First Experience With Death and Dying

Aiden greatgrandmother died last week.  She was the last of Dawn and my grandparents.  We took Aidan to the service.  There was no open casket, which was a relief.  I did not want to take him if there was.  So, of course, he started to ask a lot of questions. 

"What is dying?"

"People get really old and they stop breathing."

"Why?"

This is when I repeat the previous answer!

So he was OK with this.  He was concerned that his grandfather was sad so we explained that his mother had died. 

But the next morning, he made the connection to me and to himself.  He asked, "Daddy, are you going to die?"

"Yes, everyone dies but not for a really long time."

"I don't want you to die."

So this not an easy moment but I had to keep a "normal" tone of voice.  I snuggled him and we talked more, mostly along the same lines. 

A hard conversation but a good one that will hopefully be a good base for other deaths in the future.  Hard as it is, death is a part of life.  

The Agony of Defeat

Aidan has gotten to the point where he can play a whole game of Chutes and Ladders and understands winning.  He beat me first and apparently beats his babysitter.  However, I did win the other day and he was quite upset.  I explained about winning and losing and that we can't always win but the point is to have fun together.  He seemed OK but woke up the next morning and said, "Daddy, I am still a little bit sad because you beat me at Chutes and Ladders." 

Funny One

Aidan and I were discussing some of the plants and trees in the yard and he asked about the crab apple tree, which he initially thought was poisonous.  I told him, no it was just sour.  We were talking about which animals eat what and he told me woodpeckers eat frogs, and I told him, "No, they eats insects."  Then he asked what frogs eat, and I told him, "Insects."  He then asked very sincerely, "Do crabs eat the crab apples, Daddy?"

Teaching Kids Math Strategies

I was co-teaching recently with a lower elementary colleague.  We were doing a FunBrain activity called Guess My Number.

http://www.funbrain.com/guess/index.html

You guess a number between 1 and 100 (or 1 and 10) and the computer tells you if the answer is higher or lower than the guess.  This process repeats until you guess correctly or you run out of turns.  You have 7 guesses for 1 to 100.  My recollection from my Computer Science graduate work was that a binary search is the optimal strategy for this type of problem.  So, your first guess would be 50.  If the computer said lower, you would then guess 25.  If the computer said higher, your next guess would be 75.  This allows you to rapidly hone in on the answer.

When I asked my colleague if she taught the kids this strategy, her response was that she never teaches kids strategies but always lets the kids find their own strategies.

I really questions this approach, which seems to be an extreme interpretation of the constructivist philosophy of education.  From wikipedia, Constructivism is a theory of knowledge, which argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from their experiences.  If taken to its limits, teachers never actually teach anything but provide the materials and experiences so that children can discover everything for themselves.

In my experience, it is an excellent practice to give students a chance to explore problems on their own without giving them the answer or the strategy to get the answer.  However, not all algorithms are the same.  We know from the field of computer science, that algorithms can be mathematically evaluated as to their efficiency.  Of course, they need to be correct too!   Some teachers (and I am not sure if my colleague is one or not), seem to feel that all ways of getting the answer are equivalent and equally valid.  This is clearly not true.  So we should encourage different ways of getting the answer but we should also be evaluating them as to which methods are better than others.  I think it is misguided in the attempt to preserve self esteem to say that all methods are equally good.  Some even think that getting a correct answer is not important, but only the method.  I would say that both are important. 

I also think that we most definitely need to teach kids strategies and methods after giving them time to explore on their own.  To not do so robs students of all the mathematical work that has gone before them.  You would not get very far in math without understanding what has gone before us.  So I teach specific problem solving strategies and computational algorithms.  Frankly, some students would never arrive at good algorithms if never shown to them.  Children also construct knowledge from what we teach them.  In my view, they need to make sense of not just their own ideas but the ideas of those that have been gone before them.  That can be done in a hands on way with math manipulatives with young children.

Self Sufficiency

I feel really good fixing things myself recently.  I installed a dishwasher, installed 2 hard drives including 1 on a laptop (tricky), replaced a car battery, and have been working on our plow truck.  Even though I was not able to completely fix the truck, I did identify one problem.  It is very satisfying to feel self sufficient this way though it is helpful to have a community of people to whom you can ask questions or get help.  The Internet is a new source of community and information that can also be helpful.  It does take longer to do it yourself, especially the first time, and it can be frustrated, but it is satisfying for me to learn new things.  It reminds me of some of the guys in the neighborhood where I grew up who would always be fixing their own cars and doing their own remodeling.  My father is also good at cabinetry and woodworking.  It does take time and energy though and that can be tricky with  a young child. Hopefully, when he is older, it will be easier to find ways he can help.  

Further or Backwards?

I went to the Further show at UMass Amherst last Friday night.  Further is Bob Weir and Phil Lesh from the Grateful Dead, 2 new drummers, a piano player, and a guitarist and singer from the Dark Star Orchestra, a Dead clone band.  There were many fine moments musically and I enjoyed the show but I could not help but feeling that maybe the time was past for this scene, at least for me.  The vending scene was very small and a shadow of what is used to be.  While musically very good, Jerry's presence is sorely missed.  Listening to some of Dick's picks after the show, I felt that the magic and energy of a Dead show can never be recreated with different people today. 

Irregular Past Tense

Aidan still loves his regular past tense of adding "ed."  I have been worked gently with him on irregular past tense.  He said to Dawn today, "Mom, did you gave me some gobbles?"  Gobbles means goggles.