anything to do with the story, but children will want to spend time looking for them, which can be fun and frustrating. Some of them are not easy to find.

I think we will be digging this book out tonight for story time. I would much rather read about snowmen than go out and build one right now.

ABC's and 123's

Lately monkeys and penguins have been popular at our house. Makes a lot of sense, actually. Penguins are one of my favorite animals and monkeys are Matt's. I love the fortitude of Emperor Penguin mothers as they leave their families to search for food and the faithfulness of the fathers as they stay to take care of the egg. Matt loves the playfulness of monkeys and, well, just that.

Two books that Isaac has chosen recently at bedtime are Counting Penguins and Naughty Little Monkeys by Jim Aylesworth. It just so happens that these books focus on learning and recognizing numbers and letters, something that we have been working on as Isaac gets closer to entering kindergarten.

Counting Penguins is a counting book, as the name implies. Each page shows a different species of penguin, the number of penguins in the photograph getting larger with each turn of the page. Matt lets Isaac say the numbers as they turn the pages. When they get to the end, he has Isaac read the numbers in reverse order as they go backwards through the book. Going forward is much easier because Isaac can say his numbers past ten, but is having trouble recognizing the number symbols past 5 or 6.

Naughty Little Monkeys is an ABC book. The parents have 26 monkeys, each one having a name that begins with a letter of the alphabet. When the parents go out for the evening, all 26 create havoc at home, each action matching the letter with which their name begins. Isaac thinks the mischief the monkeys cause is hilarious, from sliding down the banister to cutting up Dad's newspaper to breaking the window with the yo-yo. As we read this book, we have Isaac name the letter before we read the rhyme that goes with it.

We realized a couple of weeks ago that Isaac did not know as many of his letters and numbers as we thought he did. He has been able to recite the alphabet and say his numbers for a while, and we both thought that the recognition was coming along, as well. We were wrong. I talked with his teacher to get her perspective and she reminded me that he is a boy, and boys take longer to tackle these skills than girls. He is also the youngest in his class, but is probably in the middle as far as progress, so he is doing pretty well. All of this I know rationally. But my parenting nerves kicked in.

So Matt and I have been focusing on helping him with these skills. We are trying to make it as fun as possible, using books and games. We are also trying to praise the effort that he makes to help him begin to value the act of learning.

Kindergarten is not what it was when I started school. Students are expected to know more coming in and accomplish more before the year is over. I want Isaac to be prepared and I want him to value learning for learning's sake. I also want him to be able to have fun and enjoy the social aspect of school and time with his friends.

A good friend just had to decide whether to enroll her son in a traditional 4 year old part-time preschool program or in a full-time pre-k program. As a parent, I understand her wanting her son to have one more year to enjoy the freedom of a less structured environment. But as a teacher, I see the value of pre-k programs and the foundation they give students before starting school. It is a difficult decision for parents who have the choice to make.

I know Isaac will be fine when he starts kindergarten in the fall. If he struggles, he has Matt and I to help him and support him and teach him to learn from his mistakes. But I still worry and probably always will. For now, we will keep reading and working and learning. And we will have fun.