Czech Cooking, Phonics, and Breaking Free

1.) Strangers in the Field 

I've written before about what it's like living two hours away from the border with Mexico-- the current border crisis, with all of it's human suffering and pathos, sometimes ends up literally in your backyard. 

Well, it came into my backyard again (not literally my backyard, but the field next to my house). I did a short write-up on it earlier this week. 

Please pray for the people desperate enough to try and come into the country this way, please pray that our government handles it wisely and justly, please write to your congressman and ask them to push for easier work visas, and please give to organizations that assist these people. 

Desperate people do desperate things, and are WAY easier to abuse and take advantage of. In the order of basic Christian charity, we need to be doing all we can to make their situation less desperate. 

2.) Pumpkin

Little Boy's school is asking the kids to do a "pumpkin book report" where they decorate a small pie pumpkin ("your student must be able to carry it themselves") as a book character and then do a little write-up on what book they chose and why. 

So I bought him a pumpkin and he drew a pretty passable Junie B. Jones face on it with marker. I actually drew out some face parts for him and he colored them in (I was thinking he could paste them on the pumpkin), but he really wanted to draw it himself. 

It was one of those, "let the kid do the project himself" moments that you hear about on parenting blogs, children's television shows (please tell me I'm not the only person who has that show lodged in their psyche), and mother's groups. The parent finds themselves in a situation where they have to choose between letting the kid do something less than perfect and hijacking the project themselves. 

I've had to actually consciously make that decision now, so I guess I can consider that a milestone. Hopefully I manage to pass that test the next time too- we're doing the write-up tonight. 

3.) Homeschooling Lite 

I finally bit the bullet and started doing regular school work with Little Girl. We have a Hooked on Phonics curriculum from the late 90's I lucked into at the thrift store (turns out you can still buy cassette tape players on Amazon!), and I'm starting the first book from that with her. 

So far, so good. We've tried a couple of different times now to get her started on it but it's taken her awhile to get to a point where she's actually ready. She's WAY more of a tactile learner than Little Boy is, so what I usually do is take the lesson out and then use some letter magnets to have her form the word as we read it. She's enjoying that approach and I think it's sinking in. 

Now to be consistent with it...

4.) Tone Deaf Speaker

Chris came home angrier than I've seen him in a long time the other day. 

Someone invited a speaker to come talk to the students at the high school where he works. The speaker was an accomplished Hispanic woman (her family immigrated from Mexico in the 1940s) who had a very successful career as a teacher, administrator, and superintendent of a school district. She was made a superintendent in her mid 30s, so she was evidently extremely good at what she did. 

 The student body is almost overwhelmingly Hispanic at the school- about 80% Latino. They're also primarily poor or blue collar kids. Some students live in shacks with no running water or electricity, or with missing windows covered only in blankets. Many of the students also come from broken homes: they've never known their father, or are being raised by a grandparent or other relative. Many of them lead pretty difficult lives, and a lot of them don't go on to college, but to blue-collar type work that they take great pride in and get certified to do through the local community college. 

I say this to give you some context, so you understand why when the speaker said things like "You should really go to somewhere like Stanford rather than a state school" and "You really shouldn't have any kids before you turn 30" and, my personal favorite, "I have a good job, so I give my grandchildren $300 for their birthdays. Who gives you money for your birthday?", it didn't land too well. 

The copies of her novel that she handed out, which featured an aged protagonist that got pregnant as a teenager then promptly got stuck in a dead end job as a maid while raising a son who leads a troubled and ultimately failed life, and witnesses the death of all of her dreams and realizes her whole life has been a complete waste, didn't land too well either. One student gave her copy to Chris and told him, "I don't like this book. It's a 'pregnancy is bad' book." 

Chris said he heard from the students all day that they really didn't like the speaker. What seemed to especially stick in their craw was that this highly successful woman had done many of the things she was telling them not to do. She'd gotten married and had babies young.

"Sir, it really doesn't seem to be her place to tell us not to do the things she did when she's got this great life." 

"My mom had me when she was 15, and she turned out ok." 

Chris tried to counteract it a bit by telling the kids, "You shouldn't let people limit you. You can follow your dreams, even if they include having a family young." 

So, pro-tip to anyone out there invited to speak at a school in a poor area. Maybe do some research on what the life of the students in that area is actually like, and keep in mind that there is nothing in the world wrong with not having dreams that don't involve academia and professional accolades. 

Telling students they can reach for the stars and have big dreams is a good thing. Telling them their dream is trash if it doesn't look like yours is not. 

5.) Cutting the Cord 

I know I gripe a lot on here about trying to manage my social media activity. 

Well, I finally got fed up enough to retire my personal Facebook account and delete the Instagram app from my phone. 

I'm still posting blog stuff on my professional FB page, but only through the Facebook Business Suite, so I ONLY see stuff from that page. No feed or notifications from my personal account whatsoever. 

It's been a couple weeks so far, and I am MUCH happier. My anxiety is down, and I feel less like strangling something by the end of the day. It has been an adjustment not using it to self-soothe when I feel overwhelmed, and I'm still trying to find good things to fill that void (I'm using YouTube way too much now, so that's probably the next thing that's going to see some cuts). But I think it's worth it overall. 

6.) Church Cookbooks 

My mom found a cookbook compiled by a Catholic Czech fraternal organization the other day at an estate sale and let me borrow it to copy some recipes. 

Reading it is WAY more interesting than it has any right to be. It's just so eclectic. You have recipes for things that involve a tub of sour cream and an envelope of Lipton's soup and other recipes that are made from simple, unprocessed ingredients, have very Eastern European sounding names, and were obviously handed down as family heirlooms from generation to generation. 

So, in my copying, I've copied a recipe for "Frito bars" (Frito corn chips coated with a mixture of corn syrup, sugar, and peanut butter, pressed into a cookie sheet, and then drizzled with melted chocolate) as well as a detailed recipe for kolaches that includes directions for five or six different fillings, all made from scratch. 

It's a bit like witnessing a cross section of humanity, but only in the kitchen. History and tradition mixed with absolute kitsch and packaged in a book. 

7.) 3 Vintage PBS Kids Shows

If anyone's been looking for stuff to show their kids that's decent quality, not on a streaming service you have to pay for, and has at least some educational value, there's a surprising amount on YouTube. 

I remember watching all of these on PBS as a kid. Part of being in a cheap homeschooled family was a strict ban on cable. When we went to hotels, we all got excited because we could watch the Discovery Channel. 

Yeah, we were nerds. 

Anyway, here's some good kids' shows. 

The Bearenstain Bears 

Redwall (just like the books it's based on, probably more appropriate for middle school kids)

Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat 

See the rest of this week's takes here