Two quick questions before we run out of time...

1. As a teacher, you must see lots of examples of parenting, both good and bad. Do you think that being a teacher helps you be a better parent, and can younthink of parenting lessons or advice you've picked up through your work?

2. Seeing so many examples of parenting and outcomes, has your view of nature v nurture changed accordingly?

Dol, I always remember the "of the month" threads, think I have time left, and then suddenly it's the last day, but I've just gone through this and it has been a fascinating read.

So my questions -- since there's so little time, you can pick 3!

1. What's your worst habit?

2. Have you ever been afraid for your life?

3. Who would play you in the movie?

4. Your most embarrassing moment?

5. Do you think uglification and derision have any place in education?

6. What were you in your last incarnation?

7. Someone early on in this thread implied that you were over the border often. Do you get to Windsor often? Or Detroit?

Thanks so much guys! This was a lot of fun! I'll answer the last few questions and then select my victim in a new thread.

quote:

1. As a teacher, you must see lots of examples of parenting, both good and bad. Do you think that being a teacher helps you be a better parent, and can younthink of parenting lessons or advice you've picked up through your work?

Being a teacher makes me a more paranoid parent. I don't know about "better", but when you spend your days seeing example after example of cautionary tales, it's hard not to take those to heart. I'd like to think it's made me more aware of warning signs. I think the biggest thing I've picked up through my work is the need to be involved in a child's life. Know who their friends are, know what they're up to. It's easy with my office being in the same building - both the kids and the staff fill me in when something happens - but I see a lot of otherwise really great parents who just don't know what their kids are up to. On the flip side, it's a delicate balance between knowing enough and not being so involved that it's detrimental. I see examples of that, too. I don't need to know every single little thing. Just enough that Liam knows I know.

quote:

2. Seeing so many examples of parenting and outcomes, has your view of nature v nurture changed accordingly?

Hmm...yes and no. Because the town where my school is is a small one, we have a lot of kids attending our school whose parents also attended. (And, yes, I taught a parent of a child at our school. Sigh. His youngest sibling and his child are two years apart.) There's a lot of apple-tree correlation in many cases. That applies to both personality and academic ability. On the other hand, I often see siblings who are polar opposites - one a hard worker who never gets into trouble, and the other just coasting through with a talent for trouble. In most cases, the older one is the hard worker and the younger is the one who gets into trouble. I think a lot of times, when parents have an "easy" child with the first - one who works well within the parents' natural parenting style - when the second one is harder (and doesn't do well with the natural parenting style), there's problems. Good, caring parents who just can't figure out how to adapt their style for the second kid. And then there are kids who have a LOT of potential - smart kids who I can see the goodness in, but have the chips stacked so against them that I can't imagine how they'll get out. When a student gets busted for drugs and the parent comes in yelling, and the child's response is, "Why don't you tell them what YOU do, dad? Why don't you show them the track marks?" Well, there's only so much you can do.

Nan W - Your questions are easy! I'll answer them all!

1. What's your worst habit?
Procrastination. I either do something the moment I realize it needs to be done (usually avoiding something else more pressing) or it gets done at the last possible moment.

2. Have you ever been afraid for your life?
Yep. I learned how to SCUBA dive when I was 12. On our open water dive, there were some issues: the gloves I was wearing were a bit too big so my fingers were cold. The line going from my tank to my BC (buoyancy compensation device) malfunctioned so I couldn't add air to it with the push of a button. I was sinking into the silt at the bottom and needed to add air. So I took the regulator out of my mouth to add air manually. Because my hands were cold, I couldn't operate the button with one hand. So I let go of the reg to use both hands. I let most of the air in my lungs out into the vest. When I went to retrieve my reg, it was stuck in something in the silt. I grabbed my dive buddy's fin and signaled that I was out of air. He should have immediately handed me his reg before trying to solve the problem. He didn't - he tried to retrieve my reg from behind me. My lungs were burning and I started to suck in water. I panicked, grabbed the reg out of his mouth, took a breath, and went for the surface. Part of it was equipment issues, part of it was my own inexperience. He told the instructor that those were the only issues. But he broke rule number one - if a buddy signals out of air, you give them your reg and start buddy breathing. You don't analyze, you don't hesitate, you just do it.

3. Who would play you in the movie?
Winona Ryder

4. Your most embarrassing moment?
I'm going to tell a story I've never told ANYONE. Not even Mister Soak has heard it. I don't know if most embarrassing exactly covers it, but it haunts me.

The drama teacher I mentioned earlier in the thread and I became, as I think I mentioned, very good friends. We were doing auditions for a show together, and he was trying to decide between two actors. I was lobbying for one over the other - I knew them both, and he didn't. He asked me to tell him about them. When I was telling him about the one I wasn't a fan of, I was describing him as creepy (the guy made my skin crawl) and was trying to explain why. I was trying to verbalize it, and in my explanation, one of the things I blurted out was that he was gay. Jeff cocked his head sideways and said, "And that makes him creepy?" I backtracked - that WASN'T what made him creepy - but even then I was horrified that I had said it. About two months later, Jeff and I went to Stratford together to see a show. We went out for drinks with some of his friends, and they outed him, not realizing I didn't already know. It still haunts me. During one of those silly little confession games on Facebook, I made reference to it, not explaining the details but mentioning Jeff specifically. He had no idea what I was talking about so obviously he didn't hold it against me. But it haunts me.

5. Do you think uglification and derision have any place in education?
No. Period.

6. What were you in your last incarnation?
This isn't something I really go in for, however, a friend of mine is into the whole past lives thing so I have thought about it. I think I was a soldier. Just a nameless foot soldier, low on the ladder, in the trenches.

7. Someone early on in this thread implied that you were over the border often. Do you get to Windsor often? Or Detroit?
Windsor, yes. It's only about 20 minutes from me. Detroit less often, but on a fairly regular basis. I go into NY more often, so I usually cross over up at Lewiston.


Thanks again, all! This was fun! Off to post the new thread...