Signs of Critical Thinking

Kids think quite a bit. They soak things up like little sponges. But sometimes young learning is very black and white. Last night, as we were getting ready for bed, Jordan & Mikayla were showing off their color blending knowledge.

"Red and white makes my favorite color, pink" says Mikayla.
"Blue and yellow make green" says Jordan.
"What colors make violet?" asks Mikayla.
"Blue & purple make violet, Mikayla. Violet is a purply blue" replies Jordan.

This continues through many color blends. Then Jordan said, "Red and white and purple make magenta".

Mikayla looked to me for confirmation, "Wow, JT! That was a hard one. You learned that at school."

"I didn't learn that at school and I didn't guess. I thought about it. I know purple and pink make magenta and red and white make pink. So, red, white, and purple make magenta."

I believe that may be basic algebra! His black & white learning has just gotten a little grey =)



Patterns

They teach kids patterns now. I must admit, I would get the notes home from school every week about what they learned. "This week we discussed AB patterns." I had no idea what the teacher was talking about. Is this what they call the new math, I wondered. It was just never described to me like that.

Jordan comes home and talks about what he learned and tells Mikayla. So she is learning right along with him. Mikayla had on a striped shirt and she said, "Mom, I have on an ABC pattern shirt." I looked, silver, light blue, blue, silver, light blue, blue. Sure enough she had on an ABC pattern shirt.

Then Jordan said, I have an ABCDEF pattern shirt. His sleeves had very thin clumps of stripes. Sure enough, I looked at each grouping of stripes and they were the same. It was an ABCDEF pattern shirt.


Sweetness

Jordan talks fondly about a lot of his classmates. But when he was asked to draw a picture and name his best friend, this is what he drew:

In case you can't make it out he says "My best friend's name is Mikala". That does a mom's heart good. I LOVE that they are so close!

Medicine at School

I guess it's been awhile since I was in a minor-aged school environment. Not to mention, times have changed (how cliche')! But, really , times have changed! I remember having my tin of Sucrets at my desk, chewing them one after another like they were candy when I was in elementary school. Yummmm...cherry Sucrets. In Jr. High & Sr. High I carried tylenol and the such in my bag for those rough days and I moved on from Sucrets to Luden's Cherry or Honey Lemon- call me a drug dealer!

Jordan has a bad, congested cough that sometimes is uncontrollable. I kept him home yesterday and attempted to make an appointment with his doctor. Of course, there weren't any appointments available. There never are! But I got that ever so helpful call back from his nurse. NOT! Where do they get some of these nurses from? When do we switch health care providers? Anyway, the over-the-counter Triaminic seemed to help a bit. So last night I went to the store, bought a new, sealed container of Triaminic chews. Jordan insisted on going to school today. He is a "Zero Hero" (meaning he has no write-ups or referrals). Today is the Zero Hero party. They get to watch Surf's Up and eat popcorn. I'd want to go to school too, I think.

So I take Jordan to school, equipped with a what-did-I-miss note to the teacher, a why-I-was-absent note for the office, his library book (he missed library yesterday and "You know, Mom, the Librarian said the books have to be back every library day or we lose our privileges. See this post), and his medicine. I knew I'd have to fill out a form. Ok, I had NO idea.

First of all, I had to wait until the super dooper security ID scan was completed for every volunteer or parent that was in the building. It really is a good system, but I think it's a bit much. They take your scannable, government issued picture ID, scan it, run it against some databases (I think the registered sex offender list is one of them), you tell them where you will be in the building, and then it prints out a custom visitors badge complete with your vital statistics. It's great, but a bit time consuming for those poor secretaries. Gone are the days of scratching their heads with a pencil, wondering what to do next. It's also time consuming to wait in line to acquire your badge...or worse, be the second person there and the 18th person to be helped. Wow, I'm ranting today. Sorry!

So it's finally my turn. I ask for the medicine form. I felt like I was going through a security clearance. Fill this form out in triplicate. Ok, I'm exaggerating. But here's the thing. It asks the basic questions - child's name, age, DOB, grade, teacher, the exact name of the medicine, why they should get the medicine, how often they should get the medicine, and duration. Then you have to sign the waiver. For the how much and how often, I wrote he could have 2 tablets every 4 hours as needed for cough, sore throat, runny nose beginning at 11am on 12/19 and continuing through 12/22. I guess they can't do "as needed". They need exact times. My first question is, then why do you pay a nurse if you can't do something as simple as a prn over-the-counter med? My second question is, then why don't you change your form to reflect the exact data you want? Anyway, it's done. Jordan will get medicine at 11 and 3 regardless of whether he needs it or not.

I get why the schools have some of this ridiculousness. They have been found liable in too many lawsuits. Freakin' lawyers and greedy bastard parents! But haven't they gone a bit too far? We have many of the problems in our society because no body is held accountable for their own actions. There is no sense of self responsibility. Then we foster that attitude by never allowing people to be responsible. Granted, I'm talking about a Kindergartner...but he should be able to have a sealed cough drop, clearly labeled, and be able to take it if he has an out of control coughing attack. Instead, they send him to the office to get a cough drop, or they send him home! Put a big, fat, black, permanent line through SCHOOL NURSE as one of my future job considerations! They aren't allowed to do anything except hold back hair for puking kids and call the janitor for that foul smelling saw dust stuff. Maybe it's the vomit that is foul smelling.

I'm done! This rant was prob. a little overreactive considering I pulled an all-nighter trying to make 130 treat bags for teachers and staff for their "Happy Holidays" for PTO after I got home from errand running and shopping at 11:15pm. Now I have a to do list with 122 things on it for the day. Oh, and I have to take care of 4 kids. Did I mention I didn't sleep last night? Oh, but I did try out my new Tassimo machine. The chai tea latte was yummy. Darin said the hot chocolate was good too. Just needed some whipped cream, which I didn't have.