Thinking about bullying

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We talk about bullying–sometimes called social aggression–pretty much. The Parent Education calendar includes an upcoming conversation, “Helping our Boys Find their Way: Boys and Relational Aggression” with social worker Bob Blazich on Dec. 3 at 8:30 in the MS Dining Room. (Note change of location)

Early in November, Jon Hisgen from the DPI talked about bullying on our webcast, Parents as Partners.

I asked Jon, “Is there really a bullying problem in today’s schools?” His response is noteworthy:

“In my life, I look back at my teaching career and say, ‘What were things I did as a teacher that were power and control like over students?’ I’ve pondered this forever since I’ve been involved in this whole issue, because I think there is a component that we all have in looking at how we respond to others that could be detrimental in our relationships to others. I think that there are teacher bullys, there are administrator bullys, sadly enough, there are parent bullys, both their own children and the school system as well.”

“We need to look at our own behaviors as teachers. . . . We need to look at parents in terms of this issue of maybe modeling some questionable behavior in terms of bullying-like behavior themselves.”

I’m hoping I can use Jon’s approach when thinking about bullying in our community. Look in the mirror. Ponder how I’ve used power and control over other people. Recognize that, like all people, I’m capable of behaving in ways that are detrimental–hurtful, controlling, just plain mean–to others.

If I expect this behavior from my children, I have to expect it from myself first. Then, I have to expect it from the adults around me. This approach, I hope, will go a long way toward contributing to a bully-free community.

(Bob Blazich’s session is geared toward parents of boys in 4th-8th grade. Wondering about girls? Let me know!)

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P-O-R-T-A-L is not a four letter word

‘A Dame’s School’  We’ve come a long way . . . .

Originally uploaded by National Media Museum

Ah, technology and its promises. Ease of use, improved communication, anytime-anywhere learning and living.

What? You’re not buying it?

First, let’s review how a typical family with a child in each division might be using “technology” to participate in the USM community over a 24 hour period. (Okay–so it’s my family.)

10th grader: Check the English Literature blog, the Western Civ blog, the Facebook group on Latin 2, the portal for homework updates, do a webassign for Chemistry, and do vocabulary sentences on the Sophomore English wiki.

6th grader: Check the portal for homework (compare to assignment notebook), enter answers to History on e-Learning site blog, re-enter the answers to History on e-Learning site forum, check French wiki (after Mom reminds you) for assignment, check out lunch for tomorrow.

4th grader: Check portal for homework (compare to assignment notebook); attempt to sign on to GoogleDocs via Google, attempt to sign onto GoogleDocs via portal; beg mom to send email to teacher so you have work for weekend.

Mom: Check portal for all homework, be sure to check French wiki, read sophomore English blog (What? I used to teach high school English!), download US announcements, email Frau Jaeger about school picture order form 10th grader forgot to bring home, check 6th grade History site, check portal for grade comments, read Friday Folder/Friday Footnotes/US Update, read email from teacher about GoogleDocs, . . . .

Dad: What’s a wiki?

I’m guessing, given the number of kids on Mr. Matera’s site last night and the note home from Mrs. Ptak about GoogleDocs, and the extension of Mrs. Kendall’s composition assignment last week, and [insert your story here] that there are still some kinks to work out in “extending the learning experience out of the classroom and into the home.”

Still, I thought it was pretty cool when my 6th grader did the take home quiz for History online. And, you know, it’s nice to have some window into what my 10th grader is doing in school. It’s great, too, that the 4th grade class is learning about GoogleDocs now–saves paper AND reduces lost papers.

So, learn your portal user name and password, set up your NetWildcat account, maybe even update your profile (Really–you have a profile waiting to be updated on the USM portal).

Most of all, be patient. And see what you can learn about USM and what our children are learning.

USM Community Opens with words of kindness

I’m a sucker for a tradition, so I didn’t want to miss this year’s opening day.   The weather cooperated this year as students from all three divisions gathered around a podium outside the Upper School entrance.

The opening ceremony is a time to kick off the theme for the year.  This year’s Common Trust emphasis is Kindness. Head of School Mr. Ghory has (kindly) shared his remarks with me so I can share them with you. I’ve invited the prefects from the class of 2009 to share their comments and I will post them as I receive them.

Here are some thoughts on kindness and the Common Trust from Mr. Ghory:

University School’s community is guided by the values of our Common Trust: respect, trust, honesty, fairness, and kindness.

Kindness is one of those values that is easy to recognize but harder to practice. Everyone knows how grateful and honored you feel when someone has been kind to you. Similarly, everyone can recognize the hurt in the eyes of a friend who has been treated unkindly. When I was a boy, I did not grow up in a school culture that explicitly encouraged kindness: politeness, yes; good manners, yes; but kindness? not really. The unwritten code in my boys school said that competition was constant, teasing was fun, and put-downs were a skill you better master.

Here you are in a school that is reaching for higher ground. We ask you to try pro-actively to be kind: to deliberately and thoughtfully reach out to other people. This is a school that wants you to be good, as well as smart; that wants you to be kind, as well as successful. Let’s make this a community where everyone (students, teachers, parents, and administrators) finds ways to support, rather than criticize; to offer the positive comment, rather than the negative remark; to boost another person, rather than draw attention to yourself. Let’s try to widen the circle around the table, not restrict it; let’s recognize that the newcomer or outsider offers something of rare value, the opportunity for us to grow. At the end of the day, you will appreciate those who were kind to others more than those who were out for themselves.

See a problem, round up a response

Ready to remove sandbags!

Much is being said about a younger generation and their “social entrepreneurship.” This group of high-energy, high output “Teach for America” types sees a problem and starts a non-profit. No doubt, the people social entrepreneurs serve will be better off for their efforts. Some of my best friends are social entrepreneur-types (or as a recent book described many of them, life entrepreneurs.)

Still, I’m sometimes exhausted at the thought that every challenge requires an all-out transformation of society. Some problems don’t need a sustained systemic response, a full-time Ivy League trained founding executive director, and Bill and Melinda Gates funding.

Some problems demand that you do something and do it in the present tense. And with some sweat.

That’s how friend Alice responded when her summer travels landed her on the shores of a highway-ending lake during Wisconsin’s June floods. There she saw Jefferson County residents tackling the rising rivers and creeks and decided that she, with access to both USM hockey AND football players, would organize two rounds of assistance.

Armed with a cell phone, Alice coordinated a trip in mid-July with the hockey players and just yesterday with the football players.

And that’s that. The Jefferson County sheriff and head of the county board (Thanks Sherry Schmeling!) might try to get some press in the local paper. But between that, and some follow up photos, we’re done. No grant reporting. No press releases. No board meetings. Just a little less work for Jefferson County residents and, we hope, a sturdy dose of perspective for our kids.

Range Line Valley Alamanc

I know exactly the moment I decided it was time to learn a little more about the eco-system in which I was living: standing in the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Arizona, I realized I knew more about the Sonoron Dessert ecosystem than I did my own. I didn’t even know the name of my own ecosystem.

Turns out I grew up in the Southeastern Wisconsin Savannah, the Wisconsin Till Plain subsection. I now live, just barely, in the Northern Lacustrine-Influenced Upper Michigan and Wisconsin section, Green Bay Till and Lake Plain subsection. What a mouth-full.

School is also located in my current home’s section. The dominant pre-settlement vegetation was northern hardwood forest, dominated by beech and sugar maple, with basswood and some oaks, including red, white, and black. From a conservation perspective, we’re a part of a major migratory bird corridor, especially for raptors and waterfowl, according to the United States Geological Survey website on the area.

I think I still know more about the Sonoron Dessert.

Madame Dupee has learned in her travels that Swiss children are both familiar with and caring of their surroundings:

. . . the more I talked with and spent time with Albert and his cousin, the more I realize what a commitment they feel to the beauty of their country. For example, when we were walking, Julian noticed a cloth that was lying on the ground in a pasture. Without hesitating, he ran to it and picked it up, and later threw it away.

Also, whenever I asked him what cetain flowers were called, he always knew the answer. I was so impressed with his ability to name each of the wildflowers that grew in his region- there were so many! I felt quite inspired to learn the trees and common flowers in Milwaukee when I return home.

The kids and I have visited the school’s garden, known as Karen’s Garden, both to lend a hand, to have a place to bike to, and to learn more about gardening in our environment. Last week, John helped Mr. Jacobs (a.k.a. our neighbor, Kip) with some of the gardening work. Next week, we’re the Garden Captains. We’ll learn a little about the weeds that grow here, I’m sure, as well as how our late harvest garden is doing. Our crop will feed students at school in the LS/MS and US Dining Rooms.

Finally, the kids and one of the neighbor boys flew kites a couple of weeks ago on a windy June day. I may not know the names of common trees and flowers in this corner of the world, but after a childhood of water and wind sports out on the lakes of Waukesha County, I’m familiar with the weather patterns over the seasons. We took over Ken Laird Field at school and the kids, using two news kites from their Uncle John, ran 100s of yards. The south/south-easterly wind kept them busy for almost two hours! (I wish I could figure out how to post the video from my cell phone so you could hear Elizabeth as she sang out, “WEEEEEEEEE!”).

Next time: Why does it matter that there’s buck thorn?

On the day you came home

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I’ve been following 5th grade teacher Will Piper’s blog, “Life with the Pipers.” Co-written with his wife, Jeni, they describe it as “the journey of parents of monoamniotic twins and our quest to bring our family home.”

I selectively show it to my son, Will and Jeni’s former student, John. Last week’s bedtime reading was Will’s post, “Delusions of Grandeur.” In it, Will compares his visions of bringing daughter Hope home by Father’s Day to the anxious fans waiting for the Brewers’ decision last year to bring up Ryan Braun at the right time.

Bedtime reading and Will and Jeni’s reflections on their experiences as new parents got me thinking about one of my favorite books, “On the Day You Were Born,” by Debra Frasier.

In poetic language, illustrated with colorful paper collages, Frasier describes an entire planet completely present to the arrival of the newborn.

While you waited in darkness,/tiny knees curled to chin,/ the Earth and her creatures/ with the Sun and the Moon/ all moved in their places,/ each ready to greet you/ the very first moment/ of the very first day you arrived.

The book describes the gifts of migrating animals, spinning earth, pulling gravity, flaming sun, glowing moon, glittering star, rising tide, falling rain, growing trees, rushing air, and singing people for the arriving child. Here’s my favorite:

On the day you were born/ gravity’s strong pull/held you to the Earth/with a promise that you/would never float away . . .

I loved reading that line to each of my children, hoping they’d feel that even the earth loved them so much that gravity held them with a promise that they’d never float away.

The story wraps up with images of people, turning cartwheels, singing:

“Welcome to the spinning world,” the people sang, as they washed your new, tiny hands.

“Welcome to the green Earth,” the people sang, as they wrapped your wet slippery body.

The welcome continues for Will and Jeni’s girls. And now we can all join the “singing people” in Frasier’s book, as Hope is ready to come home tonight. And we can consider the closing line of the story, and all tell Hope:

. . . as they held you close they whispered into your open, curving ear, “We are so glad you’ve come!”

Impressive teacher travels: More USM community blogs

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Madame Dupee (Lower School French teacher) is also blogging about her trip to France and Switzerland, where she will learn what French and Swiss children are like. I know when I talked to her about the trip in late spring, she wanted to explore her assumption that the French do a good job of communicating “French-ness” (my word) to their children and wanted to see first hand how they do that. This is from her first entry:

. . . my head is swimming with questions about what kids are like in France and Switzerland. What do they eat? What are their favorite books? What songs do their moms and dads sing to them at night? Who are their heroes, both past and present? What do they like to do at recess? So many things to investigate!

World Wide Web for you, number 1

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Check out two blogs from members of the USM community:

1. Chuck Taft’s Taft in the South blog, chronicling his trip through the deep south and his observations about the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. Be prepared to 1) learn and 2) be awed at the opportunities our kids have to learn from Chuck.

2. USM upper school student blog on their trip to Tanzania.

Here’s from their second post:

Why are we going to Tanzania?

Here is the story.

During the 2005-2006 School Year, the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) began this program to bring students and schools from around the world together to address global issues. Using the book by J.F Richard, High Noon: 20 Global Problems and 20 Years to Solve Them, NAIS framed a series of activities, then set the teams in schools to work on projects. They allowed schools to sign up in pairs or on their own and in many cases, assigned the global issue for teams to work on. You can read more about the program at www.nais.org/challenge2020. In the fall of 2006,USM signed up and was assigned two teams–one of them partnerd with International School of Moshi, Tanzania. We also got the task of poverty to work and study with our parnter school, and then implement a solution in our local areas.

And what are you doing today?

When you go the blog, be sure to click on the bottom to the “next entry,” to see additional blog entries. Otherwise you’ll miss our kids’ smart comments and observations about this extraordinary learning experience.

Enjoy reading!