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Hi all my fellow Orblears,
This is sadly my last post on Orble but it is with joyful reasons that I put my blogging hat in a box and adorn new ones.
Firstly, let me say that I’ve had a brilliant time writing for Orble. It’s been a wonderful opportunity for developing my writing, getting some feedback and reading some other fantastic articles and pieces of writing on fellow Orble blogs.
It’s been wonderful to meet some really like-kind people out there in virtual land and even to get me questioning my own beliefs on some issues along the way.
Thanks to all the ladies and lads out there who visited my site. Especially, to those who commented regularly (you know who you are.)
I’ll be sure to drop in and take a look at what everyone’s having to say in the near future but right now it’s just too much to juggle with everything else going on.
I finally received my formal letter of offer for my children’s book last week so it’s all systems go and I’m going to concentrate on this for a while. I also just found out baby two is on his or her way so time is becoming more and more precious.
Thanks again everyone, I’ve had a brilliant time!
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I’ve posted recently about how wonderful I think the Montessori system of learning is – the caring, considered approach to helping children learn to become independent and confident young people.
Well, this week my daughter took her first step into the Montessori classroom and what an awful shock I received. I looked at the school six months ago. The woman I will call ‘P’ was helpful, encouraging and seemed very genuine in her approach. She spent almost an hour talking about the school and showed great enthusiasm for the teaching approach and children.
It was almost as though I had stepped into a different place when we arrived on Friday afternoon for my daughter’s first session. Thankfully, the Montessori philosophy encourages parents to remain with their child for the first week or two so I was aware of exactly what went on.
Being the kind of conscientious, over prepared person I am, I arrived 10 minutes early for our first class, thinking it would correct etiquette for handing in our enrolment form and paying term fees. When I arrived I was met by P, who had always been so polite and helpful, in person and on the phone. But instead of being warmly greeted I was told by P that they only have a 45 minute break between sessions and this was there lunch break. My daughter and I were left in the foyer to ‘wait.’
Well, my daughter was extremely displeased at not being able to get started and head into the classroom. I took her out for a walk and we looked at the scrappy flowers around the garden, while I collected my own thoughts after this unexpectedly cold reception.
Eventually, once she had finished her lunch P took us up to the classroom. She explained my daughter could select a toy of her choice from the shelves. She went fine with her first activity and we placed it back on the shelf when she’d finished with it. The next one she chose was a large and cumbersome tray containing two glass bowls and beads. She was nervous about handling the large item so I helped her carry it. Well, I was told in no uncertain terms that she had to ‘do it herself.’
Next, my daughter chose a rather difficult activity that involved fine motor skills. With a pair of tweezers she had to pick up tiny beads and put them into the holes. She struggled with this activity and asked P to help her. P kept insisting she could do it herself and my daughter became more and more frustrated by the task (so much for the Montessori philosophy that children shouldn’t be expected to do a task they can’t easily manage themselves.) As soon as P moved off I encouraged my daughter to put them away.
P soon came back to sit on the opposite side of the table to where my daughter and I were working. Not having introduced herself or even spoken to my daughter directly she said, gesturing to P “what that one doing Mum?” I said, “That’s P….” P responded by abruptly saying that her name was P…. It took a lot to bite my tongue and not say, “Well, if you’d introduced yourself to her she would have known your name.”
Then there was the attitude towards the other children. The other Montessori directress named “M” also failed to introduce herself to my daughter and didn’t seem to interact with the children at all. One little girl cried as her mother quickly slipped out of the classroom. M took the little girl who had just been left by the hand and abruptly told her “there’s nothing to cry about.”
P and M quickly engaged in complaints about the behaviour of one of the boys there. Something like “it’s going to be a fun day with …” and a roll of the eyes about covers it. He was repeatedly reprimanded for refusing to engage in the activity he’d selected and was told that if he didn’t put it back on the shelf he couldn’t have any more toys. As it turned out, the boy’s mum explained he’d been very unwell and had a seizure the previous week. Mind you P and M spoke much more politely to the mother about her son’s behaviour than they had to each other.
Story time was like going to a funeral. The children were all expected to remain completely still and quiet while M read in a monotone voice. One boy’s enthusiasm over the story as he pointed at the pictures was quickly thwarted with a couple of pushes of his hand away from the book. My daughter was told to ‘shhh’ when she made a comment.
In Montessori style the children are encouraged to wash their own hands. After my daughter finished a pasting, I took her to wash her hands. As P had shown me she was able to do it all herself, which was wonderful. However, before fruit time all the children had to wash their hands first. That seemed reasonable and they all took turns. M began to get impatient pretty quickly though and began ‘moving them along.’ When it was still taking longer than she liked she started literally grabbing the children’s hands and roughly washed their hands herself. Just as my daughter had discovered she could wash her hands herself she was roughly handled and the washing was ‘done to her.’
On the way to the table for fruit, I noticed another child took my daughter’s pasting without her permission and was waving it around. As M and P made no attempt to sort this out I took the pasting from the child myself and my daughter and I hung it up to dry.
Harder to explain was the lack of warmth and caring that I would have expected in a Montessori setting. There was no laughter, chatter or interaction with the children. My daughter was not listened to or acknowledged. Being a very sociable girl, particularly with other adults, I noticed her dismay at being pretty much ignored and certainly not engaged with. My spirited daughter had entered the room with her joy and enthusiasm to be met with children who were engaged in isolated, structured activities. Yes, they were behaving beautifully but where was the light and joy? Where was the social interaction and enjoyment? Where was the ability for children to express themselves and feel happy?
To top it all off we left with the distinct smell of an unchanged pooey nappy. Oh, and I finally got to hand in my forms that P had forgotten all about. I know that not all Montessori school are like this as my niece had a wonderful experience under this system of learning, and it’s certainly not anything like what the approach promotes. Right now, I’m just feeling extremely disappointed and unsure of what to do from here. I guess I’ve just entered the world of having to accept, or reject, my daughter entering the world without me.
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I was thinking the other day about how dramatically writing for kids has changed over just one generation. Mine were the days of mostly Enid Blyton adventures. ‘The Magic Faraway Tree,’ and Famous Five being among my favourites. The language was very structured and formal. It was certainly an adult writing for children in neat prose.
Today’s children’s books seem much more daring and come out with the voice of a child rather than of an adult telling a child’s story. The language is short, witty, punchy and at times irreverent. References to bums, penises, farts and everything icky provide hilarity and fun stories. The writings of the Paul Jennings’ of today would have been banned a short time ago, but now they have gained huge popularity with kids, but are also well accepted by schools and parents.
Then there is the modernized revisiting of traditional fantasy. J.K Rowling tells such stories that are almost a today’s version of the Lord of the Rings of yesterday.
Gone are the days of didactic story telling, as the trend heads towards stories purely for the purpose of entertainment.
What were your favourite stories as a kid? What about today’s kids? What’s your take on books for kids today as opposed to a generation ago?
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There was an article in Saturday’s Herald Sun (11th August, 2007) about girls as young as eight to twelve being heavily into fashion, cosmetics and basically everything to do with personal appearance. Titled “The High Price of Primary School Chic” the young girls featured in the photograph looked like miniature teenagers, yet they were only 11 years of age.
The article described how girls that come under the new term of ‘tweens’ wear makeup, have facials, go to hairdressers just for kids and undertake modeling and grooming courses. The article said that some girls “as young as 12 even have their prepubescent bust measurements listed on modeling cards
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Yesterday I discovered that a gum nut is the perfect fit for a two year old’s nostril. Princess Toddler has recently discovered the joys of bodily orifices, in particular the nose. Since finding out about this hole she has spent many joyful hours sticking her finger up one nostril, or two nostrils, or both. It stands to reason then that she came up to me late in the afternoon and said, with a huge degree of pride in her effort, “Gum nut up ‘a nose Mum.”
But she was soon to discover, as was I, that sticking a gum nut up your nose is not a pleasant experience. As I stared up her tiny nose the gum nut was clearly visible. Thinking it would be easy to eject, and thankful that my fingernails hadn’t gone the chop yet, I stuck my finger up her nose and tried to flick it out. But as it turned out a gum nut up the nose makes a very firm and snug fit inside a young nostril. Not beaten by this gum nut yet, I tried my little finger. No movement. I tried getting her to blow her nose like she does into a tissue but instead Princess Toddler sniffed and only made the gum nut become more firmly wedged up there
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Helping those less fortunate than myself was something I had always wanted to do. So when hubby and myself had accumulated our annual leave, and as two full-time workers with no kids at the time, it seemed the natural answer to our time off. “How about we go and do some volunteer work overseas?” I suggested to my husband as we discussed countries we might like to visit. At the time it seemed a casual remark, one I thought may be brushed aside as we went on to peruse some glossy brochures. But my husband was keen on the idea. I raced onto the internet, looked up some volunteer organizations, and found myself signing us up for a six week stint helping out in an orphanage in Nepal. It is hard to sum up all our experiences in a post, but I thought I’d highlight the topic of my blog here, and the primary aim of our adventure – the children.
Children in the Village
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Two Australian men have been killed in a bomb attack in Iraq (full story here). They were employed as private contractors by a security firm to help train Iraqi forces.
Both men were well qualified for the job; a former soldier and a former policeman. What’s more, the assignment had attractive prospects, with $US130,000 to $US170,000 as an annual salary. The only catch being, they were in the middle of an increasingly volatile war zone. Weighing up the salary over the risk involved, maybe it seemed worth taking the chance, but at what cost? Both of the Queensland men had families: one with two young children, the other with a three-week-old baby whom he will never meet
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Mums are caught in a conundrum. Taking a toddler shopping is akin to walking into a land mine site yet the groceries need to be bought, and the other necessities of life. When I first experienced shopping with a daughter who had just entered toddlerhood, I left exhausted and frazzled, with little more than a loaf of bread and three new singlets for my darling. I had entered a new realm of shopping. Unlike the baby year, where good timing was the key to successful shopping, taking a toddler along required a whole new level of skills. Negotiations over hopping back in the pram became necessary. Explanations over why she can’t take everything within reach home with her were needed – or indeed why she can’t touch everything within reach. Diversion tactics, patience and the ability to compromise became part of the shopping experience.
The land mines in shopping centres are many and varied. At first I wasn’t aware of where they all were, or what form they came in, but over time I felt I’d mastered it and have managed to actually enjoy our shopping adventures together. Pet shops are included in the itinerary, home wares shops are a definite no go zone, toy shops are reserved for when there is lots of time spare, post offices and news agencies require careful negotiation to fit a pram through and must be surveyed for boxes lying in the aisles upon entry
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On ABC radio on Saturday a piece was run on only children. It led me to wonder why there is so much focus on only children, as though it’s some disease or at the very least a serious disadvantage in life.
The term itself has negative connotations. I ‘only’ got one piece of pizza. If ‘only’ I had bought that house before the housing market boomed. The ‘only’ time I get to go to the movies is when the kids are with Mum
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There’s been heavy coverage in the media recently about the launch of a children’s underwear range that is, quite frankly, disturbing.
Kylie Minogue has put her name to a provocative line of children’s underwear, that is so adult in its design that it could more aptly be called lingerie. Hickory will sell the range through department stores such as Target
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Comment by Candice
on Goodbye Orble
Thanks! Good luck with your book, sounds like you're on the home stretch.