Mothers are widely presumed to have supernatural knowledge, and who am I to argue with this idea?
That’s why, at a party with cookies laid out on a table (the kid equivalent of an open bar), children will go find their mothers to ask whether they can have one (sometimes with the desired baked good in hand).
If they don’t ask, she’ll know anyway. They need to know where the limits are.
Read MoreI’ve heard a few different versions of the same story now:
“You get written up at my daughter’s school if you’re not wearing a belt! You get in trouble if you walk too close to the wall in the hallway. We’re frustrated with these rules and we’ve talked to them about finding ways that she can have more creative expression at school, but nothing seems to change.”
No, nothing will change. This is exactly what happens when there’s a mismatch of values between you and the private school you’ve chosen for your child.
Read MoreI was on my way to work one morning in my early twenties when I saw someone at a stoplight who changed the way I saw the world.
As a young adult in a new city, I had a rigid set of rules about how to live and, at the same time, a limited ability to operate in accordance with them.
These rules governed what I could eat and when, what I could spend, and how I could spend my time. It was my best attempt to tame the chaos of my circumstances.
Read MoreI’ve written in the past about “the real world” rhetoric and the fact that many teachers feel it’s their job to prepare their students for a mythical future boss who won’t let you do any work over again or negotiate a deadline. Who are these bosses that act like fifth-grade teachers? Let’s all steer clear of them.
Beyond the silly notion that the teacher’s job is to prepare students for some mythical future job where a boss cares more about deadlines than the actual work product (“Nope! It’s a day late! I don’t even want to look at it,”) is the dark truth that these teachers are doing that very thing under the guise of “teaching accountability.”
Read MoreThe “real world” rhetoric among teachers is relentless.
It’s not all teachers — in fact, there’s an increasing number of teachers who have a more nuanced view. But the prevailing story goes like this:
“If I don’t take points off for late work/give zeros for missing homework/point out every error, how will my student make it in the real world, where bosses aren’t forgiving and deadlines are strict? I have to teach them to follow through on their responsibilities.”
Read MoreHow do you measure the value of a human life?
Is it measured by how successful someone is? Well then, how do we define successful? And how do we measure success?
Parents want the best for their kids — that appears to be universal. But there is no objective measurement of what best means.
To generalize mercilessly, I have observed three ways in which parents grapple with this issue.
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