Thursday, July 5, 2012
Robinson Boys 3 - summer heat 1
Greetings y'all ;
We hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Independence Day. We were lucky to enjoy three parades. Keep in my our sense if adventure though. We began our day by heading to Dundalk, then Towson and finally Catonsville .
We arrived in Dundalk on Robinson Boy standard time and fashion. Late and wrong area. I thought I knew the plaza we were to meet in ,however after parking 1/2 mile from the plaza we discovered we were 6/10 of a mile from the right one and had seven minutes to meet our contingency. So we found our selves jogging, no running , the 6/10 of a mile at 8am. Then we started walking with Senator Cardin and his wife. Dundalk puts on quite a parade. It took us over an hour to complete it and when I drove a volunteer back to the start where her car was the back of the parade hadn't even started.
So then it was off to Towson. We arrived in Towson in typical Robinson Boy fashion- running late and parked too far away. I guess we needed the exercise. We managed to make through this time handing out stickers because we couldn't walk directly with the Senator. We had a chance to sit back and enjoy the Towson when we finished. I love taking Xander to my roots and sharing memories. Towson puts on a lovely parade. Twas nice seeing folks get dressed up and wish Happy Independence Day! One elderly lady thanked me for using that expression . She said her husband used say it because it's July 4th everywhere , but not every one celebrates it. Its like saying Happy December 25th. She was a hoot! We made it back to our car and headed west.
Xander decided to summon up the energy ( said tongue in cheek) and go help Senator Cardin in Catonsville. Oddly though we arrived early but still parked far away. Alas, we got more walking in. As we looked for parking Senator Cardin's folks thanked us and said it was too hot and too long therefore all volunteers are being set free for the day. I thought that was rather considerate. We opted to sit on a curb in the shade and enjoy the parade. Catonsville is filled with beautiful homes along shady streets and great civic pride. The parade lasted two hours, glad we found shade and nice folks to sit with. Xander handed out the last of stickers and we sat across from folks with water pistols shooting at the marchers. Lucky for us they overshot quite often and hit us with cool water throughout the parade. Xander was thrilled when Senator Cardin and his wife came down the street. Mrs Cardin called his name and waved and the Senator acknowledged us too. We made our trek back to our motorized chariot with a few minutes left on the cell phone battery and thus the GPS . It was only a mile to the car but once there I had no idea how to get out. The joy of parking on a shady side street in a strange community. Fortunately we'd parked near a road that led us to 695.
We made it home changed for the pool only to discover the pool closed early. Oh well we decided to relax and eventually watched fireworks from our window. Just another random adventure for us.
As you can tell it was a typically adventurous day for an ADD dad and his ADHD son. We've learned to embrace our quirkiness and accept it. That doesn't mean we gave up it means we have to work harder at some things but not be so anxious about other things. I learned quite sometime ago that I am an otherwise thinking kinestetic learner. A whole brain and global thinker. I credit my sons quirky brain to genetics and environment. I grew up knowing I was different and my parents did a fine raising in spite of not understanding my brain. I still frustrate them and myself quite frankly. I know my son's brain and how it works through self discovery, research, training and because of my occupation. I still fail miserably at times as a parent though. But life is journey of living, loving, laughing and learning.
I would love to hear about some of your experiences. Feel free to share.
Thanks
From the eloquence of your blogs, I would never have guessed that you are (or consider yourself) ADD. It sounds like you had a wonderful day - it was far too hot in Chicago, and many areas cancelled fireworks due to cost and/or dangerously dry weather. So no fireworks this year.
ReplyDeleteI have been reading a lot about brain research as related to education this summer. It's funny, because what is now being purported as "best practice" is what I've always done as a teacher. Yes, it is still important to teach in a manner that matches the student's preferred learning modality (kinesthetic, in your case), but research is also showing that exposure and practice with other modalities strengthens learning in those modalities to allow equal learning results even if not in the preferred modality (wordy sentence, I know). In other words, I would teach some lessons taking advantage of kinesthetic, hands-on methods. I would teach a linked lesson in maybe a visual modality. Then I might ask you to express your learning in oral, visual, and kinesthetic modalities (talking or explaining and showing). The more modalities are practiced and used, the more comfortable and easier it becomes for the students to switch between them. This becomes especially important when progressing to high school and college where learning styles are not as targeted due to large numbers of students passing through classes each day. Thankfully, even at the high school level, most classes are not strictly lecture as they may have been in our day, but it still tends to be a staple style of teaching in large colleges and universities.
The other thing I've read about brain research regards the whole left brain/right brain issue. It turns out, it's kind a bunch of malarkey (now that brain imaging has advanced so greatly). We use our whole brain all the time! Not every single bit, but spots and pathways on both sides. Not only that, but the myth about only using a small percentage of our brain is also untrue. What is true, is that the more often we practice what we know, or use what we know, or purposefully remember what we know, the stronger the myelin connections between the parts of the brain storing those skills, memories, and pieces of knowledge. Therefore, it is still important to have some rote learning (but not in the absence of higher order learning), and talking and writing about what we've learned (rather than filling in multiple choice bubbles) reinforces learning and shows true learning.
I wish people in the Department of Education knew this.
Thanks for your feedback. I would concur , exposure to alternative modalities really gets the synapses firing. I confess I still lean towards a reliance on blooms taxonomy and subconsciously on learning styles. It's good to know the students strengths , work with it but then build on their weaker styles. It creates a stronger foundation for lifetime learning. But that's just me.
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