Ginger's Story - Goodbye to a Great Friend

I am writing this today because today marks one of those life changing moments, an event that you will never forget and that forever changes who you are.  There are lots of moments in our life that no doubt are life changing but there are only a handful of moments that can be looked at as the finality of one time of your life forcing you to recognize that it is over and you must move onto new and unknown territory.  Today, this morning, I got the following text from my mom.  It read:

“Just to let you know. Today will be a very difficult day.  Ginger is gasping more.  And she has lost the use of her hind legs.  It is probably time to let her find some peace.  We have a dr apt at 8:20.  Will know more after that.  Love you! Mom.”

…

“It’s Ginger’s time.  Meds started.”

On its surface this is a sad event for anyone to go through.  I have never lost a pet before, any death is always sad, watching a loved one suffer can be heart wrenching.  However, losing Ginger today is sad for all these reasons and more.  Ginger was more than just a dog or a family pet.  Ginger was a symbol, a rock, an icon that represented the defining aspects of my life.  To understand this you have to start at the beginning of the dog that came to be our Ginger. 

From as far back as I can remember my love hate relationship with dogs was present.  My parents often retell a tale of a dog attacking me at a park when I was around a year old, I of course do not remember this but this event no doubt shaped my view of dogs.  I knew many people with dogs and I always wanted one but I would also stand there scared to death to pet them or approach them.  Despite constantly being torn between the desire to have such a loving and devoted animal and the fear that this animal might one day decide to make a snack of one of my fingers I never wavered in my ongoing campaign to my parents to have the perfect dog.  A Golden Retriever. 

I would spend hours putting together power points trying to give my dad a professional presentation proving once and for all, a golden retriever was indeed the world’s perfect pet!  At first, my dad answered a firm no citing the cost of the dog being too much.  My response to this was to search every shelter and newspaper I could find for that rare ad “Free Golden Puppies to a good home!”.  A few times I found puppies for $20 or $30 and offered to pay for them out of my lawn mowing money.  Of course, as soon as the cost of the dog was resolved though new problems with dog ownership would arise.  It didn’t take me long to realize that this was going to be much more complicated than finding the perfect dog for the perfect price.  I had to make my dad realize why a dog was so important. 

My first attempt to convince my dad of how necessary a dog was resulted in more power point presentations with more substantial research citing things like longer life and lower cholesterol as reasons why a dog was without a doubt a life requirement.  “Dad, if we don’t get a dog we won’t live as long as a dog owner!  You have to do this!”  I soon realized that these efforts were fruitless and I stepped away from begging for a dog so that I could recoup and come at this issue from a more productive angle.  It was at this time that a miracle took place.

Now, I know I am not the only kid in the world that begs their parent for a dog only to have those hours and hours of begging not pay off.  Many of my friends were in similar situations.  One friend in particular had wanted a dog for as long as I had known her and her family was really good friends with well known dog breeders in the area.  We had all accepted the fact that this girl was not going to get a dog but if she ever did there would be hope for all of us.  Her parents were they type of people who walk around with handi-wipes in their pockets so that if they come across a mess they can clean it up.  Walking into their house you saw nothing but pristine white floors that sparkled in the glare of the afternoon sun.  In other words, the type of family that you were surprised they had kids because of the mess that comes with having kids, you could not possibly imagine that they’d own a pet because the mess involved in that would simply cause the world to implode on itself.  However, my friend was blind to all this.  All she knew was that she must have a dog.  I thought of myself as a relentless pursuer of the perfect pet but she made me look like an amateur and there was something sad about this because we all agreed that if there was one person who would never be allowed the pleasure of owning a dog, it was this girl.  Her parents were simply too tidy.

So during my hiatus from the dog campaign something truly amazing happened.  This friend of mine, who was unanimously voted least likely to ever be allowed to have a dog, shows up to soccer practice with the most beautiful golden lab puppy you have ever seen.  She came running out of her parent’s van holding this fluffy bundle of a puppy.  I was in shock.  There is no way that this was happening.  I knew I had to up my efforts.  This was only the start of a chain of events that led to having Ginger in my life though.

When my friend got her dog and brought her to our soccer practice a miracle happened.  As if everyone, parents and kids alike had the same thought, if this girl and her parents agreed to a dog then anyone could handle a dog.  Puppy ownership spread like wild-fire through our soccer team that year.  By the end of the summer there were four more puppies hopping around at the soccer games.  Everyone was getting puppies, but my dad continued to say no.  I was heart broken.  I didn’t know what was worse, the fact that I was getting shot down at every request or that I was watching all my teammates playing with their puppies and people who were indifferent to having a dog now had a new puppy while I so desperately wanted one and could not convince my dad to allow me to have one.

I continued with my power points but knew I needed more.  I needed to get some people on my side.  I begged my aunts, uncles, friends, friends parents, even my godmother to help join my campaign.  With lots of begging I built up quite the power house team to again approach my dad.  Again though, I was told there was no way. I was beginning to feel like this issue had taken on a life of its own and to me not being allowed a dog started to represent to me my dad not wanting me to be happy.  I was devastated. 

It was March of the year following the “Dog-boom” of the soccer team when some relatives from England came to visit.  I was still pursuing my campaign of dog ownership but it had lost a lot of its oomph and became more of a daily routine than the passionate heart felt presentation it once was.  During my cousin’s visit they noticed a small brochure about dogs that I had created in hopes that it would be the decision turning piece of information that my dad needed in order to agree to a dog.  They asked about it and I immediately perked up and regaled them with my passionate desire to own a dog and why a Golden Retriever was absolutely perfect and why I was the perfect dog owner.  They chuckled approvingly and they too began to bug my dad about a dog.  “Awe, come on John.  Give the poor girl a dog.”  To which he still chuckled and said, “Nope.”  But, I had other plans.

One afternoon while we were all trying to decide what to do while my cousins were in town I suggested we go down the street to the local pet shop just to look.  I wanted them all to see the perfect dog.  I wanted to show them that a golden was indeed the ideal pet.  After much begging by all the kids we loaded into our maroon mini van and headed down the street to the pet store.  We pulled up and I barely let the car slow down before swinging open the sliding door and racing into the pet store, to the back corner, where all the precious puppies were kept.  I looked frantically and finally I saw what I was looking for.  “Six weeks old, female, breed: Golden Retriever”.  I looked around and found someone who worked there and said, “Please I want to hold that one!”  I of course needed an adult to come say it was ok so I grabbed my mom who said, “We can look Andrea, but your father is not going to get a dog.”  Yea yea yea I thought.  I would deal with that detail later.  Right now I wanted to play with this perfect little ball of fur.

The employee went back behind the cages, opened the door to the kennel and I pointed to the one puppy who wasn’t sleeping but was instead bouncing around ripping up the paper in her kennel.  As the man came around back to my side of this wall of puppies my heart skipped a beat.  He held out this perfect little puppy and I froze.  I wanted a puppy so bad but I was also still fairly scared of them.  I couldn’t let my dad get a whiff of my fear though and before I could devise a plan to hide my fear my sister popped up and grabbed the puppy out of the employee’s hand.  We went to a small little play area and started playing with the puppy. I kept my distance unsure of this little ball of energy but loving her at the same time.  She knew how much I wanted her though because this little puppy spotted my mom, walked over to her, and cuddled up into the smallest little fur ball you have ever seen right at her feet and snuggled in.  I think you could physically see my mom melt.  My mom picked her up and petted her and she kept snuggling in.  My dad however would not be a part of this but it was too late.  Everyone but my dad had already fallen in love with this light golden puppy with bright red ears. 

After a few minutes my mom excused herself and she and my dad went off somewhere to ‘talk’.  I can only guess what was said but it must have had been something along the lines of, “Come on John, a puppy wouldn’t be so bad.”  A few minutes later my parents came back and I saw my moms famous, “You’re about to be very happy!” smile.  I also saw my dad’s famous, “I’ve lost another battle.” sigh.  I felt my stomach jump through my throat and could barely get the words out.  “Please dad, I PROMMMISE I will take good care of her!  She’s perfect!”  As soon as I said it all my cousins chimed in, “Yea! Come on Uncle John!”  My dad, for the first time, started asking questions.  “Ok, so how much is this puppy.  What else am I going to need?  How much will all that cost?  You mean I’m looking at $800 today?  Is all this stuff really necessary?”  After many questions and much reassurance by both the pet-store employee and myself I found myself at the check out counter with a pile of “first time dog owner” things and a small puppy in my sister’s arms.  I had still not overcome my fear but I knew this was perfect.  I was in shock.  I was walking out the door with my first puppy. 

I had spent hours and hours filling a notebook with possible names for when I got my first dog but none of them fit.  My sister was holding the little puppy while I petted her and we were trying out names.  They all felt wrong.  Then, my sister said, “We should call her Ginger.  Because she is all light colored and her ears are the color of ginger.”  As soon as I heard it I knew that was her name.  Ginger… Ginger Wersyn.  Welcome to the family.

We rode the rest of the way in the car back to my Aunt’s house and then back to our house.  I had finally gotten up the nerve to hold my new love and joy and I never wanted to let her go.  How could I have ever been so scared of something that I could instantly feel so much love for?  When we finally pulled into the driveway at home I stepped out of the car and put Ginger down on the grass.  She was practically engulfed by it as she pounced around chasing every little insect that buzzed around her.  I ran out to play with her but my dad stopped me promptly.  “Andrea, this is your dog.  You need to bring in the kennel and set it up and give her water and food and ….”  I reluctantly left my new little baby to set up her perfect living space.  We set up her things in what would come to be known as “Ginger’s Hallway”.  I washed, dried, and filled her food dish with water and puppy food.  I put blankets and towels in her kennel to make it a soft inviting place to be, and I then rushed back out to play with Ginger. 

After about an hour my dad made his first move towards accepting our new family member.  She was panting a lot and was not drinking her water.  In her kennel at the pet store she had the equivalent of a giant hamster bottle to drink out of and we began to wonder if she knew how to drink out of a bowl.  We all talked about it and brain stormed ways to help her drink when my silent father stepped up, knelt down to the dish, and said, “Hey Ginger!  Like this!”, and began to emulate drinking water from a dish.  Ginger ran up to him with a puppy smile, licked his face, and the two of them sat there, my dad on his knees pretending and she by his side drinking water from her bowl. 

We did everything wrong with Ginger.  Bought her without extensive planning, from a pet store, at a time in the year and the week that meant massive adjustments to our schedule to accommodate her but despite all this she was still my perfect puppy.  I could not have imagined a better choice.

The weeks following Ginger’s arrival were some of the hardest I went through.  I had read about how new puppies would be sad.  I read about housebreaking a dog.  I read about having to feed it and walk it.  However, doing all these things were so much more tolling than any of the books described.  For the first two weeks of Ginger’s time with us I slept on our kitchen floor with a pillow and a blanket next to her cage while she cried and cried.  On one particularly difficult night my mom came downstairs to give me a reprieve.  She took Ginger out of her kennel, wrapped her up in an old green towel, and rocked her to sleep in our old family rocking chair singing the same Irish nursery song that she had sung to me as a baby.  I think at this moment I began to really appreciate all my parents had done for me.  I looked at my mother holding this crying puppy like a baby, rocking her, and singing nursery songs and realized how selfless and devoted my mother was.  Not to the puppy, but to me.  Here she was, up in the middle of the night, rocking my puppy and disregarding her own need for sleep so that I could get mine. 

I remembered this moment and when we had to give a speech about something important to us the following year in school I brought Ginger in.  As eloquently as my 8^th grader brain could put it, I tried to explain that my dog was more than a dog.  She was a symbol that reminded me that no matter how much I felt that my parents hated me, or didn’t understand me, or argued with me, that they loved me.  That Ginger was proof that my parents were always going to love me because having a dog was never important to them but it was important to me and because of that it became their world as well. 

Over the years Ginger became both a source of comfort and problems in our family.  My soccer career took off more than anyone could have foreseen and weekend tournaments in the next town turned into weekend tournaments on the other side of the country.  Much of my high school years were spent leaving school on a Friday, racing out to meet my mom in the car, and heading to the airport to set off to one tournament or another.  My dad was often left with Ginger for the weekend and would often remind me that he did not want this dog and I was not keeping up my end of the bargain. 

In addition to my unforeseen absences through high school Ginger proved to be anything but the classic golden retriever.  Unlike the famous breed temperament, Ginger was an often grumpy and sometimes mean dog.  We called her stubborn.  Over the years she racked up a small list of people she had bitten or other dogs she had gone after.  Looking back I feel that I could have done more to prevent this but at the time I didn’t realize the importance of some of the early training.  As she got older it became more of us adjusting to her behavior instead of trying to retrain an old dog.  While she caused us some anxiety when we had company over we had learned to read Ginger and could knew what we could get away with and what would cause Ginger to show us a less than friendly side.  However, my dad always had a hard time accepting that we were allowing this dog to essentially boss us around.  He would insist on doing things his way and she would insist on her way and this often led to a struggle and the inevitable, “I’m getting rid of this dog, you don’t take care of her, she doesn’t listen, etc etc”.  I would beg and cry and plead for him not to and promise to make it better and then sit and plead with Ginger to just let him win sometimes.  Often in tears, I would sit down and Ginger knew to sit by me and always let me know that it was going to be ok.  Eventually my dad and Ginger came to a mutual understanding and lived together but never without the occasional growl from Ginger or negative comment about her presence from my dad.  However, if you looked really hard you could often see my dad leaning over petting her and saying, “I love you little rascal.”  Though he will deny this emotion if asked.

When I graduated from high school and left for college my dad had hoped he’d be packing Ginger up with me but this was not a possibility living in a dorm.  This transition in my life also marked a transition for Ginger and my parents.  Ginger became their dog.  My freshman year in college was also my sister’s Senior year in high school and as with most girls this was anything but a smooth ride.  My dad and my sister had always had a somewhat strenuous relationship but the added component of adolescence and a world my dad couldn’t relate to I believe left him feeling very alienated.  Whether he admits it or not I believe he found comfort in Ginger during these times.  He had a companion to talk to that wouldn’t talk back to him, tell him that they hated him, or slam a door in his face.  Aside from the occasional growl, my dad could talk to Ginger and have a captive non-judgmental audience. 

Even during college Ginger saw me through some of the harder times.  I would often head home when I was stressed or having a hard time and look forward to walking in the door and the unconditional love that ginger would pour over me as she wagged her tail so hard she could barely run over to great me.  She was a constant and reliable source of acceptance in my life.  An anchor that I could rely on regardless of where I was.  I could always return home and from “Ginger’s Hallway” would come a happy growl and a banging tail from a smiling loving dog who was always happy to see me.

When I made the decision to not return to Iowa State after my sophomore year and instead go to Iowa I cried the entire six hour drive from Ames to Chicago thinking of all the friends I’d be leaving behind.  I walked in the door and sat down on the landing to the upstairs and threw my arms around Ginger and cried.  I remember that after a few seconds I looked up and saw this goofy smile and panting tongue looking back at me and was immediately comforted.  As if to say, “It’s ok, I’m still your friend, I’m still here, I will always love you.”  I knew that I’d be fine, new friends would come, and if all else failed I could drive home and see Ginger. 

Ginger was not just my friend though.  Ginger held all the Wersyn family secrets and tears.  I had seen her comforting my sister through break ups, my mom through headaches, my dad through hard days at work.  Ginger was a rock.  She was the go-to when you had no one to go to.  She didn’t judge and she didn’t ask anything of us.  She would sit there and listen as if she understood every word out of your mouth and when you would finish talking she’d wag her tail and nudge your hand as if to say, “It’s ok.”  And then it was.

A few years ago I started getting calls from my mom about Ginger.  She was getting old and sick and wasn’t the pup she used to be.  About a year ago I got a call that it might be Ginger’s time.  At first thought I was very sad but then remembered how old Ginger was and started to come to terms with this idea however Ginger had other plans.  Her time with us was not over, she still had things she needed to do.  The following months in the Wersyn household were some of the hardest in our history and as if Ginger knew that she would be needed she put her own comfort on hold to be there. 

Not long after Ginger’s miraculous recovery from what appeared to be the end, my sister ended her relationship with her fiancé and moved in with my parents.  I was not able to come home very much when my sister was going through this because of school but I found comfort knowing that Ginger was there to give hugs and kisses to Steph during this time.  I know Ginger’s ability to move was extremely limited at this point but she had an uncanny ability to sense when people need comfort and she would hobble over to you on the couch, put her head down on your hand, and look at you as if to say, “I’m here, talk to me.”

A few months after this my mom had a pretty severe back injury.  She had to stop working and was mostly confined to not just the house but to a bed for most of the day.  I know that on more than one occasion my mom would tell me that Ginger helped her because she would look at Ginger and her pain and it would give her the motivation to get up and be active too.  She would call me and tell me that she and Ginger had hobbled down to the stop sign at the end of the street and back.  “Two old ladies out for their walk.” She would say.  Ginger helped my mom get through not only the pain but the emotional toll of her injury by acting as a companion and role model to give her hope when she felt pretty hopeless. 

Through all of this though we kept thinking that we were on borrowed time with Ginger and at times we would see her regress back to the pain and inability to move that had prompted the original phone call from my mom letting me know Ginger’s time was near.  However, Ginger would bounce back, pick up her little deflated soccer ball and want to fetch it.  At first she was around for weeks, then months, and then an entire year after we thought she was due for her time.  All the time Ginger continued to be our little pillar of strength and comfort.  It started to feel like Ginger was a miracle dog that would always be there for us when we needed that hug, a companion, or a friendly ear. 

Last night I got a call from my mom.  Ginger was again struggling this time worse than before.  She was not eating even the most tempting foods like eggs and cheese (her favorites).  She wasn’t able to walk very well.  My mom told me though that she had come to greet them with her soccer ball that evening.  As if her last big hug and all the love and comfort she could muster she gave them her last smile before sitting down for the night and not being able to get up.  I had prepared myself last night.  I knew then that I could not hope for another year from Ginger and that it would be only selfish to ask for more time.  Now it was our time to help comfort Ginger.  For all the hugs and kisses and tears that she was there through it was our turn to be there for her and give her hugs and kisses and wipe her tears. 

I cried last night thinking of her devotion to us and her unwavering willingness to listen to anything, to bring you her toys and bones and sit in friendship as she would play with them.  For all of Ginger’s quirks she was the most loving dog that I have ever known.  Even now, since I have moved away and acquired my own two puppies they don’t provide the same unwavering friendship and loyalty that Ginger did.  Ginger has carried so many of our problems and tears with loyal silence and unconditional love over the years.  As much as I tried to prepare myself for the inevitable I came to understand this morning that you cannot prepare yourself for losing your best friend.  Your rock.  The symbolic embodiment of what it means to love.  You can only hope to gather the strength to be selfless and give to her the peace and love that she has given you.  Losing Ginger is more than losing my dog, it signifies a new time in my life where my childhood is over and my adult life is here.  She was a bond that still held me to the home and life I had growing up there.  The last remaining relic of being a kid with a dog.  Some people don’t really understand how special that is, but any kid that has a dog that their parents vowed they would never get understands the true miracle that is. 

I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you in the end Ginger and that for all the hugs and tears of mine you suffered through that I could not hold your paw and whisper, “I love you Gingy” in your ear and give you that one last hug so that I knew you realized your importance in our lives.  I hope you know how much I love you and how much you have meant in my life.  You will always be a part of me and that even though I couldn’t be there for you this morning when you drifted off to sleep and let go of all the pain, I was there with you in your heart and praying so that you wouldn’t be alone in your time of need.  I hope you are happy running around somewhere and have all the cheese your heart can desire.

I love you Ginger.  Thank you for everything!  R.I.P. 7/3/2012

Marathon

mar·a·thon

/ˈmærəˌθɒn, -θən/ Show Spelled[mar-uh-thon, -thuhn]

–noun

1.

a foot race over a course measuring 26 mi. 385 yd. (42 km 195 m).

2.any contest, event, or the like, of great, or greater than normal, length or duration or requiring exceptional endurance: a dance marathon; a sales marathon.

As many may or may not know I have been training for the Chicago Marathon 2010. This will be my first marathon and I'm excited and scared to death at the same time. I am taking some of my methods classes this summer and one of the classes I am taking is a P.E. methods course. We keep having this discussion in class about competition, athleticism, and talent. As someone who played competitive soccer for most of her life and always enjoyed other sports as well I am of the opinion that there is nothing wrong with competition at a young age. My teacher however is of the opinion that competition should not start until the age of 12 (at the earliest). She argues that those who are not "naturally talented" will fall behind and it's not fair and 10,000 other excuses. The message that I keep trying to get across though is that it's not exclusively about "natural talent". In fact, I think that natural talent is only a small portion of what it takes to be an athlete. The real indicator of a good athlete is mental strength, mental endurance, and perseverance.

Was I born athletically inclined? No more than any other person. No one in my family is particularly athletic or has any athletic background. Aside from youth sports and a few pick up games no one in my family really played sports except for me. When I started out I was really bad. I don't just mean because I was new to the sport either, I was an awkward and gangly kid with no apparent athleticism to be seen. I got good because I practiced and practiced and practiced. I worked at it.

We had to give a presentation to our class about our view of athletics and sports. I took the stance that kids need to learn to win and lose and accept the things they aren't good at and work towards the things they are. Soccer was not my first choice sport. Gymnastics was. I was sure I was going to be a gymnast. Then, when I was in about 3rd grade a very scary looking Russian man told me I was too tall and would never be able to compete in it. This was the truth, this was a physical obstacle that I could not overcome to participate in this sport. I had to learn to accept that I would never be a gymnast. So, I found soccer. My question to the class was, how is this any different than a child not being as good at running, hitting, catching, kicking? Yet we go out of our way to try and make these kids believe that we are all created equal. It's bologna.

One girl in my class got up to give her presentation. She made eye contact with me and started talking about her soccer playing career. Her mindset was exactly what I was trying to point out as the problem with what we are teaching kids about soccer. When I was growing up, I didn't get to play a lot at first. I was a bench warmer. I remember after games I would cry to my mom and beg her to talk to the coach so I could play more and you know what my mom told me, "Andrea, if you're practice and show him [your coach] that you are so good that he can't afford to not play you then you will play." My parents would not beg my coaches for more playing time. They would offer to take me to a soccer field to practice, they would support me if I wanted to talk to the coach myself, but from the beginning my parents did not fight my battles for me. My mothers words stuck with me throughout my career and continue to in life. If I want to be considered the best or in the top I have to prepare and work for that.

Back to the girl in my class. She got up to give her presentation and told her story of high school soccer. She said that how they chose teams was unfair. She said in high school to be on the A team you would have to do "Indian Runs" (no offense or racial thing this is just what I know them as, you have a line of people and you jog around and the last person in the line sprints to the front and this pattern continues until your coach says stop). She said, "I thought this was unfair because my legs are short and I really don't like running so I don't think you should have to do this in order to be on the A team." She then looked to me as if I was going to agree with her. I had to hold in a laugh. First of all, who likes sprinting drills? No one. But if you don't like running at all then soccer is not your sport. Secondly, it was this mentality that I was trying to politely address in my presentation. She may have only seen the girls on the A team show up to tryouts and be good, but she didn't see all the endless hours of work that went on behind the scenes. I gave up a lot of things in my life to play soccer. I went to very few dances in my life, I didn't get to go to friends houses after school to hang out, I spent every single weekend playing game after game and when we didn't have tournaments we would have 6am practices. Every night I would play 3-4 hours of soccer, 2 of which were usually just running and sprinting drills. Was that always fun? No, but that's what I had to do in order to be a top soccer player and my reward is playing on the Varsity soccer team when that season came around. To have to share playing time with a girl who can't be bothered with running sprints would make me very upset.

My long drawn out point here is that people assume all of this competition stuff and sporting ability is related to who is born that way but I think what a lot of people (especially P.E. teachers) tend to miss is the amount of work those students put into their sport outside of the classroom. If one kid chooses to play on a club baseball team and another doesn't then yes, there should be a difference in their ability. It's not taking anything away from the other kid to put him on a B team because the B team is for the students who are playing for fun, and honestly they don't deserve to be on the A team if they don't put the work into it that is required. There are no hand outs in life, so why are we teaching kids through sports that there are?

Back to my original topic, life is a marathon. Everything we do is a longer than usual event requiring exceptional endurance. Any successful person will tell you that they got to where they are because they worked hard, they stuck with it, and they believed in themselves. The more I train for the marathon the more I am coming to realize that anyone can run a marathon. It's not about athleticism, it's not about being born a runner. It's about whose mind can out last the rest of the runners. If you want to run a marathon you can. Preparation time may be longer for some than others, but eventually with perseverance you can do it. If anyone is able to run a marathon I'm wondering why we are spending so much time sheltering kids from failure when all we need to be doing is encouraging them to go after what they really want. The ability to overcome obstacles to achieve your goals is a testament to how important they were to you in the first place. If you are willing to wake up at the crack of dawn and stay up into the wee hours of the night to achieve a goal, you will, in time, achieve it. If you expect things to be handed to you and sit around waiting for things to happen you may or may not achieve your goal, but you will never be satisfied with what you do achieve.

If a kid wants to play on a varsity soccer team and you tell them all they need to do is practice more and harder and they don't want to, then they are choosing to not be on that team. You have told them exactly what they need to do to achieve their goal and they have decided it's not worth the effort. If you add that child anyway because they complain, what are we teaching them about the world? In my very last practice of soccer with my club team before college I suffered a "career ending" ankle injury. I was told no more soccer, no more sports, no more anything. I was done because my ankle had nothing left. I wanted to play in college though. I had spent my whole life playing soccer and I did not want it to end in a practice like that. I worked my butt off and 2 years later joined my college's varsity soccer team as a walk on. What would I had done if I had grown up in the environment we are raising kids in now? I would have whined and cried til hopefully someone let me be on the team? Please. I'm glad I learned young that I have to work for my goals and that nothing is handed to me. It's made me a better person and it breaks my heart we aren't passing these lessons on to the next generation and even more so that P.E. teachers (not all) are encouraging parents to remove their kids from competitive sports. Competition never hurt anyone, and everyone needs to learn the lessons it teaches.

Don't teach your kids that they can wake up tomorrow and run a marathon, teach them that every day is preparation for the great race that we call life. I promise, they will turn out better for it.

Friendship

friend

–noun

1.

a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.

2.

a person who gives assistance; patron; supporter: friends of the Boston Symphony.

3.

a person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile: Who goes there? Friend or foe?

4.

a member of the same nation, party, etc.

5.

(initial capital letter) a member of the Religious Society of Friends; a Quaker.

When did the definition of friend or friendship evolve to encompass so much? From a person who gives assistance or support to someone who is expected to drop everything and stand by one's side? This isn't a unique expectation either. Despite the definition of "friend" our choices of who we adorn with this coveted label rely on so much more than a person that gives assistance or support. Friends aren't just people we find through common interests or similar backgrounds, friends are born from hardship and consistency. A friend is crowned when we struggle through unspeakable circumstances and emerge unscathed together. This position is acquired from being there regularly when needed, and most importantly it involves a mutual amount of give and take. Similarly, a friendship crumbles when one person's situations seem to over power and outweigh the others.

Based on the definition a friend is one we hold in regard. Regard meaning respect or esteem. Somehow though friendship has lost the connection. If we hold someone in regard then we respect them, their obligations, their choices, and their abilities. We respect and recognize these characteristics and understand that in order to remain friends we must not compromise this buffer of respect and regard. However, somewhere along the line friendship came to mean something more similar to being able to beat up on someone and have them still be there for you the next day. Friendship means asking the unthinkable of people and asserting a right to be upset when they don't comply to a request. Or even worse, we strip those we once called friends of their title and tell them, "You are a bad friend."

When did friendship become such a hostile place where extortion, coercion, and demanding are common place and considered a given right? In many cases we treat our friends worse than our enemies, we take the people who we 'regard' for granted and regularly feel the need to treat them poorly as if it's some "right" of friendship.

Maybe this is why marriage is so important, if you're lucky you marry your best friend and you find the one person in your life that you truly do regard and respect. Someone you want to be good for and you want to give everything for because you know that no matter what happens they would do the same for you, and this belief is comfort enough to make everything else melt away. Friendship is so precious and we need not lose sight of that. All we must do is remember the golden rule of, "Treat others the way you would want to be treated." This doesn't mean after you yell at them. This doesn't mean the big picture, this means that in every moment we need to be thinking how those around us would feel in that same situation. If you can't put yourself in another's shoes, you will never be able to have a true friend.

Things happen, things are said, and feelings get hurt. But a friendship that spends most its time in a respectful and loving setting will recover from that. A friendship where one person (or both people) feel(s) that they are being taken advantage of or not respected will not. It can not until both people are ready to trust their feelings with one another, and trust that those feelings will matter and be respected. If one person monopolizes this time, the other person will never come to feel a part of that friendship.

Don't forget that friendship is work, it's respect, it's love, and it's being able to find comfort in the fact that you have a friend there for you and not in what they will be willing to do FOR you. Focus on how lucky you are to have someone to talk to, to share a laugh with, and if you're lucky - get coffee with every once in a while. It's more than most. Don't focus on how far you can push a person or how many things you can hold over their head to guilt them into what really is above and beyond the call of duty. If you have a mutually giving friendship then going above and beyond will be a willing choice than a forced coercion.

Just some thoughts.

bal⋅ance

 /ˈbæləns/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [bal-uhns] noun, verb, -anced, -anc⋅ing.–noun

1.	a state of equilibrium or equipoise; equal distribution of weight, amount, etc.

I have been doing more and more thinking about religion, balance, and Avatar. I am intrigued by the idea of believing in balance. The more I think about it the more I realize how egocentric and preemptive Christianity is. For a religion that boasts a belief in such a wonderful God we spend a lot of time praying and devoting ourselves to Him in hopes that it will help us as individuals. Yes Christianity says that we need to treat others the way we want to be treated etc, but it all comes back to us. When we have a loved on that is sick, dying, facing hard ship... how often do we pray for them and not for our own good? Do we pray for a loved one that is sick to get better so that we do not have to grieve a loss or because we really believe that God doesn't know what He is doing and we are supposed to remind him to look after that person? If we believe in God shouldn't we trust that He knows what He is doing when a loved one is sick, injured, or even killed? I'm not saying this is an easy task at all, but if we believe in God shouldn't we also trust He knows what He's doing. Is it our right to know what His plan is? Shouldn't we instead always pray for balance, harmony, whatever you want to call it?

I think that Christianity tries to be a preventative religion, rather than focusing on ways to cope after a situation happens Christians try to pray more for the prevention of events happening and focus a lot on "being good so bad things won't happen". I see religions like Buddhism as a religion that focuses on dealing with and understanding the world knowing that some god won't come intervene if we are good enough. A religion that focuses on the balance of good and bad. I don't know much about Buddhism and was raised a Christian but I am starting to wonder if us Christians have it right. More and more I find comfort in knowing that no matter how much I pray God isn't going to come down and fulfill my direct request, but that I am part of a whole world of energy that must maintain balance. Terrible things happen, and really good things happen. You can't take it personal right? I like a religion that helps us understand that it's not personal but the world all has to maintain balance. That helps us deal with it. It's not a balance system based on each persons rights or wrongs but a world of rights and wrongs and we have no control over how we fit into how the balance is going to play out.

This part is why I feel it relates to Avatar because I believe that even Buddhism works on a more individual scale when it comes to karma and all that. Avatar talked about balance. They didn't "pray" so that each person was saved or chosen because they knew their god didn't work like that. They knew that all they could do was to believe in the idea of total balance and that their god's job wasn't to help one race, species, or situation be favored but to favor balance and the people trusted that balance would keep them safe. I find this idea comforting. There isn't some grand master moving us around like pawns and influencing each of our lives individually. If there is a war between two groups of Christians and they are both praying to God then how can we really believe that the prayer works? God isn't going to choose a side. It seems silly to believe that when you think of it that way. When you accept that balance will be maintained at the end of the day and whatever happens to you is a part of that balance then it's a lot easier to accept what happens to you. Think of all the energy in the world and it all has to stay in balance. When it gets out of balance 'bad' things happen so that balance is returned. Our earth for example is being destroyed by us and as a result we are seeing more natural disasters which are 'bad' to humans but the earth is attempting to restore it's balance. Is it God smiting us? No.

I'm not saying Christianity is all bad, and I myself am not ready to give up my belief in God but I'm wondering if we haven't confused His message and turned the religion in to a self-serving justification for everything we do... good and bad. Watched an interesting movie the other day called "The Man From Earth" and it suggested that Christianity was rooted in Buddhism and has become confused and misconstrued over the years. An interesting idea.

Anyway, I have to get ready for school but these are my thoughts for the morning. I don't know what the 'answer' is and I hope I haven't offended anyone. I'm just rambling on. Hope everyone has a positive day.

Signing off.

The Paper I Actually Turned In

Here is what I ended up actually turning in. Probably still not going to get a good great though :-/

When it comes to my philosophy of child guidance, a lot of what I have developed in terms of a personal philosophy has not been from information obtained in this class. I talk about this in the second part of my paper. However, if I have to choose information from this class that I feel contributes to my philosophy I would have to start with Redl and Wattenberg. On page 56 of our Classroom Dicipline book they briefly outline Redl and Wattenberg's theories and suggestions. I believe in an approach that encourages and uses positive influence when developing classroom expectations. Redl and Wattenberg believe in techniques that include supporting student self-control, situational assistance, and appraising reality. I especially support the suggestion of appraising reality as it closely follows the principles of the cognitive behavioral theory and I am a supporter of this theory. I also agree with Redl and Wattenberg's suggestion of allowing students to be involved in setting classroom expectations and rules as well as consequences for breaking those rules. I have found through my experience working in the field, particularly with children who have been diagnosed with severe behavioral disorders, that allowing children to have input into how their behaviors are handled (both positive and negative behaviors) is paramount to the success of any discipline program.
The fact that Redl and Wattenberg's theory was not implemented in classrooms is sad and the reason our book gives seems like a nice way of saying, “Teachers did not want to put forth the effort required to implement this program.” The only part of the reason given for why it wouldn't work in a classroom that I could possibly give merit to would be the average teacher's lack of training and education in this area that would be required to implement such a program. However, with that said I have seen this theory implemented successfully on a behavioral rehabilitation unit with twelve boys ranging from eight to eleven years old. Its success requires the willingness of the adult to relinquish some of the “power” and be willing to listen to the children in order to develop an environment that everyone is happy with. This factor is something I could see being a struggle because of our education system's misplaced emphasis on passing standardized tests.
Education is not presented holistically anymore and it doesn't encourage the positive prosocial behaviors that it used to, I personally feel this is a big reason we are seeing more problems like student on student homicide, student burn out, and in general a lot more antisocial activity by students. Especially in the early grades the focus should be on social interaction and interpersonal skill building. Prosocial modeling and emphasis is crucial at this age, but because it is not something we test for on standardized tests it is too often over looked in a classroom setting. Creating a positive group dynamic and emphasizing prosocial behaviors through encouragement and child involvement needs to be a consistent aspect of the classroom and I agree with what Redl and Wattenberg have to say about this. A great example of this working is in a book called, “The Cherryhill School” that was a required book in my CI 204 class. Since I have taken that class (some 7 years ago) I have not been able to find this book but would recommend it to anyone that is able to find it. It is a book about a school called the Cherryhill School that was developed as a charter school where children and adults had equal input and responsibility in all administrative decision making at the school. It was a school literally run by children. It really showed how practical the Redl and Wattenberg theory could be but requires the adult to relinquish some of the “power” we often feel is so important to cling to.
In addition to Redl and Wattenberg, it is almost impossible to talk about behavioral modification without talking about the workings of B.F. Skinner. I do not believe in reward based behavior modification programs in the classroom, or any group of children, but B.F. Skinner taught us important things about how behavior is formed/learned. The way I apply B.F. Skinner's work to my philosophy is by using his theory to help me recognize possible reinforcers in a child's environment that may be contributing to negative behavior and then trying to do something to help eliminate the stimulus or I help the child become aware of this reinforcer and use a more cognitive approach to behavior modification. Likewise I use Skinner's theory to help recognize reinforcers of positive behavior and help a child become aware of what they do that they can feel good about.
One example from lab is a specific child who often acts out. It is obvious for many reasons that this child needs more one on one attention, that he craves it, but that he doesn't have the first clue on on to appropriately ask for it. Instead of setting up a reward program with him where we ignore the underlying problem by giving him something like candy for doing well there needs to be a discussion with the child that shows him you care, you want to spend time with him, but you do not approve of what he is doing. Trying to change his behavior by giving him candy every time he does well may work for a while, but because we are not teaching him to recognize what is causing him to act out there will come a point when he won't be able to “be good” just because he is getting candy. However, if you learn to realize that there is a natural reinforcer in this situation you will be able to change it to have a more favorable outcome. In this example, every time the child misbehaves he has learned that he gets the one on one attention he craves. He has associated acting out with the positive feeling of having an adult all to himself.
The first step to fixing this behavior is to make the child aware of it. For instance, instead of saying, “If your good you get candy!” try telling him, “Hey, Alex I was really hoping you and I could spend some time with just you coloring today but when you are mean to your peers then I have to spend that time not having fun and talking about why it's wrong to hit your peers. Wouldn't you rather do something fun with me that have to spend our time like this?” My experience has shown me that the child will almost always say yes to this question. It is important to follow this discussion by setting up consistent one on one time with this child that is not dependent on behavior, because he will test you to see if you are really going to spend time with him and the first time you don't he will tell you it's because you don't care. In an eight year old's mind this is the only possible reason you would not be spending time with him. Lets say he gets fifteen minutes of positive one on one time with an adult every day regardless of his behavior. A great way to implement this is allowing him to have his snack with an adult where he gets to talk about his day. Eventually the child will begin to see himself as worthy of an adult's time and realize that he doesn't have to misbehave to get attention from adults. He will become aware of his behavior and change it with the help and guidance of you, the adult.
I understand that the counter argument to this suggestion is to say that when you are in a classroom you can't do this and that may be somewhat true, but the ability to implement this in a classroom has more to do with the teacher's ability to let go of the power struggle and be flexible and less to do with all the wonderful reasons why it's impossible.
There is one teacher that I work with who has managed to implement this approach in her classroom wonderfully. The children are taught to seek positive attention from adults and peers by an “I'm proud” system. When a child is doing something that they feel proud of they are allowed make a signal and she stops the class and the child gets a quick 30 seconds to tell his class or his teacher about his accomplishment. She also has the principle participate in this and allows her students to go down to the office to show the principle things they are proud of. What I like about this is she focuses on the child's expectations of himself and not her expectations of the child as the measure of success. Her system doesn't tell the student that, “You should only be proud if you accomplish the tasks I have set out for you.”, it teaches the student to set goals for himself and then be proud for reaching those goals.
For example, one child in the class really struggles in math. To tell him, “You must get 100% for me to write good job on your paper” is like saying you should only be proud if you're perfect. The child isn't going to try at all if the goal set is out of his reach to begin with. He's going to get angry, he's going to be frustrated, and we are setting him up for negative classroom behavior. Instead she asks each student to guess how they think they will do on an exam and then write that at the top of their test. When the child achieves the goal then they are allowed to go show the principle, other teachers, or tell their peers. For example, a child may be aware that they have had a really hard time learning how to count money and they know they have a money test coming up. Instead of telling them anyone who gets an A on this paper gets a prize, she allows them to set a realistic expectation for themselves. So the student struggling may say, “I think I can get 4 questions right.” It doesn't matter how many questions are on the test, if the child gets four right then they have set and achieved a goal and she is teaching them to feel proud of that. This is a great way to teach intrinsic motivation rather than relying on extrinsic motivators such as candy and stickers. This is making a child aware of how their surroundings affect how they act in situations and teaching them positive ways to self regulate behaviors.
This teacher also uses group dynamics in order to promote positive behaviors. By making examples of positive accomplishments and behaviors and not spending public time on negative ones she is creative a positive peer environment. It has been my experience that a lot of negative behaviors stem from a child's need for attention we have learned about this as Attention Seeking Behavior. In class we saw this in Kagan, Kyle, and Scott's theories and were provided with suggestions on how to deal with attention seeking behavior. The teacher in my example puts good behavior at the center of the classroom environment by publicly acknowledging achievements and casually and nonchalantly dismissing negative behaviors. Rather than specifically punishing bad behavior she simply says, “You know, right now I think you're struggling to make some good decisions. If you think you need some help we would like to help you, but if you just want to take some time and check yourself then that is fine too and you can let us know if you decide you want some help.”
Children act out for so many reasons that punishing them for a behavior may cause the child to learn to deny their feelings. Maybe the child is seeking attention because they heard their parents fighting before school and it is really bothering them but they don't know how to tell you, you just see the resulting behavior, perhaps a child refusing to open his math book. When you punish the negative behavior without understanding its cause, the child assumes you also know about him being upset about his parents (because as we know children are egocentric) and what he hears is, “My teacher doesn't even care about me, she doesn't care that I'm having a bad day.” The most attractive thing about the classroom in my example is that the the teacher allows the student the opportunity to talk about what is bothering him. She encourages the students to help each other and treat others as they would want to be treated. She also doesn't make negative emotions wrong, she simply encourages positive ways to handle them. If the child doesn't want to tell their teacher in front of the whole class what is bothering them they can write it down or color or draw a picture and give it to their teacher (or not if they just want to keep it private). In other words she encourages the child to deal with the underlying issue in a positive way rather than focusing on the negative behavior. In treatment we called this a child centered approach rather than a behavior centered approach. Both positive and negative behaviors in this classroom are given attention by putting the child first and the behavior second.
In all honesty I could write about theories of child guidance all day and this is an area that I have spent a lot of time studying (both in and out of the classroom) as well as have had the ability to work in professionally for many years. I have many theories on child development as it relates to behavior and even started my thesis on moral development as it relates to parenting styles while in Graduate School before coming back for my second undergraduate degree in Elementary Education. As far as specifically citing a lot of information or examples from this class I find this challenging because most of what we have talked about is not what I base my philosophy on. I often walk away from this class feeling that it is more of a history of child development and behavior class than one designed to teach practical application of theory. I feel that it is important to know how this field developed, how theories have changed, and have a good foundation in order to move forward with when working with children but I also feel that a lot of the theories presented in this class deal with idealistic situations that are not realistic expectations for a classroom. A lot of the theories we look at come from Psychologists performing controlled behavior experiments in lab settings. While these studies are no doubt insightful, the findings are not always indicative of practical behavior modification techniques. Some work that I am familiar with and have found more useful when developing my philosophy of child guidance include longitudinal studies (some self report and some done through consistent meetings with the researcher over many years) by people such as J. Goodnow, Berkowitz, Siegler, and Diana Baumrind. The person I consider the most influential in the development of my personal philosophy of child guidance is Diana Baumrind, specifically her paper on “The Discipline Controversy Revisited: Family Relations”. I could, and have, written twenty page papers on her work but to summarize she focuses on how interactions between adults and children play a role in the development of prosocial behaviors, mainly her writings apply to parent child relationships but her advice and findings are easily applicable to a classroom situation. The second most influential person in my philosophy is J. Goodnow, specifically her paper on “Acceptable Disagreements Across Generations: New Directions for Child Development.” This paper is the best article I have ever come across that truly captures not only why authoritative parenting works but how to successfully develop an authoritative relationship with a child. It focuses on mutual respect as the key to developing morally responsible children. I refer often to these people as well as specifically these articles when working to fine tune my approach to child behavior and guidance.
In writing this paper I tried my best to incorporate things from this class with my personal philosophy of guidance but have to be honest in saying that what I have learned from this class rests only at the very base of my philosophy. It is not the information I rely on when working with children but rather it is part of the important foundation necessary for the rest of my philosophy to sit on. My philosophy comes from years of experience and education focusing on the field of child development and specifically the successful development of moral reasoning and prosocial behaviors. When working with children it is my goal to help them learn life long lessons, not just get them to behave when in my presence. There is a lot to cover in what is supposed to be a short paper and this being an area I am passionate about makes it even harder for me to summarize all the contributing factors to my philosophy. In general, I believe that children need consistency, structure, and respect in order to have a good foundation for prosocial development. However, I also believe that it goes far more in depth than this and to over simplify a child's needs when it comes to developing a theory on child guidance does a disservice to the child. It is not something that can be learned in one class, in one job or work experience, or even with one degree, graduate degree, or research project. It requires a dedication to a topic one must truly be invested in. This is on factor I believe contributes to the dismissal of so many theories, for example that of Redl and Wattenberg, by teachers. There is no quick fix for child behavior. There are things that can produce quick and favorable results, but they do not prevent future behavior problems because the big picture is not being addressed. This being said, I think too often teachers are given quick fix tools and understanding and using any real psychology is discouraged in the classroom. Being a teacher isn't a job, it's a decision to become a major contributor to the development of a human being. It should not be taken lightly, it should be something you are willing to fully invest in, and it should be known that it is a hard road to walk down. Over simplifying the reality of these responsibilities sets one up for failure in the classroom. It is a complicated and unpredictable adventure to work with children. There is no script and being good at working with children comes from the ability to be creative and use your knowledge as well as learning from one's experiences. It is developed over a lifetime and is ever changing. What's important is to have a framework from which you work based on a good foundation, staying up to date with research, and having a passion that allows you to tirelessly commit yourself to improving the lives of the children you work with. There is no quick fix, but everyone makes a difference in a child's life. Your job is to choose what kind of impact you want to have, commit yourself to that goal, and stick with it even when your exhausted and it seems impossible.

My Philosophy of Guidance Paper

This is what I wrote for my paper. I was supposed to cite things I had learned from my class and the book that have influenced my philosophy however, I haven't learned anything. So I said so... We'll see how it goes over.

In approaching this assignment I have found myself thinking about the questions being posed and struggling to describe a specific philosophy of guidance. Without digressing too far I have found most of these assignments very hard to do because my philosophy of guidance, my knowledge about how to interact with children, and my practical application of the classic theories of Developmental Psychology do not come from the things I have learned in this class. I also do no believe that these are things that can be taught in a classroom. How do you tell someone how to ride a bike? You can try to explain it to someone but they can't just learn to ride a bike because you tell them how, they have to go out and try it and they have to learn for themselves what works. I know that this paper is looking for me to cite a bunch of information that I have learned in class and from reading the book but the fact of the matter is I don't think guidance has anything to do with these things. If I cite these things as part of my philosophy I am then saying that people without formal education in these subjects do not offer good guidance or are incapable of it and that is not the case. My philosophy also isn't a logical compilation of various theories about child behavior. My philosophy comes from years of working with children and learning through experience what works, what's important, and what approaches are important in building relationships with children. Most importantly though, my experience has taught me that life never plays out like the examples in the books or in class and that the people who base their philosophy on these things struggle to cope with the reality of working with children.

In class we had a demonstration by Dr. Torrie of what an eight year old's behavior looks like. I have spent the last five years of my life working with this age group and walked away from this demonstration wondering how the class would react if they saw a real eight year old. My experience with eight year olds was totally inconsistent with what I was seeing in the classroom. What if I had based my philosophy on this incident? My philosophy would then be based on something that is not consistent with what I was faced with in reality. As for a philosophy statement, I don't have one because the biggest thing I have learned is that the minute you think you have children figured out, they will never fail to surprise you and throw you off your game. I don't have a “this is how you need to interact with or guide children”, instead I have developed a list of beliefs. I have developed opinions or theories about what approaches work best in general when dealing with various situations. I spent a lot of my time with children working in conflict resolution and crisis management and I had to act and think fast in order to literally not get hurt. I had to rely on these beliefs and theories for my personal safety and therefor they needed to be things I really believed worked. Did I quote some text book or theory of a famous psychologist? No, I listened to the children and this became my number one theory of child guidance. Don't ever put yourself in the authority roll in a way that dictates to a child. Children want to be heard. Most of the time they don't even care if they get their way but they want to know that you are listening to them. I am a huge supporter of the authoritative parenting style and use this model as the foundation to how I choose to interact with children. Authoratative parenting is the recommended parenting model but it is my opinion that it is the hardest to master. I believe this is because it can not be taught like a rule book. It is accomplished by parents who learn to trust their “gut” and really do parent from their heart. I think this model is often misrepresented though and people who try to achieve an authoritative relationship with children by following a set of rules end up giving children too many choices in the wrong areas, they try to create an adult like relationship with children when what children need is a supportive and consistent base from which to venture out from. Somewhere along the way the focus seems to have gone from children having authority figures to children having adult friends and I don't agree with this. It's not to say that you can't be friendly with children and have fun and act like a kid with them, but there should never be a doubt about what your role is in their life. You are their to guide and facilitate development, a child needs to see you as a safe and stable pillar in their life and when you don't create a structured environment for them then they don't see you as someone they can trust to know what is best for them. Authoritative relationships come about when you ask for the child's input and encourage discussion about the limitations you may choose to place on them. Rather than tell a child their curfew is 8PM, have a discussion with them and ask for input. It doesn't mean that when they tell you their curfew should be midnight you agree with them but you discuss the situation and they then learn to appreciate and respect you because you are showing them respect as well.

As far as being able to list any examples from lab, I can not. I think the lab in this class is a good idea but does not allow practical use of anything I have learned in this class and it does not allow me to explore my philosophy of guidance. I do not agree with how ACPC approaches child behavior and it has been really hard and frustrating for me to watch this program's beliefs in practice. I disagree with the fact that they believe there should be no consequences for behavior and that regardless of a child's actions they receive the same rewards as the rest of the children. I do not agree with setting up a reward system for behavior and then rewarding all children the same regardless of how they behave. In addition to this specific problem I have a fundamental problem with reward based programs, especially when it comes to behavior. It creates behavior based on extrinsic feedback rather than self regulation. The best example I can provide of this issue was an incident where a child in my lab was ran around all evening hitting his peers and no consequences were given. He wouldn't listen and was being extremely disruptive. I asked about the programs policy on time outs and they said they didn't do them. I suggested we offer the child an outlet, a more positive form of a time out. This is something we used to do with the kids I worked with and it worked really well. It provides the same purpose as a time out without creating a power struggle. Encourage the child to step away from the situation for a few minuets and take some deep breaths, encourage them to reflect on what is bothering them, and then process with the child after they have a few minutes to calm down. Suggest problem resolution ideas. We called this method going through SODAS with kids. SODAS stands for Situations, Options, Disadvantages, Advantages, Solutions. It encourages the child to stop and think and then self regulate their behavior by thinking about the positive and negative consequences of their behaviors. ACPC however would not even allow me to suggest an outlet for the child. They chose instead to ignore the situation and pretend that there was not a problem. I can appreciate not wanting to turn an after school program into a disciplinary program as this can be very difficult and requires a lot more training for the staff but I do not see anything wrong with letting a child know that their behavior is unfavorable and suggesting positive alternatives for them.

Continuing with the example of this child at the end of the day, he received the same three stickers that all his peers got. These stickers are supposed to be based on behavior. Three for great behavior, two for ok, one for good, and zero for bad. If you give the child who is hitting everyone three stickers and you give the children who really did do awesome three stickers then the reward system loses meaning to everyone. The misbehaving child is just getting his bad decisions rewarded and the good children are learning that it doesn't matter if they are good or not. It creates a negative environment and it does not encourage prosocial behaviors for any of the children. All of this in the name of 'being fair and having fun'.

I don't really understand the movement towards making all things fair for children. What is wrong with teaching children about competition and hard work paying off? Once again I see this as another fundamental theory that has become very twisted because a few people became too lazy to really apply the true idea of how a reward system works (should you decided to use one). You should know the children you work with and you should know what it means to have a good day or a bad day. I work as a tutor in the Ames schools and one of my classrooms has an amazing teacher. She has an extremely difficult child in her classroom, he spends on average about a third of his day being sent to the principles' office. For him a perfect day without any principle time is not a realistic expectation for him, so instead she focuses on lowering that time. Any day that he gets sent less than three times to the principle he gets a sticker. It used to be less than five times and then he was able to get stickers every day so now they are doing less than three. The reward system is based on his needs, his abilities, not the hard fast rule that getting sent to the principles office is bad and if you get sent then you had a horrible day. For him, that seems impossible and it's too hard, however he knows he can do less than three and he takes great pride in wearing his stickers proudly. All the teachers in the school know about this program and congratulate him when they see him wearing his stickers. This is a great program for him because it focuses on his ability and allows him to develop intrinsic motivation by making the real reward the ability to be proud of himself and his behaviors.

To conclude this paper I will sum up my main ideas about children. There is no theory from this class that I would be able to point to and tell you that my philosophy of guidance stems from. To write a paper doing this would be a lie, but I do feel what I have expressed fulfills the learning objective outlined by you for this paper. To be completely honest a lot of my ideas come from the work of Baumirind and from having read numerous research articles of hers and finding myself able to relate to her findings and theories. These were not covered in this class however. I wouldn't preach a philosophy to anyone but if I had to tell someone what my philosophy was I would summarize it like this, “Children are more complicated, more expressive, and more intelligent than any adult could ever imagine. The only way to even catch a glimpse into this world that we so quickly dismiss as adults is to be willing to listen to children. I do not believe in being the adult that has nothing to learn from children, my experience has taught me that there are many times I have much more to learn from them than they may ever learn from me. Children are not adults and as such they should not be treated like adults, but they should have their thoughts and actions respected. They may fight you and argue with you but this is natural development, despite their claims to want complete freedom children thrive in structured environments where they have regular input about their surroundings. Most importantly I believe that you shouldn't interact with children like you are reading from a script. You go to school so that you become familiar with information. Some of this information may be helpful, some of it you may never use but don't try to apply every situation to some theory that you have learned about. Most of the time you won't be able to. Trust your instincts, you were a child once too and when you don't know what to do remember the saying about walking a mile in their shoes. Ask yourself how you would want someone to respond in the situation you are being faced with. Use the fact that you have been a child, gotten through childhood, and can now reflect back to help guide you with the hard decisions. Most importantly though have fun. If children see you as someone that is uptight and worried they are not going to be comfortable around you. Show them that you want to be there and that they can trust you.” This is my philosophy, this is what I have learned from reading research on child development and parenting styles (I use parenting styles a lot as guidance since parents are the ultimate child guides) and from working as a professional with children for many years. If you over think things and try to over complicate children you will never be great at your job working with them. You will lose the big picture and you will miss out on a great opportunity.

val⋅ue: noun, verb, -ued, -u⋅ing.

relative worth, merit, or importance: the value of a college education; the value of a queen in chess.

How is the value of something determined? Historically I believe it stems from the supply and demand concept. Something that is in short supply but high demand will be assessed a higher value than something in high supply and that is of relatively no use. The key word here being relative. Usually I try to focus on only one concept at a time but I believe in this situation the concept of relativity and value both need to be understood.

rel⋅a⋅tive

–adjective:
1. considered in relation to something else; comparative: the relative merits of democracy and monarchy.
2. having reference or regard; relevant; pertinent


How do you determine value without creating an equal playing field? Value can not exist without defining it in a relative context. My specific issue has to do with academic assessment with grades. Do grades really measure the value of someone's knowledge? And I don't just mean worth, but actual amount of knowledge. When you are hiring someone and you look at their grades, are you not doing this to determine how well they know what they are doing? But grades have very little to do with actual topic knowledge.

Let me explain. Let's take three students. All of them are taking the same math class but with three different professors. Each student has the same knowledge and proficiency going into the class. However, the following is how it plays out:

Student 1, Class A: (Syllabus-Grade Distribution)

Exams = 90% of final grade
Homework = 10% of final grade

Student 2, Class B: (Syllabus-Grade Distribution)

Exams = 10%
Homework = 10%
Smiling = 60%
Attendance = 20%

Student 3, Class C (Syllabus- Grade Distribution)

Exams = 25%
Homework = 25%
Attendance = 25%
Quizes = 25%

The student in the first class has almost all his grade based on his exams. Student 2 only has to show up and smile and he gets an 80% (B-) and student 3 has to work equally on all the areas of the class if he wants to pass. All three get A's at the end of the semester. Without having the student's syllabus while evaluating their GPA how do you know who will be the best one hire to do math problems for your company? How can you be sure that you are getting the person with the most knowledge when there is no universal criteria for evaluating students? Yet we place so much emphasis on grades.

A grade can only hold value if the value can be compared or is truly relative to other grades. Another way to think about this is with money. Lets imagine that all of the sudden we are told that some of our $1 are now really worth $1000. They look exactly like $1 bills and each day they change. So if you happen to have a $1 bill that is worth $1000 today, it may no longer be worth that much tomorrow. Does that dollar really hold any value? If the worth is not consistent than it can not be relatively compared to assess value. Think about owning a store where you have to sell a lamp for $60 in order to make a profit. How do you price that lamp if someone can buy it today with a $1 bill worth $1000 but tomorrow the bill he used to pay it with changes back to a true $1 bill. Eventually $1 bills become avoided because they are not reliable, their worth and value mean nothing.

If some of my professors value attendance, some don't; some think it's important to have an assignment typed, but others don't care as long as you can make an argument. How are we as students supposed to know what to do? If I am told to write a paper and write it in blue ink instead of black should that be grounds to fail the assignment even though I have a better understanding of the information than the individual who uses the black ink but can barely put together sentences? Why are we getting so wrapped up in stuff that holds no significance with regards to what KNOWLEDGE we are trying to learn.

I think colleges have become factories producing (and rewarding) students for NOT thinking and instead focusing on the ability to do what you're told without asking questions. We are creating a country of lemmings where knowledge is not valued, complacency is. Should I be upset that I know more than any other student in my class but I didn't turn an assignment into the right place? I e-mailed it instead of turning it later when I was sick and got a zero for an assignment I actually did. An assignment my professor wouldn't even look at because I didn't jump through the right hoops? I am sure some of the best minds in America are being wasted because they aren't going to jump through arbitrary hoops in order to be considered worthwhile. Why jump through someone else's hoops trying to succeed when there is no guarantee you will or when any idiot off the street could do it?

People sometimes ask me what I'm complaining about, you get an easy A if you just jump through hoops. You don't even have to study. I think this comment emphasizes the mindset of the people we are labeling as our elite. People with real intellectual ability actually WANT to learn. They don't want to just get an A for showing up and receive a substandard education. They want to be challenged and pushed to think, and they want to be valued because of their brains and not how well they can follow directions.

I just never understand why we spend so much time promoting conformity and compliance while honoring individuals who have made change. We celebrate countless holidays for people who have achieved great things in their lives. Name one who agreed with conformity and compliance. Why are we not trying to produce our next generation of amazing people?

This post may seem like a lot of rambling and I apologize that it is not my best writing but I am afraid I may have let my emotions get the best of me on this piece. I speak as someone with a high IQ, above average academic abilities, and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge that is unable to succeed because of the lack of appreciation for any of these qualities. We kid ourselves and say we value education but we don't. It's the same reason that we can't compete on a global level. We are more concerned with 'passing' as many students as we can without actually evaluating their acquisition of information. Our country may have a higher GPA than any other country, but we are idiots. We don't know even the most fundamental academic information because our grading system is allowed to give passing grades for things like perfect attendance. So what if a student showed up to class everyday, can you prove to me that they learned anything? I see the students in our honors programs and laugh as I tutor them in their classes. I can't get into an honors program because of my GPA but I spend my week tutoring three honor students to help them pass their classes? Honor's students are usually just the students who had the luck of the draw in getting classes where 60% of the grade is just showing up to class.

It's not fair, and I don't mean that personally. I mean we are not doing anyone any favors. As a country we are so afraid to just accept that some people can't do things. Some people just will never be able to do Physics. So why not nurture the minds of those who can rather than passing everyone who can't just so that we can pretend everyone can do anything. I thought part of college curriculum was decided because in order to do a certain job one has to demonstrate proficiencies in certain areas. If we just pass anyone who tries are we doing any favors to that field?

I'm tired of the arbitrary value of our grading system and the fact that an A means nothing. How does someone with a 2.0 get a 34 on their ACT's? And don't tell me I just didn't try. I did, I tried to learn the information. I didn't draw pretty pictures and write love notes to my teachers. In the end that hurt me. When will we stop worrying about hurting people's feelings and start true competition on the intellectual playing field? Right now, we are in a valueless educational system, and that makes us all losers.