Effort Grades and the Secret Seeker of Knowledge

I would have loved Effort Grades when I was in middle school, because I would have cleaned up.

In fact, I remember the first time I discovered how happy a teacher might be if you went beyond the assignment. It was fourth grade. We were supposed to write a two-page story, and I was so excited to have writing homework that I ended up handing in a 10-pager with illustrations. If Effort Grades had existed back then, I would have received a “1”.

Most girls in my class would have too. Almost every time.

Effort Grades are about neat handwriting, raising your hand, adding to the conversation, handing in homework, being respectful, and seizing the opportunity to share what you know with your classmates.

So easy!

So, it is a complete mystery to me that a child chooses not to let his teacher know that he loves what he is learning. It perplexes me that he might choose not to do the extra credit. Or do the homework.

But over the last two weeks, my son – whose teachers express frustration regarding his effort and focus and consistency –  has spent hours teaching himself German history.

A research paper for which he chose the WWI Battle of Cambrai (aiming for the minimum page recommendation) and a WWII simulation game in Social Studies inspired him to investigate further on his own. He has watched numerous documentaries and what seems to be hundreds of short videos online to fill out his knowledge. He has talked us through the dysfunctional alliances that led to WWI, mistakes they made in WWII, what their navy was like, their innovations, their showing in past Olympics, their impressive ability to bounce back.

Of course, none of it is captured in any assignment he turned in. He will get no credit for it.

“Was all that research part of the simulation game?”

“No.”

“Then does your teacher realize how much you know?”

He shrugged, “I don’t think so.”

“You should tell him!”

But apparently, that wasn’t the point. And no matter how much it drives me crazy, I’ve got to respect that, for him, the assignment and grades aren’t going to be what drive him. It’s just the knowing what he wants to know.

 

Historic World Series

Soccer practice was over. Homework was done. The dinner dishes were clean. So we all headed upstairs to get ready for bed, do the third grader’s out-loud reading, and watch the end of the 7^th game of the World Series.

Indians versus Cubs. Two teams you want to cheer for because success must be sweeter for an almost-forever underdog. We are Rockies fans, so we know. And while we decided that 1948 and more than a century feel equally bad, we went for the longest-time loser.

And our former outfielder – a Rocky turned Cubby – started the game with an historic walk-on homerun.

But the second I closed my third grader’s The Worst Class Trip Ever, I crashed into a deep sleep. So did my husband and the third grader, while the older boys watched and cheered around us. It has been a very busy few weeks.

Then suddenly… “Cubbies won! Cubbies won!” Boys jumping on the bed. Hi-fiving. Our dog, disturbed from slumber, barking. Three once sleeping bodies trampled on. “Go Cubs!”

An exciting Series for two teams who have wanted it for so long. Sadly, mom, dad and the third grader missed its thrilling end. Sometimes, no matter how much you want to see the ninth inning or the tenth – history in the making – your typically insignificant eyelids wield their power. And you sleep.

How History Enters the Mind of a 13 Year Old Boy

This morning’s news celebrated the release of ten U.S. sailors held captive by Iran. So when my seventh grade son asked me if I remembered the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979, when approximately 60 US citizens were held captive for 444 days, I was impressed.

He seems to teach himself things in a stream of consciousness approach to learning, his path twisting and turning randomly as bits of information catch his fancy. It’s a cool way to learn, even if it distracts from his homework.

“I do remember.”

“Well, do you remember that they broadcast the Super Bowl so the hostages got to watch it? I wonder how they did that.”

Of course! Football!

He actually had not yet read the news about the U.S. sailors. The question on this day was completely coincidental. As a football trivia junkie, his reading about the NFL connects him to a broader history. A few days ago, he wanted to know if Richard Nixon was a good President. I talked through his foreign policy skills, China and Watergate. The important fact, it turns out, was that he “was not a good play caller.”

In school, we often use the art or literature of an era as a way to help us understand the past. He uses sports. Reading about past Super Bowls, looking at old photos of athletes and teams and stadiums, and a close following of the NFL timeline all lead to non-football discoveries. He digs into what that event was, or if people liked that President, or why there were hostages, how long they were there, and what people like me remember.

And the next time the Super Bowl comes up with an unsuspecting friend, he will ask, “Did you know that during the Iran Hostage Crisis, they broadcast the Super Bowl so the hostages could watch? How cool is that?!”

 

Best Sports Moment in History

Today, in their last game, my son’s soccer team finished the season undefeated.

It was his 6th birthday.

And when he scored his goal, he sprinted straight off the field, shouting joy, and tackled me in front of his team, his coach, his opponents, the entire kindergarten-YMCA-soccer-world.

They say winning the Super Bowl is great. I cry when my basketball favorites win the NCAA tournament. A World Series win for the home team is amazing, especially when you are in the ballpark. A victory at the Kentucky Derby, a gold medal at the Olympics… until today, they were the best moments in sports.

But nothing in all of sports will ever again beat my son tackling me after his goal the day he turned six.

King Richard and His Brother John: What We Learned from Robin Hood

We watched an animated version of Robin Hood this Sunday on the way home from our ski weekend. It generated a few questions like: “If King Richard was real, was Robin Hood?” and “Is it really okay to steal if you give it to the poor?” and “Can we go to Sherwood Forest?”

But the most in-depth conversation followed a day later:

10 year old: If we were royalty, since I’m the oldest, I would be king.

9 year old: I would be a prince.

10 year old: You know what happened to Prince John when King Richard came back from the Crusades?

9 year old: Richard put him in jail.

10 year old: Didn’t he chop off his head?

9 year old: Nope.

The ten year old looked at me for confirmation.

Me: I don’t think so. Richard was a good guy.

10 year old: If I were Richard, I would only chop off the head of a cousin I didn’t like.

Me: But you like your cousins.

10 year old: Just saying I wouldn’t chop off my brother’s head no matter what.

9 year old: I wouldn’t want to steal your stupid crown anyway.

Me to the 10 year old: The best kings have smart brothers who they can make generals. You’re lucky, because your brother is so good at strategizing. He’d be a good general for you.

10 year old: I’m good at strategizing too!

9 year old: But I am really good at it.

Me: And a good king always surrounds himself with people who are as good at strategizing as he is. That’s how he wins the battles. Good, loyal brothers who are as smart and good as he is, who he can trust more than anybody.

10 year old: Yeah, I wouldn’t chop off his head.

9 year old: Good.

10 year old: Unless you tried to kill me.

Maybe I should have mentioned that the Sherwood Forest Falcons were in desperate need of a quarterback. The battling brothers would have left the five year old to rule uncontested with little need to chop off any heads.

The Third Child in the Photo Album

My sister complains that my parents stopped taking photographs soon after their only photogenic child was born. She is the youngest of three girls, and though we insist there are plenty of pictures of her in the family album, she is right.

What she doesn’t understand is that it was her destiny, as it is with most third children.

Last night, my oldest son was asking questions about his great-grandparents. He is the only of my children to have met my grandmother Frances, and though he does not remember her, he thinks it is important. He and the middle child knew my husband’s grandmother, who we all called Gram.

I offered to show them a photo album that my mother put together for Christmas six years ago.

I clearly wasn’t thinking.

We all snuggled into my bed and I showed them their ancestors on the first pages of the album, then pictures of my sisters and I growing up, my high school graduation, our wedding, and the first years of their lives. They asked lots of questions and made fun of my braces and 80s hair. They laughed at how their Dad had a goatee when they were born. They remembered certain shirts they used to wear.

Then my third son started to cry.

He wasn’t in the album.

He was born a year after it was given to me.

He realized right then that there was a time when we were all together without him making memories that we saved for history.

Fortunately, I have enough photographs of him to create an entire album, and he is only five. Like my youngest sister, the camera loves him. And like my sister’s, his stories make ours a richer, happier history.

The third child, though they may be late to the party, always leave an impression that no one can forget… even when there are fewer pictures to memorialize it.

Report Cards: A History Lesson

So it begins again…

My sons received their first trimester report cards yesterday. My fourth grader’s sounded just like mine did, and I told him so. I feel for him.

I am pretty sure that every report card I ever got ended with “She’s such an intelligent girl. I wish she’d share her thoughts with the rest of the class.”

In Social Studies, his echoed mine 35 years later. “I would like to hear more from him” and “I know that he can offer his classmates some great insight.”

In Science, “He is a bright young man and needs to share his insights with the rest of the class.”

In Spanish, more of the same. “Although quiet, he shows a remarkable understanding…”

Ahhhh, history. It does like to repeat itself. Poor guy!

My First Visit to New Orleans

New Orleans has a mythic, magical reputation that mixes a rich, yet sordid, history with a vibrant culture. It evokes the image of Stanley Kowalski passionately, desperately calling for his wife Stella when she locks him out. And spooky, mausoleum-filled graveyards. And scantily-clad women tossing beads from iron balconies on Bourbon Street where revelers in masks play below. And streetcars. And gray Spanish moss haunting the trees.

Today, New Orleans still echoes of the devastating force of Nature, the Ninth Ward, and images of people young and old climbing out of the second story windows of their flooded homes.

Until last week, I had never been there. It was not, in my mind, a place to bring children. Our boys were not with us.

During the first night, as we walked down Bourbon Street, I was disappointed. I had romanticized the French Quarter, but it was trashy. Neon. A shabby street with a chip on its shoulder. People you typically see only at amusement parks happy at night to walk the streets drinking a flat Big Ass Beer through a straw.

It wasn’t until morning that I began to love the city. With the sun shining, the French Quarter came to life. Wonderful antique boutiques and hat shops. Restaurants with beautiful garden patios. Talented musicians playing their trumpets, trombones, drums and guitars in the street to crowds that included children and old men.

I ate shrimp at every meal. I drank good wine. I soaked up the sunshine.

The second night in the city, we discovered the small, crowded music venues on Frenchman’s Street: Snug Harbor, the Spotted Cat. As one band packed up instruments and divided their tips, we moved to the next bar where a second or third band was just beginning to play.

We took a private driving tour of the city and learned about its many neighborhoods and stories buried in the cemetery mausoleums. There was the second wife shunned by society whose towering burial monument says “I am here. We learned facts that those in the car had never heard before. Facts we Googled afterward to make sure were true. Facts that we thought might be fiction about free Negroes with slave quarters, some who owned more than 100 slaves themselves.

New Orleans does have its secrets and sad stories.

But I thought, as we investigated little pieces of history, that my boys would enjoy this learning adventure.

We went on swamp tour that was tremendously fun. The boys would have loved speeding along the top of the water, watching raccoons and six-foot alligators alike munch on marshmallows, spotting turtles sunning themselves on logs.

We went to the World War II Museum, which plans to triple in size in the next few years with the addition of an aircraft wing. It is a gorgeous museum, and the many two-minute oral histories throughout give it an emotional power that gives you a better understanding of what life was like for soldiers, women, and African-Americans before the war started… then during and after. It gives you a greater appreciation of Franklin Roosevelt and his ability to build a military that was only 18th in the world at the start of the world. I didn’t know that. The immense strength of people who came together with a single goal to win, to defend what they had even though it was not much coming out of the Great Depression.

Had my children come on the trip, I could imagine my ten year old listening to the oral histories and asking questions over the next few weeks. He also would have loved the antique weaponry and coin shop in the French Quarter with its many rifles, swords and centuries-old coins. He would have devoured the beignets at Café du Monde… as we did before wandering through the French Market and past the cathedral and Jackson Square.

The Roosevelt Hotel where we stayed had a rooftop pool with a bar. I longed to lounge the day away with a good book soaking in the sun before returning home where the boys’ homework piled up and it was threatening snow before Halloween. But New Orleans would not release me. Too much to do. Too much to see and learn under the living oaks that have witnessed much. Too much shrimp to eat and wine to drink and music.

Losing Our Names

Recently, a question was posted on ancestry.com, where people can conduct family tree research and build their record. The person wanted to know tricks for finding out the maiden names of her female ancestors, because she was hitting research walls where the women in her family were concerned.

Fortunately, the maiden names of my grandmothers and great-grandmothers and beyond seem to have been recorded. But as I thought about how important names are to people even once they are gone, I was reminded of one of my pet peeves – which now seems to take on greater importance.

I took my husband’s last name when we were married, after much debate, so that I would share the same last name as my children. I do not regret that.

I did not, however, give up my first name.

Why then are couples formally addressed as Mr. and Mrs. John Doe? I don’t know any women named John. I am not Mrs. John anybody. I mean, really, are we to be erased from history completely?!

I allowed my last name to fade. I refuse to give up my first.

In the name of preserving the history of women, we should start demanding that invitations, letters and official documents give us our names back. Emily Post and Miss Manners be damned!

My name is not John or Tony or Richard or Paul.

Family Tree

I have been working on our family tree lately through ancestry.com. On one side of the family, we cannot make the leap from the U.S. to Ireland. So we have no idea where in Ireland to look for our ancestors. Occasionally, you find another ancestry.com member who seems to have the information you are seeking. But then you find out that they don’t have any documents to prove their assumptions, and they actually borrowed from your tree to make the links they were missing. Turns out not to be the right fit. For example, my Great-Aunt Frances, who I knew well, never married and lived her entire life with her two unmarried sisters a few blocks from her brother (my grandfather). She used to play “Old Maid” with us when we were little, and when one of us lost, she would make us feel better by saying, “But I’m the real old maid!” But several other ancestry.com members have taken that branch of the family and linked my Great Aunt Frances in marriage to a guy named Frank Strom. That means that they have inadvertently meshed two totally distinct families, who may one day come together thinking they share the same blood. Not that that is a bad thing necessarily. Maybe further back in Ireland, we were linked anyway. Who knows? Anyway, this great search for family history may be in vain, as amateurs like me, use ancestry.com to make leaps that our own oral histories did not save for us.

Still, it is easy to become obsessed with trying to find that link, especially if you are someone who likes research and enjoys getting absorbed in little details. You can forget your to-do list or your worries when you are looking for the birth certificate or immigration papers for someone who arrived here from Europe in 1880.

But in this process, and looking at other people’s family trees that merely record names and dates and places, I realized that that information is not what any of us are really seeking. The thing to be spending time on is writing down any of the stories we know about family members living and deceased, so that the unique tale of our family gets saved somehow. It is the stories, with photos when we have them, that bring us to life. Not the data, or even the names.

My 9-year-old son said it correctly the other day. He had asked why so many people research their family trees, but answered it a few minutes later for himself…and for me. The wise soul said, “It’s because they have their family tree in their hearts and they want to write it down. It’s a way to remember their grandparents and great-grandparents when they are gone.”

So I have changed how I use ancestry.com to record my family history. I only save information if I can find supporting documentation that proves the link. And I am using the Comment section to record memories and stories passed along to me by my parents, aunts, uncles, sisters, cousins. If I don’t ever make that leap to some small town in whatever county in Ireland, it won’t matter. That was the point when I started. But I’v learned from my son what the point will be when I’m done.