Mission Three: Gazing & Gawking One day, the politicians we have in front of us will be gone. They’ll be swept away with the dust and cobwebs and put in boxes like old Christmas decorations bound for the trash. Why, then, are they IN OUR FACES ALL THE TIME? Why are they fixtures in our…
Thoughts and Prayers
Better People Campaign—What to Do in ‘22
Better People Campaign—What to Do in ‘22
Trashy People
Better People Campaign—What to Do in ‘22
Mission One: Garbage The week before Christmas, our community’s sanitation company went on strike. The Home Owner’s Association sent a notice permitting residents to leave trash buckets on the curb and fill them up as needed. In less than a week the garbage cans were overflowing. The HOA then stationed a long massive dumpster at…
Kindness Models
Normalize being good. Normalize it all year long.
Normalize being good. Normalize it all year long.
Guilty Until Proven Innocent
The Roles We Play, Part II
Owning Up Our sons are saying a new thing: “I’m sorry.” They are, at last, expanding their range of empathy to include acknowledgement of where they have gone wrong. They are saying it for things they do at home—messes, mishaps, etc., and they are also saying it when they hurt each other. It’s rewarding to…
Warriors or Wannabes
The Roles We Play
Stuck In The Rut When I think of warriors, I think of the Mexica in jaguar headdresses about to kill some Spaniards. I think of Spartans wielding spears going into battle with Trojans. The concept of a warrior, is for me, more of an archetype. That archetype, in my head, is usually masculine and is…
I Am Teacher, See Me Teach
Educating the Educators, Part 5
Free Range Learning With desks, full bookshelves, a dry-erase board, cubbies for their things and completed work, enormous lesson plan books, plus my wife’s home office set up, our sons’ homeschool classroom looks and feels like the real thing. The difference is, much of the learning happens elsewhere. At the kitchen table, at a museum,…
Educating the Educators, Part 4
Trial and Error
Control the Controllable As a parent, you spend a lot of time asking yourself if you’re “doing it right.” Is this a good thing for my child? Is this good for me? No parenting book or website will tell you. You have to figure it out on your own. This trial and error method is…
Homework from Home
Educating the Educators, Part 3
The Great and The Terrible Deep into our Zoom school journey last year, we quickly realized that once the computers were closed for the day, getting our pupils back to work was a battle. Apart from the three hours of synchronous learning, they were expected to log two-to-three more hours of asynchronous learning including online…
A Diminishing Return
Educating the Educators, Part 2
Praise the Kids In the virtual elementary school classroom, the side-by-side teacher and student engagement found in the traditional classroom does not necessarily happen. Instead, the teacher must call out and check in with the heads in boxes on his or her screen. They might ask.: “Did you get that?” “Do you need extra time?”…
The First Day of Un-school
Educating the Educators, Part 1
“He’ll be fine.” You always remember your kid’s first day of kindergarten. For my eldest son, the day was a combination of festive and wistful. Parents and kids lined up in the special area for kindergartners, and we were instructed where to place our children’s lunches and water bottles. The kindergarten teachers walked over to…
A Shining Example?
Scary Daddies, Part 5
Dad Went Nuts When Jack Torrance comes to consciousness in the freezer at the haunted Overlook Hotel, he is pissed. I mean like crazed, I’m-about-to-go-murder-my-family crazy. He escapes the freezer, then his evil hijinks ensue (hacks through the bathroom door with and axe, screams “Here’s Johnny!”) all building to the literally chilling climax of Stanley…
Mistaken Tatarabuelo
Scary Daddies, Part 4
Remember Me Our family trees tell some interesting stories. Some of those stories we cherish, others we try to forget. In mine, I love the one of my great grandmother, who was abandoned as a infant, then taken in by another family. I dislike the one of my great-great grandfather on the other side of…
The Mad Scientist
Scary Daddies, Part 3
The Obsession Grows For this week’s installment of Scary Daddies, we’ll explore the mad scientist archetype. In the Disney pantheon of characters, there’s a standout amongst the many wacky science fiends. That character is Wayne Szlainski of the Honey, I (fill in the blank) franchise. In the first film, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989)…
Los Hijos del Diablo
Scary Daddies Series, Part 2
The Great Mess Last year at this time, we were battling the virus in its original iteration. Delta, Gamma, etc. had not come on the scene yet. It was scary times indeed. Laughing with glee like a Batman villain as the globe came to its knees was something—someone—far more terrifying. President Trump. I try my…
Cameron Frye’s Day Off
Scary Daddies Series, Part 1
Rage Against The Father Depictions of fathers in literature, television, and film range from the benevolent to the cruel, the adventurous to the mundane. Most times, it’s the bad ones that stand out in our minds as readers, their dark personas often being the basis for the entire work. To kick off this year’s edition…