Saturday, September 29, 2012
Quote of the Day
"We need to make every second the best second of our lives because, if we don't, it won't ever happen again."
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
The Butterfly Stroke
We often describe Aidan as a little bit "different," and his taste in swim strokes is no exception.
When his swim coach asked Aidan to pick the stroke for the whole class to swim halfway through class today, Aidan chose the butterfly. The other swimmers groaned, and his teacher laughed because it's unusual for casual swimmers to like the butterfly stroke.
Aidan has a really strong upper body, and good form. His coach asked him to demonstrate the stroke for the whole class today. The only thing his coach wants him to work on, is to remember to use the dolphin kick at all times while swimming the butterfly stroke.
When his swim coach asked Aidan to pick the stroke for the whole class to swim halfway through class today, Aidan chose the butterfly. The other swimmers groaned, and his teacher laughed because it's unusual for casual swimmers to like the butterfly stroke.
Aidan has a really strong upper body, and good form. His coach asked him to demonstrate the stroke for the whole class today. The only thing his coach wants him to work on, is to remember to use the dolphin kick at all times while swimming the butterfly stroke.
The Dreaded Homework
Aidan's first written assignment for grade 5 French Immersion is to write a 3-paragraph autobiography in French. The first paragraph includes personal information, characteristics and family. The second paragraph includes his interests, hobbies and favourite things. The third and final paragraph focuses on academic and personal goals.
Until today, Aidan has focussed only on the first paragraph. He filled in blanks on the top half of the first side of a two-sided form, then re-wrote the paragraph onto lined paper, twice. From what I can tell, he seems to have misunderstood the French instructions. The instructions were for him to complete a draft and to have the draft corrected by at least two other people.
Since his first draft of all three paragraphs is due tomorrow, I arranged with Aidan to work on it after dinner. At 4:30 this afternoon, as I dropped him off at home after swimming lessons, he seemed content with this plan. So Aaron and I merrily went off to his swimming lessons (5:00-5:30), leaving Aidan and Austin to have some downtime watching the video, "Night at the Museum."
Here's how the rest of the evening played out:
6:00 - Aaron and I returned home
6:10 - started cooking dinner
6:30 - Skye texted to see whether I could pick him up from Lonsdale Quay
6:40 - Spoke to Skye on the phone, Austin and Aidan were fighting
7:00 - left the house with Aidan in the car - he brought the book, "Cats of the Clans," by Erin Hunter
7:45 - returned home and finished cooking dinner for Carla and Skye (the boys had already eaten)
7:50 - reminded Aidan that we need to finish his homework
7:51 - Aidan disappeared into the bathroom
8:05 - asked Austin to turn off a MacGyver episode on the computer, and Aidan sat down to the dining room table to work.
While I ate my dinner, I tried to go through paragraph 2 with Aidan. What are your pastimes? Reading and computer ... he said computer was "unfortunately" a pastime ... he judges himself for wanting to spend time using the computer, and feels it is not a healthy activity. So instead of simply writing down the two activities he enjoys, he spent about 5 minutes wondering aloud about whether he should try to find some better pastimes.
For his favourite sport, his musings seemed to evolve into some odd sort of self-psychoanalysis. First, he observed that the answer could be either his favourite sport to watch, or his favourite sport to play. I suggested that it would more likely be his favourite sport to play. He seemed troubled that he couldn't remember how to play soccer, but he thought he might like it. We discussed swimming and basketball as well. He described "the soccer player" as the one who was hiding behind a wall and all we could see of him was his hand. The "basketball player" was the big, dumb brute who didn't do very well at school work, but could learn. He remembered liking the learning part in basketball. And I don't remember anything special about the swimmer. Aidan ended up choosing swimming (natation) after about 10 minutes of deciding.
It was agonizing, going through the process and trying to stay patient. Skye came to the rescue when he urged Aidan just to write down the first thing that came to his mind. For his favourite food, Aidan insisted he doesn't actually have one (though, on the drive to Lonsdale Quay when we tried running through these statements, he said he has about 10 or 20 favourites and I asked him to pick one or two). Skye meant to say, "Pick a favourite food," but he accidentally said, "Pick a favourite poo!" which sent the whole family into the giggles. The ice was broken at last, and Aidan worked through the rest of that paragraph reasonably quickly.
For the third paragraph on goals, Skye asked Aidan if he knows the meaning of a "goal." Aidan described it as something that you achieve. As far as academic goals, Aidan doesn't really have any. Skye suggested that he write anything, such as getting 100% on a spelling test. This made Aidan recall that he had gotten 100% on many spelling tests last year. Despite this discussion, Aidan wrote his first academic goal as, "faire l'ecole a la maison," and his second goal as "manger un plein pizza." Now, he's getting silly. He will achieve this goal by "rester chez moi." So far, these answers are a real rub for me. Maybe I'll be able to convince him to change them for the good copy.
He listed his personal goals as "DORMIRE!!!!" and said he would achieve that goal "parce que je peux penser meilleur."
Upon reflection, I think we can try making a few adjustments to help Aidan to be successful in completing homework:
1. Having Skye participate was a welcome change. The resulting family discussion seemed to help Aidan to just get on with it, though he did get a bit anxious when the whole family was in the room with him.
2. Aidan's ability to do homework dramatically diminishes after about 4:30pm. Maybe it would be better for him to just go to bed earlier (8:00-8:30pm) and do homework in the mornings before school?
3. I talked to Aidan about what I thought were the three most important things to focus on, to help him do well in school. Healthy eating, plenty of exercise and enough sleep. With recent dietary improvements we've made, we can check off "healthy eating," and daily swimming lessons are taking care of "exercise." Sleep is the only one of the three that he and I both agree, isn't being met. He's been getting to bed closer to 9:30pm every night, so we have resolved to do an earlier bedtime going forward.
4. I've often wondered if it would help for Aidan to have a quiet, uncluttered study space at home. Maybe it would, and maybe it wouldn't. We've observed that, no matter how quiet and occupied the other family members are, if Aidan knows his brothers are doing activities (Minecraft, watching a video, reading a book) that he would rather be doing, it's nearly impossible for him to do homework.
5. Maybe it's time to finally read Alfie Kohn's bestselling book, "The Homework Myth."
Aidan has been commenting on his learning style and habits. I think it's good that he is observing these things. He describes his homework struggles as his mind knowing what to do, but his body not knowing what to do. He ascertains that it's his body that is refusing to do homework, not his mind. When he works on math, he says that his mind thinks about all the things he could be writing down, thinking outside the box, then he can't stop thinking and never gets around to writing anything down. I asked him what he thinks about when he has a written assignment to do in class. He said, as he went red in the face and seemed on the verge of tears, "I'm thinking about how to do it. I don't know how to do it."
As surprising and perplexing as this is for me to grasp, I think this may be the crux of our problem. I've often felt that Aidan overcomplicates assignments. But this insight is something even more. Skye describes this with compassion and acceptance, that it's developmental. He's simply not there, yet. And our school system requires him to be there already, and they've continued on without him, without a design to help him fill in the gaps. Aidan's struggles in math, in particular, seem to arise from gaps in his learning. I don't feel I have the skills to identify those gaps, but I hope we will be able to hire a qualified tutor to help him where he needs help most.
Until today, Aidan has focussed only on the first paragraph. He filled in blanks on the top half of the first side of a two-sided form, then re-wrote the paragraph onto lined paper, twice. From what I can tell, he seems to have misunderstood the French instructions. The instructions were for him to complete a draft and to have the draft corrected by at least two other people.
Since his first draft of all three paragraphs is due tomorrow, I arranged with Aidan to work on it after dinner. At 4:30 this afternoon, as I dropped him off at home after swimming lessons, he seemed content with this plan. So Aaron and I merrily went off to his swimming lessons (5:00-5:30), leaving Aidan and Austin to have some downtime watching the video, "Night at the Museum."
Here's how the rest of the evening played out:
6:00 - Aaron and I returned home
6:10 - started cooking dinner
6:30 - Skye texted to see whether I could pick him up from Lonsdale Quay
6:40 - Spoke to Skye on the phone, Austin and Aidan were fighting
7:00 - left the house with Aidan in the car - he brought the book, "Cats of the Clans," by Erin Hunter
7:45 - returned home and finished cooking dinner for Carla and Skye (the boys had already eaten)
7:50 - reminded Aidan that we need to finish his homework
7:51 - Aidan disappeared into the bathroom
8:05 - asked Austin to turn off a MacGyver episode on the computer, and Aidan sat down to the dining room table to work.
While I ate my dinner, I tried to go through paragraph 2 with Aidan. What are your pastimes? Reading and computer ... he said computer was "unfortunately" a pastime ... he judges himself for wanting to spend time using the computer, and feels it is not a healthy activity. So instead of simply writing down the two activities he enjoys, he spent about 5 minutes wondering aloud about whether he should try to find some better pastimes.
For his favourite sport, his musings seemed to evolve into some odd sort of self-psychoanalysis. First, he observed that the answer could be either his favourite sport to watch, or his favourite sport to play. I suggested that it would more likely be his favourite sport to play. He seemed troubled that he couldn't remember how to play soccer, but he thought he might like it. We discussed swimming and basketball as well. He described "the soccer player" as the one who was hiding behind a wall and all we could see of him was his hand. The "basketball player" was the big, dumb brute who didn't do very well at school work, but could learn. He remembered liking the learning part in basketball. And I don't remember anything special about the swimmer. Aidan ended up choosing swimming (natation) after about 10 minutes of deciding.
It was agonizing, going through the process and trying to stay patient. Skye came to the rescue when he urged Aidan just to write down the first thing that came to his mind. For his favourite food, Aidan insisted he doesn't actually have one (though, on the drive to Lonsdale Quay when we tried running through these statements, he said he has about 10 or 20 favourites and I asked him to pick one or two). Skye meant to say, "Pick a favourite food," but he accidentally said, "Pick a favourite poo!" which sent the whole family into the giggles. The ice was broken at last, and Aidan worked through the rest of that paragraph reasonably quickly.
For the third paragraph on goals, Skye asked Aidan if he knows the meaning of a "goal." Aidan described it as something that you achieve. As far as academic goals, Aidan doesn't really have any. Skye suggested that he write anything, such as getting 100% on a spelling test. This made Aidan recall that he had gotten 100% on many spelling tests last year. Despite this discussion, Aidan wrote his first academic goal as, "faire l'ecole a la maison," and his second goal as "manger un plein pizza." Now, he's getting silly. He will achieve this goal by "rester chez moi." So far, these answers are a real rub for me. Maybe I'll be able to convince him to change them for the good copy.
He listed his personal goals as "DORMIRE!!!!" and said he would achieve that goal "parce que je peux penser meilleur."
Upon reflection, I think we can try making a few adjustments to help Aidan to be successful in completing homework:
1. Having Skye participate was a welcome change. The resulting family discussion seemed to help Aidan to just get on with it, though he did get a bit anxious when the whole family was in the room with him.
2. Aidan's ability to do homework dramatically diminishes after about 4:30pm. Maybe it would be better for him to just go to bed earlier (8:00-8:30pm) and do homework in the mornings before school?
3. I talked to Aidan about what I thought were the three most important things to focus on, to help him do well in school. Healthy eating, plenty of exercise and enough sleep. With recent dietary improvements we've made, we can check off "healthy eating," and daily swimming lessons are taking care of "exercise." Sleep is the only one of the three that he and I both agree, isn't being met. He's been getting to bed closer to 9:30pm every night, so we have resolved to do an earlier bedtime going forward.
4. I've often wondered if it would help for Aidan to have a quiet, uncluttered study space at home. Maybe it would, and maybe it wouldn't. We've observed that, no matter how quiet and occupied the other family members are, if Aidan knows his brothers are doing activities (Minecraft, watching a video, reading a book) that he would rather be doing, it's nearly impossible for him to do homework.
5. Maybe it's time to finally read Alfie Kohn's bestselling book, "The Homework Myth."
Aidan has been commenting on his learning style and habits. I think it's good that he is observing these things. He describes his homework struggles as his mind knowing what to do, but his body not knowing what to do. He ascertains that it's his body that is refusing to do homework, not his mind. When he works on math, he says that his mind thinks about all the things he could be writing down, thinking outside the box, then he can't stop thinking and never gets around to writing anything down. I asked him what he thinks about when he has a written assignment to do in class. He said, as he went red in the face and seemed on the verge of tears, "I'm thinking about how to do it. I don't know how to do it."
As surprising and perplexing as this is for me to grasp, I think this may be the crux of our problem. I've often felt that Aidan overcomplicates assignments. But this insight is something even more. Skye describes this with compassion and acceptance, that it's developmental. He's simply not there, yet. And our school system requires him to be there already, and they've continued on without him, without a design to help him fill in the gaps. Aidan's struggles in math, in particular, seem to arise from gaps in his learning. I don't feel I have the skills to identify those gaps, but I hope we will be able to hire a qualified tutor to help him where he needs help most.
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