Saturday, June 28, 2014

Do you trust the environment?

How quickly we forget the many miracles that took place the 9 months we carried our offspring in the womb? There within that safe environment cells divided, the brain and spine took shape, limbs began to form and the first vibrations of the heart began to pulse out into the universe. What marvels me the most is how little we, as parents, had to do with such a critical period in our kids' lives. Maybe a change in diet, quitting a few unhealthy habits and strange behaviors such as speaking to ones navel.

Lots of peripheral learning!
Nature knows best after all. More often than not we try to think through the natural course of things by adding our 2 cents of conscious rational. We mess it all up; all with the most heartfelt intentions of course, but as I have come to learn over the years good intentions sometimes kill.

One on one time.
Second language acquisition is one of these areas that we try to puppeteer. I think we would be better off sitting back, letting nature runs its wondrous course. In the end it comes down to a basic idea: Do you trust the environment? Thankfully an alternative for the mother's womb has not yet been contrived. We trust it without really understanding it, anxiously awaiting the big day! But do we trust the environment where our kid and his miraculous brain is absorbing a second tongue?

Real life experiences.
Yesterday, in our weekly parent teacher meeting, a concerned mother asked me how much she should worry about repeating vocabulary with her 2 year old son at home. My answer was, "YOU BETTER NOT! No offense, but I won't be speaking Latinized-gringo-infested-mandarin to my sons when they finally get here in August." My wife and I trust that our move to China will allow them to pick up with ease their 3rd language. Just like when they learned Spanish from their cousins, friends and grandparents. The brain has a marvelous magician at work in the upstairs. Make sure to provide the right environment for them to thrive in which Caillou most definitely does. All that is left is to SIT BACK AND WATCH THE SHOW!


Saturday, June 21, 2014

To save a forest or sow a seed?

My buddy Paul Stoutenburgh from Earth Soul Productions just shot me over a new film that he assisted in creating with a non-profit called "The Borneo Project" out in Berkeley, California. In 11 minutes the film sharply presents impending displacement of 20,000 people from the mega-dam floods that will take place in Sarawak, Malaysia if the government follows through with the development plans.

Before you soak it all in I want to share a few thoughts.

I was blessed to mentor Paul down in
Esparza, Costa Rica at Amerikanoestudios.
We have been best friends ever since. 
I didn't always empathize with the displaced, although sympathy was always a steady stream. As a young teenager, the houses and communities being presented to these "unfortunate" people always seemed like a step up in their well-being. Those were the days where I knew not what it meant to be connected to the land. To know that your ancestors are in the rivers, the trees and the rivers. I had been educated and for several years now I have been trying to forget everything I thought I knew.

Without giving away the film too much, I want to bear witness to the tears that came streaming down my cheeks as the films' credits rolled followed by a concerned questioning of what the hell I did this week, obsessively trying to convey the wonders of the solar system to the 5 little planets I orbit here in Caillou Kindergarten. Is this where I am needed most? Should I go on sowing seeds when there is an entire forest in need? May the spirits continue to guide me.
Please watch and support: The Borneo Mega Dam Project.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

What should the future of reading look like?

Today, was our second visit to the Caillou Library in downtown Jinan. What a marked difference! Kudos to the whole team over there, the changes you made were great! 

Aunt Stephy met us at the door and warmly greeted each child as they came into the womb. As it is a custom here in the east, we all removed our shoes, put on some special slippers and gathered around in the central couch area for a low down on what a library is and the rules:

What is Caillou Library?
A magical place, but where not all can see her magic.

What are the rules?

1. Have fun discovering the magic in every page of every book.
2. Walk slowly and speak softly. Remember the floor you walk on is holy.
3. Put books back on the shelf.  Leave the place nicer than you found it.
4. Take a book to your house and bring it back.

Library Cards fit for K-kids
On our first visit all books had been signed out under my name, the teacher (Lao Shi). This seemed like a missed opportunity to create authentic writing opportunities. This week each of our kids was asked to write their own names and age in a kid-size space provided on their kid-size library cards. Those a bit more ahead in their writing development also wrote the name of the books they were signing out and the date.
Authentic writing upon each visit.

The process of fostering a culture of reading is in full motion. We understand that this is a long term investment. We are anxious to see the results of the decisions we are making with our kids but also confidently patient enough to allow kairology to have its say.

While the kids were fast asleep for their afternoon nap. I quickly jumped online and stumbled upon an engaging entry from one of the sites I follow on Facebook: The Literacy Site  It was a call to help fund a Kickstarter project to bring in the new era of READING RAINBOW. Needless to say my childhood memories flooded back with nostalgic jitters. What I found however was troubling to say the least. As for me, and many of us within the Originateve web of thinkers, we believe the future looks much like a far distant mostly forgotten past.

For now I will hold back any further on our thoughts...but I would like you to check out the  Reading Rainbow Kickstart Video and let us know what you think.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Don't Dumb it Down!

I have been an ESL Teacher for some 6 years or so (probably a lot less depending on your idea of what a "teacher" really is). A few things that have changed over the years, especially upon becoming a father to 2 bilingual children, is that when it comes to language acquisition, DUMBING THINGS DOWN is nooooooooot the way to go!

The temptation is always there though, I know it. Trust me, I battle with myself every time I step in a classroom. You know, wanting to speak in monosyllabic yes/no questions that even our dogs could bark back to. Mostly, I think we do this to feel understood. After all it's quite nice to be fed back an answer we comprehend, or a response we mostly expected, quite possibly even contrived, molded or enchained long before even tossing out our question in the first place. Or perhaps it is simply the urge we have as parents or teachers to be assured that learning has actually taken place. Those haunting voices can't only be spooking me, "You are wasting your time treading off the beaten path trying to disprove the empirical educational system in place".   

Furthermore, this does not only occur when it comes to language. This malady spreads to multiple healthy cells like cancer trumping any chance of benign growth. But not this week, not in Caillou Home it won't!!

Concentration level at its peak! 
On Monday morning, we dove straight into Electrical Circuits 101 by putting together a little lamp to represent the Sun in our solar system. The project started out with a trip down to the store so that the kids could see where all of the stuff came from, the wires, the sockets, the bulb, the plugs and screws. We are always taking trips but this week's stop stood out like a nook carved out only for fathers, a previously unadventured cave of wonders. The sparkle in the eyes of my 5 out of 6 boys got me thinking perhaps many of them will spend many-a-hours in shops like these, like me, later down the line. And to think...I was their first venture into the Wunderkammer!

These eyes reveal, "I'm still with you Uncle Carl."
Once we were back in the class we scattered the materials purchased out on the table. A predictable energy was in the air. I started by having the youngest in our group, 2 year old Yiyi, help me cut the wire into 6 little pieces of about 5cms each to hand out to the kids. The goal was to create a little body with 2 arms, 2 legs and some hairy metallic hands and feet. This turned out to be a really fun way to get our practice on for the final splicing and cutting that would be needed on the actual cable we would use to build our light. Not to mention the fantastic fine motor skill development happening all along the way!!

Authentic fine motor skill work 
All but two of my kids dropped away from the activity as it progressed into the more tedious aspects of trying to get the wires through the little holes and then screwing it all together. In part, I was surprised that they didn't all huddle around to watch what I thought was magical. I had imagined one of the problems of this activity being that they would all want to use the one screwdriver we had and I was ready to enforce sharing. But this is the greatest wonder of them all: Kids surf wave-lengths of their own, and more often than not us adults are just meant to be on the safe shores watching them from afar, at times breezing out of the wave's closing tunnels and landing an aerial 360 at others being crushed into the reefs.

Nonetheless, the payoff was celebrated by all. When it came to time to light it up, I gathered everyone around those who would be the stars for the rest of the week and 3...2...1. Tada!!!

What all went down inside each of my kids psyche this week is hard to know. But educated guesses can and should most certainly be made. I imagine that the 2 who stuck through it all had a deeper feeling of satisfaction. Those who didn't may have felt like, "Oh man, I should've helped out." Who knows really? That is not for us to worry about, our concern is to create enriched environments fit for continuous discovery. Beyond any shadow of a doubt I know all my kids are getting that every week they come to Caillou Home, cause in this joint we ain't DUMBING THINGS DOWN!!!

Mounted for the solar system class. 
Little Changchang Tesla.






Fostering a new generation of readers!!

Last week, my K-kids and I took a little trip down to the Caillou Library in downtown Jinan. This was the first of many trips we will be making as part of our strategy towards not only getting the kids to learn HOW to read but also, LOVE READING!!

We had a wonderful time exploring through the boundless amounts of young readers' material. I need to confess though that as we fingered through the towering shelves and leafed through the pages of the books we chose, the dad in me starting to boil up with a selfish eagerness to have my older boy with us. In August, Owen Jazz IV will be rolling in to town alongside his mother and little brother. I can't wait for him to be a part of the Caillou family.

My aforementioned excitement ended up in a brainstorming session this week, alongside the Caillou Main Librarian and Principal. I basically shared with them how I wanted to be in on the action and be a part of the creative efforts carried out to foment a culture of readers in the magical place they ran. The meeting went well, I cannot disclose what is to come just yet. But please stay tuned for future updates.

For now, I will leave you with a few pics from our brainstorming session. This was the first time I had ever talked and had someone take notes of my ideas in Mandarin. Pretty neat!


 

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Who's Teaching Who?

When Originateve opened up its first holistic studio in Esparza, Costa Rica, one of the first educational paradigm shifts that took place was replacing the all too old, "Teachers Teach, Learners Learn" model for what we came to call the MENACE: All mentors are apprentices, all apprentices are mentors.

Oftentimes a "class" ratio would be made up of 4 apprentices and 2 or more mentors hashing out some sort of a discussion as to what was the best way to go about our garden and why. As time went on in this manner we realized how much "modeling learning" our apprentices were actually getting. One of the basic requirements of a good mentor is to be a good learner and this means having great questions and a solid eagerness to learn. In a MENACE environment this becomes contagious and rubs off like poison oak spreading throughout the apprentice body in seamless, unidentifiable ways.

This week in my Kindergarten in Jinan we had a lot of fun learning about the planets. The question is: Who was teaching who?

Take a close look inside my class and listen in on how much fun we are having:


*If you are having difficulty with the video please view it here: Carl's Youtube Channel
**For more insight on our new educational model, please visit our home in cyber space: Originateve

Monday, June 9, 2014

Magic Entry #2: The Dark Side

Yesterday, I shared a bit of what I hope is a bit of Jedi power white magic for the classroom. Today's write up takes us down into the deep caverns of the dark side. But my thoughts lie like unfurled balls of yarn across the living room floor, so allow me to first reel them in for you.

YARN STRAND #1
On Saturday morning, I gave my first lecture in China to parents. The topic picked by popular demand was PARENTING IN THE US. Go figure. I get invited as a guest speaker on a topic I know nothing about. Although I have been able to decipher a few things on parenting thanks to the only true proven scientific method for up and coming dads: TRIAL AND ERROR, I most definitely know nothing about the "IN THE US" side of the ordeal. This wasn't the first time since being in China that I was lumped into the whole lot of what in the far East is known as America: one big overly deified blob of beauty and and near perfection. Ouch. Unsure exactly as to what pseudo parenting knowledge I could possibly offer, I at least was certain on how I was going to get the show rolling: Crash Course Introduction to Western Geography and Culture.

After losing half of the parents interest in anything I had to say due to my overly rehearsed rant trying to explain the K some of us have started to use when differentiating between the idea of America and a much vaster idea of what AMERIKA really is, I pulled out my scapegoat joker card from under my sleeve and took 'um all out for some game time, involving raw eggs of course. Brilliant recover-your-audience technique. (for more info please visit: www.howtosaveasmallaudiencethathaslostallinterestinyourdisertationriskingyourjobandthefuturewellbeingofyourfamily.com, GREAT STUFF! I have hung out there a lot over the years!)

YARN STRAND #2
We washed up and gathered back in the conference room and had quite a wonderful time together. I was quite taken by the straight to the heart of the matter participation of the parents. Until we struck a very interesting minor chord that seemed to dampen the the melodious major chords that had been keeping spirits high. One of the parents of a 5 year old girl expressed herself and I quote, "I am worried that my child has a problem with reading. She grew up with books and we have been practicing for quite some time now but she just doesn't get it". Wow. Can you feel the dark side creeping in?

In all honesty my "wow" was a double edged sword. Just this week while transitioning my kids and staff at the Caillou Kindergarten out of the "teacher signs each art piece" mode into getting them to start etching their own names, initials and/or lines, doom fell upon me: These Mandarin speaking kids can spell better in English than the bilingual, bookworm genius I bred and nurtured back in Costa Rica. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Breath Carl, breath. Your wife is just an email away. HONEEEEEEEEEY!!! We've gotta get Owen started on his spelling. Make Cards, post things everywhere!! He's late! I am worried he might have a...

Wait a minute. Who's the guy in charge here? I realized that the concerned mother's question was but an echo of the unsettling fears I had been through just a few days before stepping on stage as the one who had something to offer the world on the topic of parenting.

YARN STRAND #3
Thanks to the Great Spirits, this week I came across one of the many exchanges Confucius had with his followers:

"Does a gentleman also sometimes also find himself in adversity?" "Yes", replied Confucius, "a gentleman also sometimes finds himself in adversity, but when a common man finds himself in adversity, he forgets himself and does all sorts of foolish things."

Duh. Homer Simpson moment. I quickly collected myself and proceeded as a gentleman to confess to the audience my own sins of having lost my cool earlier this week as well. Admittedly, the urge to compare be it to a standard, peer or idea, has to be one of the hardest things to control as parents.

YARN STRAND #2 (again)
Sins purged, I jumped back into the title of expert I had been bestowed and spoke with conviction to the mom and the rest of the expectant audience. "Ma'am, we must be oh so careful with words such as "Problem" and "Worry". Worrying is really your only problem. You have done everything right. You have created an enriched environment for your child to thrive in. But remember that even the greatest of farmers, having done everything well can't make the rain fall before it is her time. Continue as you have and worry no more, in good time you will see the fruit of your toil.

THREAD #4
(and we are inching closer to collecting the entire wad)
Doomsday is coming for them all. And the Great Reaper in this Apocalyptic account carries the Scythe of Standardized Testing. Like one of the village boats men racing towards the sinking body of the great Chinese poet, Qu Yuan, when he cast himself into the Miliu river upon being vanished from the Chu Kingdom, all of us at Originateve are rowing together, putting all of our efforts towards keeping as many as we can away from such vicious, teeth grinding oblivion for our children. The irony in all of this is that we start the whole process of "standardization" at home! We give into the dark side manifested in ideas such as: "I think my son has a problem", "He needs more phonics", "His spelling is rough", "He skips letter J" and so on and so forth. Any remedial action taken to cure these hypochondria is black magic at its best. So instead, just continue to water the seed. In its own time it will sprout.

THREAD #5: The Black Wizard
Way back in the day, I had a High School teacher who I vaguely recall save for a time he gave us the untask of not watching TV for a week. I had no idea what this would do for me. Now, my kids are growing up in a house without a TV and I have entire families trusting his once-insane-to-me advice.

Recently I caught up with Paul Darvasi who is Media and English instructor at Royal St. George's College in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He had just finished writing up what he claims to be the one-size-fits-all-only-matched-by-the-holy-grail report card comment. Check it:

"Sam is enrolled in the class and has been notified of all assignment deadlines. He has been granted the opportunity to learn and review class material, and has responded accordingly. Sam tends to absorb the elements of the course that do not escape him. His potential remains intact, and his ability to succeed depends on a number of internal and external factors. I have noted Sam's behavior, and will continue to monitor his attendance. One might say that Sam approaches the course much like many other aspect of his life. I have no doubt that, in the years ahead, Sam will reap what he sows."

Welcome to the dark side people. This wizardry is only matched by that of Voldemort himself.

My words of woe in all of this are: Be wary that what your child is on paper may not truly be your child at all. Likewise whom you feel your child is may not be who he/she is. You are going need some magic to decode that one, just make sure its of the white kind.

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Magic Entry #1: The Jedi

Hey everyone,

Today's blog has a bit of magic, I believe.
         It started out as prose
                  but at the bottom of it all
                           it ended up as a series of ones and zeroes.

Let me know what you think...





*If experiencing difficulty with the video. Please visit: Carl's Youtube