Dear So and So

[DirtDiva]

Avid crusaders fan

Dear crazycanuck,

You are a good woman.

Yours,
One-eyed Cantab, born and raised.

[RoadRaven]

Hi Brandy - its interesting that your childcare workers are allowed to use "time out" as a strategy for "behaviour management".

Over here we have changed the words... behaviour management" is called "positive guidance" and the strategies used have to reflect that phrase.

Timing children out can potentially get early childhood teachers into alot of trouble... it is written into our ECE Regulations here. So I will join you in your letter to this childcare teacher, and if she worked in Middle earth I would also be able to tell her I was going to report her "teaching strategy" to her supervisor/head teacher... and if that wasn't taken seriously, then to the Ministry.

Isolation from others is used for POWs, and should not be used for three year olds.

[RoadRaven]

Dear crazycanuck,

You are a good woman.

Yours,
One-eyed Cantab, born and raised.

Did you manage to catch the game last night Kiwi? CC? Crusaders/Hurricanes?

Dear Wellington... next time you decide to host a significant final of the worlds greatest ever contact sport, please ensure the rolling fog stays out of the caketin... although I was seated in my living room and got some excellent close-ups - it would have been nice to have some "aerial" views and I am sure those that played good money to actually be there are extremely disappointed to be unable to see most of the action!

Rugby-Raven

[Brandy]

Road Raven...I think the fact that we don't really use time-outs here at home is why he has a hard time with them there. He's one of those kids who when he knows that he has done something wrong he feels bad and doesn't want to keep talking about it. I was telling my husband that he probably felt really bad and he had already been in time out...forcing him to have a discussion about it afterward just sent him over the edge and into meltdown land Unfortunately, using time-outs there is the policy. It's really not the best situation and I try not to use it unless I absolutely have to.

[Duck on Wheels]

When my "little one" (now 23 y.o., 6'5", and very sweet and laid back) was in his terrible 2's ... and 3's, and 4's ... the day care teacher designed a whole program for dealing with, not only my explosive kid but several others in the same class. She did a year-long program on "feelings". They went to the art museum and looked at paintings to see what emotions the people in them showed. They listened to music and painted emotions as they listened. They read books on emotions -- anger, joy, sadness, etc. After a few months, these little toddlers could understand and express their own feelings better, at which point they stopped "exploding". Much easier to recognize, and talk about, your own feelings when you've used books etc. to learn about others' feelings first.

From there, this teacher went on to a several year program about trees -- which put an end to kids breaking branches off the trees in the park around the day care. The class would "adopt" a different tree each year -- a big pine in the forest one year, a neighborhood birch the next, and so on. They'd visit the tree in each season, and a botanist from the university gave them a toddler-accessible lecture on what the tree could be used for -- like making sweet syrup from birch sap, which they then did, or a trip to the paper plant to see spruce made into paper. Great program!

Then in grade school, when there was a littering problem, the whole faculty decided to do a program on colors and seeing your surroundings. For instance, my son's class spent one lesson on their knees by the windows painting the winter scene outside. learning that snow is not white and spruce trees neither simply green nor black. Not long after, he started taking pictures of sunsets over the fjord and sending them to his big sister (who was away at college) to make her homesick; he'd just stand there awestruck by the windows and say what a beautiful place we lived in, then take a picture to remind his sister of that. And yes, at least for a while, there was a lot less litter around the school.

So yep, time-outs and "serious talks" with 3-year-olds are not the best methods, just the "easiest" and "fastest" for impatient and unimaginative teachers.

[DirtDiva]

No, RR I didn't manage to see it (it was played at Jade, btw). I had to catch a train to go and pick up my bike - it was still in Surrey after my (mis)adventure the other weekend.

[RoadRaven]

(it was played at Jade, btw).

I just LURVE it when I can make a complete dork of myself on a global scale!

You didn't miss much as the fog was very thick... but glad you have picked up your bike... free of holly I assume?


Brandy and Bikeless - early childhood is something I can rant on about for a long time - this is my job - teaching early childhood teachers...
In short though, I am glad neither of you support "time out" as all it teaches children is that you have more power than them and you can be a bigger bully.

And what a progressive teacher, Bikeless, to be teaching your terrific two about feelings and empathy. We often do not credit the very young with ability to reason and think laterally or to be empathetic... and yet most people quip that the most learning happens in the first three years...

[crazycanuck]

RoadRaven...we were at the pub watching it live...or what we could see of the game....

Dear Edmonton Oilers, Thank you for doing so well this season. It's great to see my hometown happy about thier hockey team once again...14yrs is a bit too long though!!!!! Make Canada proud and bring the cup home....

Happy hockey fan..but unhappy hockey fan that has to put up with only being able to listen to the game online...*&^^^F^^ sattelite tv that cancelled the contract to carry the nhl games live down here in aust after the players strike.....

Crazy "off to beg someone with broadband to allow us to borrow thier house to watch the games live..."canuck...

[DirtDiva]

Well, Ms. Raven, I couldn't let anyone here go assuming that Canterbury hadn't qualified top of the round-robin and earned that home final fair and square.

You know, I give lots of what could be considered in-class timeouts (if someone is preventing someone else from learning, then they will be moved somewhere they won't have the opportunity to continue doing so), but I don't send anyone out of my classroom unless they have done something (i.e. a fist fight) that warrants an immediate visit to the principal's office. It's pointless - most behaviour problems arise when children don't have the skills necessary to complete the work required, and they'll never learn those skills if they're not in the classroom. The single most frustrating aspect of doing supply/relief/sub work is that you simply don't have the opportunity to implement any of the long-term, positive strategies that help those kids so much.

[DrBee]

Dear Postal Service,

Why do you insist on taunting me??? Yesterday you delivered my tire levers, but not the tubes. Now - I know that both boxes were sent at the same time from the same place, presumably. Now, since Monday is a holiday, I will not get me tubes until at least Tuesday! Which is even more torturous, because it's my telecommuting day. So I'll have to look at the tubes, but won't be able to do anything with them until "after work". Torturous!

Sincerely,

REALLY needing to ride my bike

[Nanci]

Dear Wh*re who stole my tube of Aquaphore out of the bathroom during my 9 hour 48 minute death march (Wickham Park Marathon). Thanks a lot. I hope you have a good use for it. Perhaps you, like me, have salt chafing on the insides of your thighs, in about 3" diameter circles, that every time you peed for the next four stops, felt like someone was slicing your inner thighs with razor blades. Or maybe you felt the oncoming of inner arm chafing from the too-rough fabric of your running shirt (the only one that could possibly stay dry and not soak up ten pounds of sweat) and sought to nip that in the bud before they, too, turned into two-inch diameter circles of raw skin. But probably, you are some loser who has never run for 30 seconds in your pathetic life, because you can't put down your smokes long enough to! I hope you enjoyed it!!

Nanci

[DrBee]

Dear Nanci,

Wow - you survived! I've been wondering how you did and I never had any doubts. I'm impressed!

Hoping to just run around the block without stopping,
Fishdr

[Nanci]

Out of 33 starters, 13 people finished the marathon, and two of those went on to finish the 50 miles. 39% finishing rate.

I'll come up with some highlights, but first I have to figure out how to get on my bike for the Memorial Day Bike Club picnic.

Nanci

[jeannierides]

Dear Furniture Shopper,

Don't you realize how rude it is to come into our store talking on your cell phone? You can obviously see me walking up to you in order to greet you. Are you so self-important that you can't put your phone down for a few minutes out of common courtesy?? I promise I won't pin your arm behind your back and make you buy anything!

Sincerely fed up,

[DrBee]

Out of 33 starters, 13 people finished the marathon, and two of those went on to finish the 50 miles. 39% finishing rate.

I'll come up with some highlights, but first I have to figure out how to get on my bike for the Memorial Day Bike Club picnic.

Nanci

Dear Nanci,

Good luck! I hope your legs don't rebel. And I hope your weather is better than here - cloudy and drizzly. At least it's not in the 90's - finally.

Fishdr