Quarantine: What Does it Mean?

 I've been reading a lot of information, and seeing results on social media. Information about how the Spanish flu epidemic (as it was called in those days) was handled.

The most popular social "call to arms" concerns wearing masks.

They didnt legislate masks back in those days. People weren't forced to wear them.

While it is true that the federal and state governments weren't creating mandates on the issues, most towns and cities did make laws.

Rather, they enforced existing laws.

Back in those days, there were laws called Quarantine laws. 

If your household had a contagious illness (measles, diptheria, whooping cough, smallpox) public health officials came and posted a great big, very red sign on your door.

QUARANTINE by order of...

With that sign on the door, no one left the home. No one entered the home, or if they did, they had to remain throughout the quarantine period.

Doctors, nurses, and police were the only people allowed access, and even then had to follow strict routines, which included sanitizing. Sanitizing sometimes included complete changes of clothing.

Groceries and medicines were delivered to the doorstep. Neighbors could drop off gifts on the porch. 

Once they left, the subjects of the quarantine could bring in the deliveries.

There was no question of going to work.

There was no thought of going out to eat.

No one went to the park or the playground. In some cases, even the back yard was off limits.

People didn't protest this, although they grumbled and had the same worries we do today. Keeping job, paying rent, nor having machinery repossessed.

They didn't protest because they knew.

Infectious diseases were frequent, common, and deadly if the protocols were not followed. There were fatalities any time one of these visited a neighborhood, or a town, or a city. 

But the quick imposing of a quarantine could lower the deaths and limit any lingering impairment. Centuries of experience had proven this many times. And if it could be stopped in the neighborhood before it reached into the town, there would be even fewer deaths and disabilities. Everyine wins.

No one questioned it.

If anyone thought of their constitutional rights, they tended to focus on the one first mentioned. The right to Life. They knew the quarantine laws were the most effective defense of the right to life.

After the Spanish flu, we became more educated. 

We made new discoveries.

We discovered bacteria, viruses, antibiotics, and vaccinations.

We learned surgeries and therapies. Epidemics, renamed pandemics, were a thing of the past.

And

We forgot.

Time was proving out how much better off we were, overall. There were outbreaks of things, usually in strictly limited geographic areas. These were handled by the combination of better medicines and the routines of the quarantine programs.

We were smug.

We could handle it.

Until the day and the disease came and there was no controlled access. Everyone was going everywhere. With everything.

And the virus spread around the world. 

It's still spreading. 

So.

Do not share information without understanding it, if you can help it. 

Before you condemn proven effective actions, consider the history behind them and ask yourself in what ways things have changed and what changes we should keep and which are not working as we have hoped.

Above all else, remember that the right to life comes before the right to liberty.

Warren's First Year of World.

Tomorrow is Warren's last day of school for the year. The time flew by.

It has been a good, great fantastic year for him. Finally becoming aware of colors and shapes and numbers -- although we still have a long way to go with that one.

He still communicates uniquely -- that will likely never go away as it seems to run in the family. He uses his own made up sign language, a lot, but it's a lot easier to interpret when there's a color or a shape to go along with the sign! And, of course, there's the familiarity factor. (If he's ever telling you about the "red-blue, he's talking about the Food Court here in Mt. Orab. Why red-blue? It has red letters (that he calls numbers) and blue awnings.) But you'll only know that if you know him.


He was, in my judgement, about 18 to 20 months behind in speech and comprehension of 'things' (colors, shapes, counting). He's made up a lot of ground, closing the gap, again my uneducated but not inexperienced judgement, down to 9 - 12 months.
He's a smart boy. If we keep working with him, maybe he'll close the gap this summer. Or maybe he'll just learn at his own pace and in his own way. Maybe the challenge will be helping him accept his differences in learning and applying lessons.


As long as he keeps learning, we're all good.




And isn't that true of all of us? When we quit learning, we are in a world of trouble.

Define Holiday

It's Labor Day weekend.
The beginning of September. The unofficial end of summer. The celebration of the 40 hour work week and paid vacation time.
Time for one last family or neighborhood cookout; one last road trip; one last day of frivol.

Schools, which have been in session for half a hot month already, get a break. Kids have days off to be with their families and join in the fun.

Or do they?

In spite of the holiday, there are track meets and football games and who knows what all events. Buses and teams and roadtrips are now part of the experience. Labor Day is no holiday for parents, it seems. Life remains the same old same old hauling kids here, there, and in between. Parents have to work with schedules and timetables and agendas.
Children, freed from school for  long weekend, have to go to school,
They have to participate in school related events. (Or lose their standing and/or eligibility.)

Excuse me, schools and boards of education.
What constitutes a holiday in your eyes?
What makes a holiday weekend different for your students; what makes it a holiday?

Now, I have no objection to places that work on the holidays. At least, for the most part, they are being honest.

But I do object to the school's use of the holiday weekend where they say "Have a holiday, and we'll see you back here in three hours. And again tomorrow."

Of course, the actual holiday itself is Monday. The weekend is not the holiday.
Except, of course, for the families that have one last summer weekend planned.

That is, if their children aren't robbed of the time.

Snow Days

There's been a lot in the news -- and in the minds of parents -- about the 'excessive' number of snow days this prolonged snowy cold winter has been responsible for.

It's crazy. All the time and attention that the media and our lawmakers are giving to this consideration.
It's ridiculous.

The whole concept of education paid by the day is ridiculous. Children learn when they are interested, not between 9 and 3 on weekdays. Requiring so many days in a desk/chair is not, never has, and never will force learning.
Can you think of any other business where this is the model of operations?

I don't know the solution -- maybe not have school during January and extend it through June, before it gets hot.
We spend a lot of time teaching to the test (which isn't even a good test of learning) so maybe reaching year-end goals could be part of when to end the school year. Although that might require more real teaching than modern teachers are allowed to do.

Before modern times, school schedules were made at/for the families' convenience. In the agricultural society, school was scheduled around planting/harvesting times. Weather was also a consideration.

Above all else, the consideration was for our children. Too hot, too cold -- they stayed home. Roads unsafe, whether due to ice or floods or winds -- they stayed home.
Their health and safety was the vital deciding factor.

Not how many days they had been sitting in their assigned seat.

This is how we take care of our children?
This is how we "educate" them about what is important?

Now, some places figure their finances based on having so many seats filled for so many days. Nothing else matters in figuring costs and expenses. As well as the costs of schools being closed, and the costs of additional (unnecessary) day care, we can now add in the cost of legislating giving ourselves permission to keep our children home in inclement weather. There are no more important issues before our government. Death Penalty, Drug Wars, Bigotry, Hate Crimes -- our lawmakers are being paid to decide if we are allowed to use common sense in weather matters.
Why?
Because some bean counter says x seats = x dollars, and that's the way it is.
Because some statistician says "1 in 5" or "2 in 12 "or whatever numbers they can make do the tricks that push their platform?

I say, while they are wasting their time and our money over three to five days, why not take a long hard look at the whole 'requirement' system. And, of course, the way we pay for it.

Mammaws are Only Human, too (Even me)

Today, I feel like the worst Mammaw in the world.
Because the baby cried all night.
Because In  yelled at him.
Because I pushed  Hailey off him.

Because I am going to have to take them home early, and I never, ever want to take them home early. I wish they could stay, longer and longer. This is Hailey's last weekend/week to stay here as OUR  Hailey. Next week she meets the world; she'll be becoming a different child. (She starts school,)
I wanted this to be a long lovely time to enjoy with her.

But she's anxious about school, wants her mommy for every head-butting dispute, is weepy and whiny and singing the ABC song, incorrectly and incessantly.

The little guy is teething. Yes, young as he is. He has not one but two teeth just below hid gums and the pesty things won't come through. Poor little guy.  Mammaw can give him pain med -- not really a good idea -- and rub numb numb on his gums (very carefully) but all these things wear off way before they can be readministered.
He has chewed bigger holes in his nipples so now he drowns himself in milk and chokes. That is 4 nipples in about 36 hours.

Then there are the residents of my home. Rex is chronic, and Tracy is having a crisis. She's had intermittent gall bladder problems, and in this last week it's become constant. She went to the ER twice in the last ten days, but it's not quite bad enough for them to be able to help.

Took her to the doctor yesterday, kids in tow.
They were astonishingly good in the boring old waiting room for almost two hours. (Maybe that's why they had problems later on. They used up all their ability to be good.)

Anyway, Tracy is still in pain and trying to learn to deal with it, but in the meantime she wants cuddling and soothing that should be the babies' purview. (We all want our mommies when we're sick, even if they never really did anything for us. Such an odd facet of humanity.)

Anyway, the nine hundred bazillionth time I had to get up with Fussy Baby, in the wee small hours of the morn, I sat and cried with him in my arms.
When that didn't help, I put him in the playpen and I went outside on the porch to cry alone.

Baby Warren yelled at me, and I yelled at him. He can make quite an astonishing amount of sounds now.
It would have been funny if it wasn't so heartbreaking breaking.

I hope the little ones and their parents know if it were a necessity they could of course stay. That I would expect them to.
I hope they all know the little ones will always be welcome here and understand that some Times are just a little more difficult to live through.
I hope I hope I hope.

And still I feel like the worst Mammaw in the world because I am having such a hard time coping.

I feel so old and inadequate.

Crisis at Mammaw's house, I am ordering you to pass.
Mammaw just wants to be Mammaw again.

They Think You're Stupid

One of the worst things about not working has got to be daytime TV.

One of the worst things about daytime TV has got to be the commercials.

Lately, these seem to have gotten worse. Many of them sound like they are talking down to you, some just use bad grammar -- and bad English, too!
There are some, I'm sorry to say, that seem to be actively looking for stupid people as their main source of customers.

This may even be true; I don't know. Maybe that is who they look to for a customer base. How hard can it be to confuse stupid people and get their money,after all?

The worst offender, commercial-wise, is LoanMax. This is a company that makes title loans on cars. Their main clientele, I think, is people who can't get a bank loan, even using their car as collateral. Banks don't want to make small loans, for one thing, and for another, they don't like older cars.
Title loan businesses know two things banks refuse to acknowledge. 1)People will generally pay to keep their car when it's all they have and 2) if it runs, they will likely get their money back at auction, if it should go that far. Maybe not all their (outrageous) interest, but at least the original loan.

The procedure is similar to a bank loan.  You get a loan using the car as collateral. If you ever try to sell the car, you have to pay off the loan/lien first.

Loan Max ads feature a woman who was just so relieved she didn't have to give them her car!  She got to keep her car! Imagine that!
Lady, if you didn't get to keep your car, it would be a/k/a selling your car, NOT a loan. How the blankety-blank did you ever get a car in the first place?

There's also a man who can't keep driving on tires with 'plugs' in them -- I was told 20 years ago they don't make tires you can put plugs in anymore. If that's still true, this man is driving around on excessively old tires, and I don't want to be on the road with him anyway. (I could, however, be wrong and someone somewhere did figure out a way to make plugs for modern tires. In that case, I'm the stupid one.)
There's a woman who doesn't want to drive around on bad rotors. I guess she can't plug her tires anymore and has no wheels.
And there's a guy who got a loan to get tattoo training -- not so bad, but you'd think they might go for something classier in the eyes of society as a means of going into business. And a fellow who buys storage units at auction. Maybe he'll be on TV someday!

There's a lawyer who "Gets answers done." Okay, I want answers, and I want a lawyer who gets things done. I don't want my answers done.

Then there's one of those infernal schools, with one-class-a-month, or one-subject-at-a-time classes. These people are really annoying. It's too bad the schools have no better representations than people who can't speak properly.
These women have their dreams accomplished.
How the hell does that happen?
I (or they) can accomplish a dream, but the dream doesn't accomplish. This person needs to speak with the lawyer who gets answers done.

This woman also talks about how the school 'accomplished' or 'created'  "new dreams for me and new opportunities for mySelf."
Only you can accomplish or create things for yourself.
The school can create or accomplish things only for itself
Only I can do things for myself.

Do intelligent persons want to go to a school that doesn't see basic communication skills as a selling point?

Do you? Will you?

I don't.
I won't.

Not even to get away from the inanity of daytime TV commercials.

No Child Left Behind -- unless They Don't Pay

Another Graduation Season is drawing to a close.

Another lot of students is finding out that their achievements, their attendance, their grades, and their test successes don't matter.

Students are being refused their diplomas on a regular basis, for a ridiculous array of reasons.

And people wonder why there are so many dropouts? They wonder why the 'children' can't finish anything?

Let's take a look at the news stories from the last few weeks.

One young lady didn't get to graduate because she put a feather on her tassel.
Another was banned from the ceremony because she could not be at an after school practice -- she was needed at home, some tedious excuse about a younger sister and a working parent.
Others have had their diplomas withheld because parents didn't pay the school fees, because of unreturned books, because there were charged lunches not paid up.

Universities and colleges have for years been withholding degrees because of unpaid tuition.
Then private schools got in on the act. What a great way to punish deserving children for their parents' failures! Why didn't someone think of that before?

Schools have a right to make rules for their ceremonies. The young lady with the feather -- she should abide by the dress code for the ceremony, or be absent from it. Her feather was a symbol or statement of her heritage -- nothing wrong with that, except that it wasn't allowed, and she knew it wasn't allowed. This was not the time and place for such symbolism.
She should have been omitted from the ceremony for her noncompliance. If she somehow insisted on being in the Grand Parade of Graduates, when it came time to call her name, her name could have been skipped. She could get her diploma in the mail next month.

But to not get her diploma at all? After she had met any and all other qualifications for receiving it? What is right about that?

The 'graduate' who didn't come to rehearsal because she had home duties? She, and others like her, should be congratulated and encouraged. Yes, there are others like her. They have jobs, and sometimes other schools to attend, as well as family commitments.
These students are our greatest successes. They are working, they are learning, they are part of a team (family, classmate, work crew, whatever.) They make commitments and they are committed.

So why are they being punished? How hard is it to schedule a rehearsal during regular school hours? Even then, some work program and post secondary students may not be able to attend.
Maybe that's why. If they can't attend because of something done through the school, the school doesn't have the power to refuse/deny. The only way to get away with punitive action is to make it the student's fault.

As for financial matters, why punish the student for the parental failures?  Does anyone in Academia really think that a non-paying parent is going to be impacted by the loss of a diploma? Is it going to affect the ability of the parent to attend a good college or get a higher paying job? Or any job at all?

The universities and colleges that have followed -- or perhaps started -- this policy should consider that they are more likely to get paid by someone who gets a JOB with their DEGREE. They are much less likely to be paid by someone who cannot find employment because of their UNFINISHED DEGREE.

Lower classmen who have seen their siblings, cousins, and friends treated in this manner have no respect for the process. It doesn't mean you are a good student. It doesn't mean you learned anything. It doesn't even mean you passed the meaningless tests.
It means that "They" will find some way to prevent you from getting what is yours, so why bother? Why try?
Drop out now before "they" can steal your victory.
Drop out now, before they punish you for having real life outside their walls.


"No Child Left Behind" was the motto for teaching to the test, for a generation or so of grading schools and rating teachers for things other than true education.

What it has evolved into, these days, is "No Child Left Behind" except those who can't pay and who can think.

Is there really anything new about that?

Twistered

The pictures coming out of Oklahoma at this moment are horrifying.To me, they seem to be worse than Joplin and Branson, and more akin to our little Ohio town of Moscow that was so devastated not much more than a year ago.

I am looking at Moore, Oklahoma. Houses, stores, all piles of rubble. Twisted steel beams, and not much else to show structures.
A shopping mall.
The piled-up drawing the most attention, the newscasters are telling me, is the school. Or what's left of it.
Where are the children?
No one is sure, at the moment. No one even knows, for certain, if they were taking shelter there, or if they had been moved/moving to a safe area.

Oh, dear God, where are the children? Where were the children?

My heart breaks for the parents, the children, the townsfolk. They've lost their homes and their other places -- all devastating. But the loss they are rallying around is the missing children.

Moore, Oklahoma has their priorities straight. I hope they are rewarded for that.

This tornado was awful, awful, awful. The damn tornado itself looked more like a mushroom cloud, and that's what the aftermath looks like, too.

How can any town, any city, any family be prepared for something like this? The best one can do is hope shelter works, and hang on tight. If you are outside the situation, ad I am, you can care, and cry, and you can start deciding how to help, even before it's over -- and it's not over yet, there are more of them right this minute
.

I mourn for and with those on the spot, even as I am grateful that none of mine are there.
But they could be. Oh, yes, they could be.
I want to help these as I would want to help my own. It is only luck, and a few miles, that it isn't. It still could be. If not today, then tomorrow, or next week, or next decade.

We haven't figured out tornadoes yet.
Even when we do, it's going to be a long time before we can actually do anything about them.

If they head your way, please, please -- get safe. I don't want to see videos from you. Is that what you want shown at your funeral?

I want you to be safe.
I want Moore Oklahoma to find their children.

Bull about bullying

It's wonderful (?) to see the advertising about stopping bullying. It really is.
It's just too damned bad none of them offer any advice worth the breath
Every one of them starts -- and usually ends -- with the words "Tell an adult"

Ha! Haha! Hahaha! Fill this page with a maniacal (as in maniac) laugh.

If telling an adult was a solution, bullying would have been stomped out a long time ago.

Adults want proof, and witnesses. Most bullying happens away from witnesses, on purpose.

Adults, especially within the school system, don't believe beat-up and defeated kids. They just don't. You have to be 'famous' or pretty or well-dressed to have any credibility in the eyes of the authority. And if you are the big star or the beautiful one, you could not possibly be the one doing the bullying.No athlete has ever thrown someone into the wall, no pretty girl with pretty clothes has ever dumped the books of the smart ones that are ordinary looking.

The anti-bullying campaign is a good thing. I'm not arguing with that. But there need to be new solutions.The current 'solutions' are what has allowed bullying to become as out of control as it is.

Tell an adult, yes. But tell an adult from somewhere else. If you are being bullied at Red School, go talk to someone at Green School. And then Blue School. You'll get the same no

"no proof, no witness" speeches, but an outside source is more likely to write a report, or make a phone call in a professional capacity. No pats on the shoulder and instant dismissal of the very notion.

And cyber-bullying? Well, if no excuses, no tolerance became the standard -- if ALL our children were held accountable for ALL their behavior -- if there were CONSEQUENCES -- there'd  be a lot less of that.

Parents and principals -- quit making excuses.
You are the guilty ones; you are too blame. Children are children, or at last start out that way. It is you who create the monsters by closing your eyes.

It is NOT the victims' job to prevent the crime. 

Back to the schoolroom

It's back to school time, and the news is out. All over the broadcasts are good schools, bad schools, charter schools, school levies, buses, teachers, backpack programs, and a lot of discussions. Most of the discussions are about costs.

Anyone who thinks free public schools are free hasn't gone to one for more than two generations. When I was a child, we had school fees every year  to pay for workbooks to go along with the textbooks. These workbooks were not and are not optional. There are more programs today than there used to be to help parents pay for them, but that's not the point.
The point is that free schools aren't free.

There's been discussion, too, about the school year. About the whole school year concept. The September-to-May concept is fairly recent .  School, in my lifetimes, started after Labor Day and ended by Memorial Day. Many things have happened to change that -- standardized Monday holidays, for one thing. Memorial Day isn't the 30th of May anymore.

The school year somehow changed into a certain number of days in school instead of a season of education. I have a lot to say about this ridiculous concept. My daughter had to make up absent days one year by going to school during her Christmas vacation. She didn't have to learn anything -- she wasn't making up tests, or reviewing chapters she missed due to her injury. She just had to have her butt in a seat at the school building, so they could have the requisite numbers of students on the minimum number of days.

Education is not the goal of school. Attendance is.

Some of this -- most of it -- is due to funding formulas. #of students, multiplied by # of days = $$$. Never mind the learning. No child can learn in 52 days, they absolutely need to have 53 days. It's the law.

It's the law.

Schooling should never have been made a matter of law.
Once it was a matter of law, it should have remained a matter of local law.
Not state.
Not Federal.
Not run by dollar dictators who want only a return on their investment.

To get that return, they turned to athletics. The games children play at recess for fun have become big business and are the secondary purpose of having school.
Again, if you think school athletics are about equal opportunity, you haven't been living in the real world. All sorts of personal gear and equipment have to be purchased. One year it was name brand shoes decided by the coach, because they were best and safest. Problem was, the shoes cost more than the monthly electric bill. Without the proper shoes, the students aren't allowed to play.

Doesn't sound very free or equal to me,and kids have always been pretty good at playing games without help. Just because the town council can get a cut of the gate and the state can run the concessions doesn't seem to me a sound educational platform.

It's back to school time.

At least we don't have to worry (too much) about what's required of us or our children. All we have to do is make sure they get there (Attendance) and encourage them to play games (Athletics.)

That's what school is all about.

What I Wanna Do

What I really want to do is what everyone (well, working everyone) really wants -- my own business. I could have a nice little niche business -- but it would work so much better (Translation: make more money, interest more people) if I lived somewhere else.
Not that I couldn't live here and commute, as so many, many people do, it's just that IF I'm going to have my own business, I'd expect to have it on my own terms.

Ideal terms would be to have a big ol' house, and the business could be in the front rooms. I'd have a big picture window for displays and for light inside, and inside there would be dimmer areas, for computer work and desk work and things of that nature.

My business is a "Writers World". For profit and pleasure, I'd sell office supplies -- papers, inks, pens, pencils, posterboards. For pleasure, I'd have Book Nooks and Reading Rooms, with coffee and maybe vending machine type snacks. I'd like to offer sandwiches and stuff, but that would be too much starting out. There are necessarily more complicated health and safety standards when selling made to order foods. So, I'd start out with packaged foods. People could pull up a chair, curl up on a couch with any Recycled book from the shelves, tables, or baskets.

Of course, they'll be able to buy the books if they want to. Or trade them. I expect the books to be the real draw for most of my customers.

I'll also have a 'business center' for people who want to work on computers, or draw at desks. Maybe a few phones -- probably not pay phones as I once envisioned -- for those who need to use a public phone of some sort. There are so few, and still a need for them for a few people. It wouldn't be difficult to include a few within an established business. It would be good for those needing this service to have a place to sit and a desk or table top where they could spread out their paperwork and write down their notes from the calls.

I'd have a children's section, and mats, and maybe a play area -- I'd have to check local laws on that. I won't be a babysitter at my business, but I love having kids around as long as someone else is responsible for them. I'd have books for them, and easels and crayons and miscellaneous creative stuff, because kids should have fun. I'd probably need "Not Responsible" signs, and maybe waivers, and would still need an exorbitant amount of liability insurance anyway. (Or I could 'take my chances'. That's usually not a good business option.)

And I'd have a selling section -- I'd sell handmade stuff and arts&crafts and self-published books and even secondhand stuff. I'd have to be careful there, because I could turn anyplace into a Hoarder's Haven with secondhand stuff. I hate throwing usable things away. I'd sell this stuff for a percentage, so I'd probably have a decent chance of making money -- or traffic -- with that aspect.

Lacking the big front rooms, I could rent a storefront. There are plenty of storefronts empty here in town, but they aren't for rent, and, at this time, I couldn't afford them. Doesn't stop me from looking and wanting and wishing, though. That blue house would be perfect. One window for books, baskets, and chairs, the other window for the best of the crafts and clothing.

That's what I ultimately would like to do.

For now, I would be happy to find a flea market close to home where I could sell my recycled books and 'stuff'. They are all too far away and possibly too expensive, especially after adding in gas and food and drink.

But that's what I want to do, and how I think I could start. Would you like to be my customer? I'd love to have you as one.

Little Girl Gone (Home)

Last night was difficult for me. I took my granddaughter to the library with me, then took her back home to her mommy.

This is not the usual order of things.  Usually, if I pick her up at her house to go to the library, I take her home with me. It's not anything we talk about, it's just how it works. It will only work that way for another year, at best. Next August she will turn five and have to start school.

"I want to go home with you," she said. She said it when she first got in the car. She said it when she got back in the car after her sojourn at the library. She said it when I pulled up in front of her house.

I hugged her and kissed her and hugged her again and just kept saying "Not this time. Not today."


When I got home the first thing my husband did was look for her. Then he asked why she wasn't there. Then he proceeded, throughout the evening, to tell me how much he had been looking forward to her.

I feel like I let them both down, badly. I hate to do that. Like I said, too soon I won't be able to bring her along as often. (Although I do hope we will someday move closer so it won't be as much a problem.)

Too soon, I'm afraid, her pappaw won't be able to enjoy her company.

I already know it will be too soon that he probably won't be able to be there foir her.

Have I cheated them both out of a memory-making moment?

Well, every moment should be made for memory, although we'd all have our heads so stuffed full of the past that we'd have no room for thoughts of the future, if we all lived that way.

Maybe, just maybe, the next visit will be more cherished because of the visit that wasn't.

Or perhaps we'll sneak off from our ordinary life and pay a surprise visit to her.

Hi now, Kai-lan, and Exploring with Dora

It's been a long time since I paid much attention to children's programming. Now that my granddaughter is watching it with attention, I'm paying more attention, too. (Because she's never watched anything in my care that I haven't also watched.)

Nick Jr is her channel. Not too much wrong with that, as this child also has a healthy interest in going outside and reading, writing, and 'darwing'. A lot of kids don't, but that's another story.

 Most of the shows are okay. A (very) few are brilliant. Some of it I don't get, but since I'm not its target audience, I'm not too worried about that. Should probably be more worried if I 'got' all of it.

Nick Jr tells parents (or whomever) what the show teaches. Interesting, but not as interesting as what the children -- or at least this child -- learns from it.

Dora the Explorer is supposed to teach all kinds of stuff: counting and Spanish and logic and colors and following instructions. Never mind the Spanish. What Dora teaches, apparently, is that there are different words for the same things. At 18 months, my little one watched Dora, and when Dora had to go across the river and through the forest, Hailey told her she had to boat the water and go in the trees. All English, but completely different words.

This week, Hailey applied the lessons from Ni Hao, Kai-lan, a show that also teaches bits of Chinese. When Mammaw got mad, she observed that Mammaw was mad, thought about what Mammaw was mad about, and decided Mammaw needed to CALM DOWN.

It was a little much, though, when she instructed me to sway back and forth, back and forth in order to do so.

The question I have is how will this work once she goes to school (months away if she can do preschool; only a year away for kindergarten) That swaying back and forth thing sounds like an invitation to mockery to me. Maybe not, if the children are all of an age and all watch the same programming -- or if they are programmed by teachers to do this. (Can't you just see a roomful of four-year-olds swaying back and forth, back and forth every time one of them has a tantrum. When would any teaching get done?)

But it troubles me, and I don't know how to address the problems. On the one hand, observation and application are good things. It's really great that a preschooler can understand you can be mad without it being their fault, or that a river is made of water and a forest is trees. On the other hand, the coping strategies should be private and somewhat internal, or they are invitations to misunderstanding and mockery.

The underlying message is the same as it has always been. The shows are a tool. The real learning comes from the family and from daily living. Know what your children are watching and let them talk to you about it. They are learning and they want you to tell them what's right for your family. And even that it's okay if it's different for others.
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It's all good, as long as we're ALL involved.

Lesson Learned.

I recently saw an online ad for classes about alternative medicines. This is a subject I've long been interested in, and the thought of online classes is -- kind of interesting, especially now that I'm not working, and my husband's no longer in a health crisis. So, two weeks ago, I signed up for info.

When I signed, I did see that I had to give the school permission to call me, and that was okay. I might have questions for them, once I reviewed their online programs or looked at their literature. Follow-up phone calls are a fine thing, in most cases.

Oh. My. God.
What a mistake that was.
Not just a small mistake, either.

I have gotten phone calls.
And phone calls.
And phone calls.

Since 12 noon yesterday, until 12 noon today, I have had twelve phone calls from one number. This is after I put the number on the reject list because they have not stopped calling daily for two weeks. The calls started immediately, and have not lessened.

I have not received one e-mail from any of these schools. (Apparently there's a list of affiliates with a variety of courses, although I was applying for specific classes.) I have not received any type of information other than these incessant psycho calls. (Seriously, if these calls were being made by an individual to an individual, they would be considered psycho calls.) No e-mails, though that had to be on the sign in. No pamphlets in the mail, although mailing address had to be included.

Just phone calls.

Sorry, Ashford University.
Sorry, Kaplan College.
I don't care for the way you do business. So, I won't be doing business with you.

I do not need financial aid until I've decided when I want to take classes and what classes I might want to take. I won't know what those classes are until I see what is offered. See. With my eyes. So I can look and consider, re-look and reconsider.

I want information about what I'm interested in, not about everything else that's out there in the world. I know there's a lot of good interesting stuff out there. But I signed up to find out about a specific field, not the whole world.

If I want to hear from you, after I've seen what you have to offer, I'll call you.
Don't hold your breath.