emotionally, practically, and physically.

No, we don't choose our family, but if I did, I'd probably choose the same people who surround me today.
And today, we are very much struggling with grief, sadness, and worry. Today is Sunday, and my father has driven to North Florida to be with his only surviving brother as he winds down his time on earth. He has been sick for almost a year, and now the family has been called into be with him. We are at the end...As a family of 8 siblings, my dad has been here before. All that remains are his two sisters. He is in the middle of the group, so both older and younger siblings have gone before him. I will wait for the news that he has passed and plan a quick trip to Florida for the funeral..I won't take my girls. The emotional tole on them ups the stakes, and right now, I don't want them putting it together that their cousins grandpa has passed away, A grandpa who is younger than their own. The last funeral they attended was their great grandmothers. We were able to keep them out of the chapel until the casket was closed, but when it was time for me to do a reading, I sort of lost it up there...And both of my daughters screamed in the middle of the service, "MOMMMMMMYYYYY..." and had to be held from running up to me. They are empathetic children to their core, and if mommy is hurting, they are aching with me. So they will stay home with my every devoted mother who will step in for me. Support, practical and dependable support.

These kinds of situations bring me to realize the most epic shows of support from my family. It was almost 7 years ago, and I was in the final stages of my adoption. I was scheduled to fly to Siberia to meet the baby that would become my youngest daughter. The way international adoptions work in Russia is that you take two trips. One to meet the baby, fill out the last bits of paperwork, then come home for a month while Russia finishes its paperwork. The first trip is for a little over a week. The second trip is typically a little bit more than a month. During my first adoption, my mom went on my first trip and my dad went with me for the month long trip. Some struggle while in Russia for that length of time. We loved and adored it! Magical. For adoption number two, we had decided to switch and let my mom go on the second, longer trip.
We had set our travel details, rec'd our visas, booked hotels, translators and coordinators, for the first trip and then the unthinkable happened, my grandmother, my dad's mother took ill, and passed away. She was 97. My thought was to go alone. Of course my dad couldn't go and miss his mother's funeral..I begged him to let me go alone. The trip was organized by both Russians and Americans, and not a detail was missed. But he wouldn't think of it. At 38 years of age, he still felt the need to protect me.Support, practical and dependable support.

And the support continues. He travels from Florida each month or so to visit my girls and I. (And my sister too). And my mother lives less than a mile away in order to be there for us. I walk around my life with an invisible net of practical, dependable, support. It allows me to take the risks of international adoption, being a single mother, homeowner, graduate student, and teacher. No one can see that net of support, but it's there..

PLAY TIME!

The Essential Toys of a Florida Child of the 70's into the 80's~

You had to change into "Play Clothes", and of course your mother had to redo your hair before you went out....

In Florida, you better be near a pool..

Family Support of Play

 I wasn't encouraged to play. I was ordered to play. When we all arrived home from school, it was a standing order to change our clothes and GET OUT! We had boundaries in our neighborhood, and we stayed well within them. Mom locked the door, and we went to her window when we needed something. It was blissful! She called us in near dark, and we went in and straight to the bath..Supper after, and a little bit of family time, then off to bed. We loved our friends and all of the parents made sure that no one was left to play on their own. We were a big gang of muck lovers, and are still friends to this day!

It's rare to see kids outdoors like it was when I was a child. My family is lucky to live on a child filled cul-de-sac, so my girls do play outdoors. With families not knowing their neighbors, and living in apartments the physical landscape of homes is so different. Kids now a days live for television and video games.

I was a busy child. Always outside, always doing something "pretend." My parents encouraged us to play and enjoy being outside, even if we only had our bikes..

Personal Relationships

Personal Relationships

Family Is First

       I attended a workshop in Richmond, Virginia last year. In order to make it a field trip for my girls, my mom came and took the girls on a tour of the hotel. The hotel is full of historical value, and yes that included the pool. My relationship with my mom is very close, and we work on it. She yells about our messy house, we buy her treats to make her forget!! She is a more than a grandmother as she watches my girls before and after school each day. We are constantly working on plans and outings with the girls. My mother adores my daughters and helps me tremendously!

My dad is a vigilant helper as well. Although he lives in Florida, he makes a trip to the Nova area at least every 4 to 5 weeks. We maintain our relationship with him through his monthly-ish visits and our summers in Florida with him. The girls think of South Florida as their second home. On his latest trip, he did something huge..She is a Town and Country, and we named her “Milkshake.” My former SUV was ten years old, and he couldn’t stand the idea of my little ones being in a vehicle that could possibly break down…Now that is a good visit!!!

 The girls are with their “Dadushka” last summer on the fourth of July-

 And my sister….Sometimes I want to punch her in the head for being too intrusive, but she loves my girls so much. She thinks nothing of keeping the girls for the weekend, taking summer vacations together, and teaching my girls how to do all the “outdoorsy” stuff I am not great with…My sister and I have the most challenges in our relationship. She is single with no children and therefore she feels responsible to parent mine. It all comes from a loving place, but again, sometimes….

.

                                                             Just Kidding!!!

Daughters
The one, or should I say two, elements in my life that keep me going are my girls. I do nothing that somehow doesn't either directly or indirectly affect them. We are intertwined in a way that I cannot explain. They are the only people in the whole world who I would die for...They are growing up and becoming wonderful young ladies and I simply adore them. We are settled into our new schedule of "mommy's school" and they are helping me to complete my graduate work by giving me the time to ready, study, and write. They know this will only take a little less than a year longer and promised to CELEBRATE when I have completed my studies. We are always together as a family, in that I don't go anywhere that wouldn't have my daughters on the invitation. I am blessed to afford what we need in our life and with the help of my family, we actually get to do a few trips and special events each year.

New York City for the Thanksgiving Day Parade

In the coolest little pedi-cab-

Personal Relationships

Friends

My dearest and favorite friend has been so since the 7^th grade. She is in Florida but we chat on the phone a lot. (Not so much lately, grad school is more time intensive than I expected!) But I adore her. There is nothing that could ever come between us. Nothing. My girls used to make her videos when they were little, but they are too cool for that now. Here is one from a few years ago. We love you Aunt Lee and I promise, really, I will call you soon!

Professional Relationships

Teammates

The Ties That Bind…..I teach with an amazing group of women. One has been at our school her entire 2o years of teaching, and her heart is in early childhood education! Three are new to our school, but have joined in as if they have been here forever. First we are friends and care about each other as people and not just coworkers. Secondly, I respect each of them for different reasons. Each lady brings to the table a unique and respectful attitude about teaching, learning, and children. I learn from each of them, and this impact my teaching. We meet twice weekly, one formal CLT collaboration and one less formal planning meeting. We leave both meetings giggling and whispering about something or other that made us laugh! Two of our newbies are young, very young. I say that with admiration and love. We balance our team’s relationship through support of each other. And honestly, when you like someone, it’s easy!

            

   I need a cohesive team in order to feel confident and less anxious about the current requirements. I need support, ideas, constructive criticism, and friendship. They say, “If Momma’s not happy, nobody is happy,” well I think that applies to Kindergarten Teachers as well!

Thank You and Best of Luck!

Every Child Needs A Hero

Rita Pierson, a teacher for 40 years, once heard a colleague say, "They don't pay me to like the kids." Her response: "Kids don't learn from people they don't like.'" A rousing call to educators to believe in their students and actually connect with them on a real, human, personal level.
*Classmates, Promise me you will listen to this..Magical!



and for a little teacher silliness.....

Thank you to my fellow students who continue to learn and grow with the vision of becoming better at our craft. Best of Luck to you all, and keep checking blogs! I know I will!

jg

Testing

After searching for hours on the testing practices in Russia, I found very little to demonstrate the practices of testing young children. I did find the following article which I find sums up a startling trend..

The Price of Standardized Testing in Russia

By International Perspectives on Education Reform Group on October 23, 2013 6:30 AM | 1 Comment

This post is by Elena Lenskaya.

Teaching to the test seems to be a universal phenomenon in countries that have a standardized testing system. No matter how hard some test developers try to design a test that will be testing skills rather than factual knowledge, be multidisciplinary and cross-curricular, teachers keep figuring out what curriculum content will be covered by the test and what will not and refrain from paying much attention to the latter. Many people say that teaching to the test is healthy--by doing so we ensure that a significant part of our students learn at least what is considered to be the most important part of the curriculum. Others argue that teaching to the test is a bad practice because most tests remain focused on factual knowledge rather than on understanding, which would have made teaching to the test more legitimate.

My country, Russia, does not have a long record of using standardized testing in schools (students today take two tests, in the 9th grade, at the end of compulsory education, and, at the end of 11th grade, in preparation for college entrance). Therefore, it is possible that some test developers are just not skilled enough to design tests for understanding or particular skill orientation. There are complaints by the public that all high school teachers do in class is train their students to successfully pass the tests. Not only do they emphasize relevant parts of the curriculum, they spend a lot of time helping students to master the format of the test.

Our final exams are 60% multiple choice items. One can hardly think of a real life situation in which a person might be confronted with a need to choose one correct answer out of four options carefully presented to him or her. Therefore, when students spend hours training to use such a test format, instead of learning skills that they would be able to use outside the school walls, they are probably wasting a lot of time.

But what is even more alarming in [my view] is the growing tendency "to learn to the test." In Russia, in order to pass the final exams a student needs to take exams in Russian language and in math (in 2020, English language exam will also become mandatory) and then to select three additional school disciplines in which he or she would want to be examined. What is already happening in junior high schools is that students stop learning disciplines they think they would not choose and narrowly focus on subjects they perceive to be good at.

In one of the best Russian universities all students studying social sciences failed a simplest geography test. They were asked to name the capital of the United States, to show St. Petersburg on the map, and to name any three of the world oceans. Only 5% could answer all the three questions, and when others were asked why it was that they did not know answers to such simple questions they mostly responded that they had realized a long time ago that they would never choose geography to be one of their final exams.


Elena Lenskaya is the dean of education at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences and a World Bank consultant on education programs involving assessment and quality assurance.

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Testing in the US is at an all time explosion. We are using the DRIP theory to gather more and more data in hopes that teachers can use it to plan for instruction. (Drip theory = Data Rich, Information Poor).

Sadly, teachers are creating assessments that are simply meeting the requirement, and not used for instruction. Time is essential for assessments. When we test and test and test again, we learn nothing. What children, teachers, and schools need are meaningful test designed to show what children have mastered.

D R I P....

Data Rich, Information Poor:
As we move to discuss the methods and reasoning behind the ways in which we approach assessment, we should all remember:

MANY COUNTIES USE DATA TO DRIVE INSTRUCTION

but it's combersome, inauthentic, inneffective and at the worst..Hurtful.

MORE on this later!

Pregnancy and Alcohol Use in Russia

While mothers across the world have come to know the effects of alcohol, many women of childbearing age in Russia have  accepted the risks and not curbed the practice of consuming alcohol during pregnancy. As researchers began to study the cultural attitudes about pregnancy and alcohol use, it became clear that there is very little historical or current research about the topic.

As the figures of FASD and PAE continue to rise, it is worth noting how little research is being conducted. 

"The search revealed a small pool of existing research studies related to PAE and/or FASD in Russia (126: 22 in English and 104 in Russian). Existing epidemiological data indicate a high prevalence of PAE and FASD, which underlines the strong negative impact that alcohol has on mortality, morbidity and disability in Russia. High levels of alcohol consumption by women of childbearing age, low levels of contraception use, and low levels of knowledge by health and other professionals regarding the harmful effects of PAE put this country at great risk of further alcohol-affected pregnancies."

Reference:

Popova S, Yaltonskaya A, Yaltonsky V, Kolpakov Y, Abrosimov I, Pervakov K, Tanner V, Rehm J.  doi: 10.1093/alcalc/agt156

Dr Jane Aronson completed a thorough investigation on the effects of alcohol on children adopted from Russia. Although the statistics are concerning, it  seems that Russia is still not making the effort to thwart the issue. Russia no longer allows Americans to adopt so the information moving forward will not be available.