Squidoo Part 2: Why is Squidoo Useful to Readers?

In my last blog I talked about what Squidoo offers its lensmasters (writers). But writers have just wasted their time if no one reads what they’ve written. It’s true that Lensmasters read each other’s work and critique and rate it frequently. So if you create a quality lens, someone is sure to read it. But what can those outside the Squidoo Community get out of it? Why should they bother to visit the site?

Search Squidoo first.

First, it’s a great place to get organized information. Most people who are looking for information on the Internet usually try Google first. If people want to buy books or gardening supplies, they may have their favorite places in town or on the Internet to search. Me? I go to Squidoo. Why? Because lensmasters on Squidoo do a great job of presenting not only organized information, usually with related pictures, but also links to other sources they have already checked on their subjects that they recommend. Instead of being presented with hundreds of links to a subject of interest, the most prominent of which are often there because they paid to be at the top,  if you search on Squidoo, you will often find just what you want.

A Squidoo lensmaster writes about his or her topic of interest. – maybe a hobby, a product review, a personal experience, a trip, or how to do something.  Let’s say you want information on covered bridges. Google brings up over one million links, ten of which are on the first page. Most of these first ones are sponsored links and most are by state departments of tourism.  I tried to paste the results here, but it just didn’t format correctly. You can try the search yourself.

Used by permission of Mary Beth Granger

Now I will search at Squidoo. Although Squidoo also returns a few irrelevant results, there are a lot that are relevant. Let’s look at one of them: Visiting a Covered Bridge. (This will open in a new window so you can jump right back here.) The focus of this lens is one particular covered bridge at Sandy Creek Covered Bridge State Historic Site. You will learn about the history of this bridge and the history of covered bridges in general and why they were covered. You will view original photographs of the bridge from every possible view, as well as the inside the bridge. If you want to buy a gift for someone who collects covered bridge related items, you will also see some that are available and where to get them. There will also be links to blog posts on covered bridges. If you return to the search page, you will also find links to lenses on Covered Bridges in New Hampshire and Oregon Historical Bridges. Each of these is written by someone different and so each offers a unique perspective. All have information of the history and location of the bridges and some great photographs.

Used by permission of Mary Beth Granger

Suppose you’d rather see lighthouses. So far I’m on page five of the search on Squidoo and have not found one irrelevant link. Many focus on a particular lighthouse or the lighthouses of one particular state or country. Some focus on haunted lighthouses. Some are for those who want a lighthouse-related gift. One of my favorites is Light House Through the Palms about the Hillsboro Inlet Lighthouse in Pompano Beach, Florida just north of Fort Lauderdale. You will find so much about lighthouses on Squidoo that you probably could forget Google altogether.

Suppose you need a recipe. We have a lot of good cooks on Squidoo, and you are likely to find several recipes for anything you’d like to make.  How about Christmas Cookies? My search at Squidoo located several pages and I could find enough results on the first page to keep me baking the rest of my life. But I moved past page one just to see what else was there and I found this lens on Christmas Cookie Exchange Tips.  If you need to host or participate in a cookie exchange, you won’t need to look anywhere else for ideas.

Used by permission of Sandy M

Need to plan a party? Search Squidoo. One of my Squidoo friends has a lens featuring great products to help you celebrate Halloween: Happy Zazzle Halloween! Need help with a Birthday Party? Just search Squidoo for “birthday  party.” I’m sure Squidoo will have ideas for all your other celebrations, too. Lenses teach you how to cook a turkey, make decorations, whatever you need to help you entertain.

I’m not saying you can find a lens about absolutely everything on Squidoo, but you can sure find a lot. Get information about books and authors, celebrities, historical events, music styles and artists, you name it. If you are an educator in a home or school, you can get great lesson plans and unit study ideas. The nice thing about searching at Squidoo is that each search result gives you the introduction so that you know whether you want to click or not. Google’s results normally only give you a line or two and then you can’t always find what you were looking for when you click. That’s why I search Squidoo first.

I have gone into detail about the advantages of searching for information on Squidoo. But Squidoo is also a great shopping aid. Most lensmasters will offer links to items you can buy that are related to the subject of their lenses. In some cases they have designed these items at Zazzle or Café Press. In others they recommend products they have used themselves, be it a cookie sheet, a book, or whatever else they may be writing about.  So if you are trying to find something to buy a collector, search for a lens on the subject of the collection (cats, owls, lighthouses, pens – whatever)and you will probably get some good ideas and maybe even a link to buy just the right thing.

So Squidoo can benefit you ever if you don’t belong to the site. You can use it as a search engine. You can use it to shop. And if you are like me, you can use it to open new areas of interest. Most lensmasters have featured links at the ends of their pages, and I hardly read a lens that doesn’t tempt me to go read another one on something  totally different – maybe something I never knew existed. Remember: Try Squidoo first. Click that link and I’ll bet you will find something interesting to read before you even do a search.

Squidoo: Part 1

What is Squidoo all about?

This is the first of two blogs on Squidoo, a writing community I joined in April. I had no idea how involved I would become when I joined, nor did I realize how it would meet  the needs that arose right after I joined. I didn’t know what to write about for my first lens, so I walked around my neighborhood in Paso Robles, California and took pictures of what the neighbors were doing in their front yards and in the park on that first nice spring day of the year. I guess I wanted to showcase my neighborhood because I found it interesting if one took a close look. That resulted in this lens: http://www.squidoo.com/PasoRoblesSpringDay .

Squidoo is a neighborhood of “squids.” They write lenses that allow readers to see their unique perspective on a subject. New members of the community are “fresh squids.” When a member has written 50 quality lenses he or she can apply to be a Giant Squid. Giant Squids get special perks. I’m hoping to be one by next April at the latest.

When you picture writing, you may be thinking of books, newspapers, or magazines. Many squids do some writing for those kinds of publications. But on Squidoo their writing can take the form of a multimedia presentation, a photo essay, or whatever they want it to be. They build lenses with modules, and these modules each have special jobs. Some are for showcasing videos or pictures. Some are for text with pictures. Some bring a Google map in. Others automatically bring in news or blogs with your search terms that change daily or at intervals you specify. The modules make it easy for even those who do not know any html to use a lot of features that would not appear in a text file alone.

Some Squidoo members are very talented at using html code and these can add more color, style, borders, etc to their modules to make them even more attractive. But they don’t keep all these talents to themselves. They share their secrets with the rest of the community in special lenses that teach others how to do what they have done. So as time goes on, you will be able to add more and more features to your own lenses so they will better express what you want to do with them. You will soon begin to see each lens you write as a masterpiece you are building. When it is finished, you can still keep making changes easily after publication as you learn even more tricks or find added information on your subject.

So if you join Squidoo, you have many different ways to express what you want to say. Joining is very easy. Just think of a topic you’d like to write about and think of a title that sums it up. Then follow this link: http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/referral/BarbRad and go through the easy steps to becoming a lensmaster. You will be asked to supply a URL (web address) for your article, and that’s the only thing you can’t change. I normally use the title in small case, with the words joined by hyphens. You can later go back and change your title or key words. If you need help after that, all kinds of help is available from others on the site.

So what did Squidoo do for me? Right after I joined, we had a termite infestation. I was able to channel some of my frustration into http://www.squidoo.com/TermiteFight . Then, after a heat wave in late April, I decided the weatherman was wrong about the last frost date and went ahead and planted my tomatoes on a 90 degree day. That resulted in this lens, which I hoped would help prevent others from making that same mistake: http://www.squidoo.com/frostbittentomatoes . Two weeks later my daughter died. There’s nothing like writing to help with grief work, and so writing http://www.squidoo.com/Suicide_child helped me to bring things into perspective and deal with my emotions. During April and May I had no trouble at all thinking of topics – they just walked into my life and demanded expression.

One thing I neglected to mention is that you can make money on Squidoo. If you get a lot of traffic you can make some money from ad words on your pages. Some people have been successful in selling through various affiliate programs they belong to. Many simply use the programs Squidoo partners in. Squidoo has an affiliate relationship with Amazon and eBay and provides special modules where you can pick items to sell that go with your lens topics. If people buy, they split the commission with you. You won’t get rich quick and you have to work hard to make this pay for you, but some people who do work hard are making decent money.

For me the best part of Squidoo is the people I’m meeting, the help I get from the community, and the chance to express myself on anything that interests me, and know that what I write will find at least a few readers. Some of what I’ve written has found lots of readers, and some say what I’ve written has helped them. These are readers I never would have found on my own. Squidoo is my favorite writing community.

Exploring Writing Communities on Line

I haven’t posted much in the past few weeks because I’ve been exploring and enjoying some of the on-line writing sites, and some of them can be addicting.  Each of the sites I’ve joined has its own personality and culture. Many people, including me, use all four. I’m going to share the little I’ve learned about each with the hope that you might find one that’s right for sharing your own work. The sites I plan to review are Squidoo, HubPages, Qondio, and Red Gage. I will deal with each of them in a separate blog. This post will be a general introduction.

Each site offers financial incentives to participate, but I wouldn’t plan on getting rich on any of them — especially quickly. People who have lots of time to devote to their writing seemingly do make a living out of it, but I’d be leery of those selling e-books and such telling you how to make hundreds of dollars a month in a few hours a week. Maybe they make it selling those books, but, in my opinion, those who do make money have been adding to their work over time until they finally reach a critical mass that starts producing income. I’ve been on Squidoo about six months and the other sites for less time, and I’m glad I still have my day job.

One thing to keep in mind about all these sites is that you won’t generate much income unless you market your own work actively and participate in the life of each community where you publish your work. You cannot just sit at your computer, write, publish, and forget about it. Instead you must tweet, blog, bookmark, and find other ways to get people to your site. Don’t just sit back and depend upon google or other search engines  to do it all for you.

The community aspect of all these sites is also very important. I am most familiar with the Squidoo community, since that’s where I publish most of my work and where I spend the most time. Other members of the community can make or break you, so learn the culture and treat everyone as you would like to be treated yourself. Help promote others and they will give back to you. Make friends. Thank people who help you. Tweet their work as well as your own. Join groups, read the work of others and rate it, and comment on what others have written. That is how you meet people and form helpful relationships.

You might wonder how writing on one of these sites differs from blogging?  First, I’ve found that you feel less isolated as a writer. A community of people surround you that will probably be your first readers.  They will read your work and comment on it because helping one community member helps build up the entire community. When the community grows and has more quality writing, everyone in it who contributes also benefits as the community becomes more well-known.

You not only feel less isolated, but if you are an active member of the community you will have plenty of encouragement as you try to improve your writing.  After I published my first few lenses on Squidoo, for example, I starting getting invitations to join various Ning groups for lensmasters that offer tips and provide discussion forums. One tends to run into a lot of the same people in many of the groups, and after a while you feel you are actually getting to know them. They critique and rate each other’s lenses, and you are able to let your group know when you have completed a new lens. This is quite different than tweeting and wondering if anyone will even see your tweet before it’s out of sight. You can actually visualize the exact people who will be reading your message and possibly, your lens.

So why would you want to join Squiddo or HubPages or Qondio or RedGage? First, if you aren’t a professional writer, but you do like to write and want to be read, this is a good way to get a responsive audience.  Second, if you have web sites or blogs you’d like to promote, there are plenty of opportunities to get back links for them from these sites, and thus increase your traffic and page rank. Third, you might earn a few dollars if you are diligent and market your work. Lastly, you might actually meet people you enjoy.

For more information and for comparison and a feel for each site, please see my profile pages.

See my Squidoo Lensography and sample my lenses.

See my profile on HubPages.

See my profile on Qondio.

See my profile on RedGage.

RedGage is unique in that it offers a way to market the content you have on your other on-line venues and you might even win some contest cash by actively participating in the RedGage community.  (I won once without even consciously trying. ) For example, as soon as I post this blog, it will automatically be imported to RedGage. You may also submit original content that does not appear elsewhere on line.

Now, go have fun exploring these sites.

Should a teacher read student cumulative files before school starts?

My mother, Marjorie Hart, teaching English at Garh High in Cerritos, California in the 1970's

I didn’t do this, even though I was about to teach sophomore  ESEA classes — students not working up to grade level because they were unmotivated.   I had only been teaching for one semester, and I had taken over the classes of my master teacher at midyear when he was advanced to a new position.  They were all senior classes, and even the ESEA students had worked hard enough to be senior and wanted to graduate.  I also had some college prep classes, some of whom I’m still in touch with. The next year I was moved to a different school where all my students would be sophomores.  The biggest difference was that these students didn’t care if they graduated, and most hated English and every other school subject before they stepped into my classroom. I was very green and the special class I’d taken on teaching ESEA students spent a lot of time building sympathy for these students and little time on managing and motivating the classes.

I will never forget my seventh period class. It was mostly female, since many boys were out for sports. ESEA students, for those unfamiliar with these government programs, were for the students who weren’t succeeding in regular classrooms — not because they couldn’t do the work, but because they didn’t care about learning. These students fell behind, and most were in broken or dysfunctional families.

I always tried to show respect for my students, and had not heard the “Don’t smile before Christmas” advice many teachers later shared with me. I approached the class in a friendly manner and tried to get to know them a bit during the first week of classes. My lack of experience was probably evident, since I was still challenged by some when trying to enter the teacher’s lounge, and the year before a senior young man had asked me to be his walking partner during graduation practice. I might add that toughness was not in my nature. Many of the few male students in the class tried to take advantage of this, but when they started in on me, Lindy, a student in the front row, turned to the rest of the class and simply told them to shape up — they weren’t to heckle me. And they stopped challenging me.

I always liked Lindy. I could see she was a bright young lady and that she had leadership traits. She later told me that her parents were divorced and she lived with her mother and her father didn’t care. She said her mother often urged her to stay home from school to drink with her.

I was leaving campus late one afternoon and ran into Lindy. I asked why she was there so late and she said she’d been in detention. I must have seemed surprised when I asked her what she was there for, since she always behaved in my class. She replied that she’d ditched chorus  because they were just practicing for the spring concert, and no one from her family would be there anyway. She had never ditched my class. My heart went out to her. I think by the time this happened the concert was over, or I would have let her know I’d be there to see her.

Toward the end of that year, many of the other ESEA teachers in core subjects told me that Lindy had been a huge problem in middle school — sort of a gang leader type. She also acted up in their classes. They were surprised I’d never had a problem with her. Maybe she sensed I cared and that I hadn’t already labeled her as a hopeless problem. Maybe it was good I hadn’t read the cum file as the others did, and had met Lindy without any preconceived notions on how she would behave.

It’s so easy to use test scores and cum files to label students and form our expectations of students according to those labels. My English teacher used them to put the wrong label on me. Many of Lindy’s teachers used the cum files to decide what students were like before having the opportunity to see them without the labels. To me students have always been individuals unlike any other individuals. I’m still in touch with two of them I found or was found by on Classmates.com — after 30 years. I wish I’d known how to keep in touch with Lindy, but so far she’s not registered.

I’ve always believed that the student-teacher relationship is an important part of the learning equation. Students remember the teachers who stood out, for better or worse, much better than they remember the content that was taught in any particular year.

I never learned much geography in ninth grade, but I do remember that my teacher had a habit of sitting on her desk while teaching. She would  then get up to write on the board and fall into the wastebasket beside her desk. The entire class would be focused on when this would happen next, rather than on what she was trying to teach us.

I also remember the algebra teacher who spent her class time talking about England and telling us the first day of class that the person in the front corner desk would probably get an A because she was blond and the blond who sat in that seat last year got an A. I had to get an outside tutor for algebra and my parents managed to get me transferred to a different teacher for the next semester and I got an A.

Probably the teacher I remember most was my Latin teacher, Mrs. Cargill. I and many of my friends took her class for two years straight. Some poor souls were in her Latin classes because their counselors couldn’t figure out what other class would fit into their schedules. They were not college prep students as the rest of us were, and had no interest at all in Latin. Mrs. Cargill wanted to help motivate them, so she formed the Latin Club. It was a very active group with parties and special events almost every month and regular lunchtime meetings. Mrs. Cargill wanted to keep these students socially integrated with motivated students. It worked with at least one of those students. He came into Latin with  a D average . He now has a PhD in theology, with an undergraduate major in Geology.

When the school went on half day sessions the next year, Mrs. Cargill and her husband took five of us to the beach every Friday afternoon in the back of their Model A pick-up. (Her husband taught auto shop in a school where I later joined the faculty for my student teaching). We loved being able to know our favorite teacher and her family better. Many of the Latin Club events had been in her home, so it was not just the five beach-goers that were able to know her outside of class. Because Mrs. Cargill reached out to her students, we were even more motivated to work hard in her classes. My senior year I was also able to take a world literature class from her. She was from Spain, and was able to add a lot of insight that was not in the textbook.

I understand that these kind of activities are often discouraged today. I think part of this is because of liability issues. Fortunately, when I taught at Poly High in Long Beach, California, it was not an issue yet.  I was able to invite my classes to my home to practice a play we were recording. I also had a party at home for all of them one Good Friday night and quite a few came. Many of those students stayed in touch while they were in college, and even after they got married.

In ancient times, adults used to follow teachers they wanted to learn from, and were known as disciples. Probably the best known of these teachers is Jesus, whose disciples followed him everywhere, and lived and worked with him. Disciples were able to see if the teachers they followed practiced what they taught.

Today,though they don’t follow us around, the way we treat them tells them whether we practice what we teach about respect and the worth of the individual. If we show them that we not only care about them, but also show enthusiasm for the subject we teach, they  will  more easily “catch” what we teach.

Never Mind the Paper Trail! Have You Googled Yourself Lately?

A few days ago I got an email indicating I needed to approve a comment on the Squidoo lens I wrote about the death of my daughter, Sarah. When saw I the comment and who sent it, I was floored. It was from a friend I’d lost track of for a few years — a close friend. Both of us had moved and begun new lives, and that tends to make people busy and disinclined to keep up with people they rarely see. The urgent tasks in the present tend to blur the past a bit, for better or worse. Although there was no last name, I knew that those comments could only have come from my friend Dianne. But I couldn’t figure out how she found that lens about Sarah out of the blue. She hadn’t even known about Sarah’s death until she read it.

I was able to answer Dianne back through Squidoo, and I asked her how she ever found me and the lens. She replied that she had looked me up on Google. We have exchanged a few emails since then, but I was curious as to what Google had revealed to her. Tonight I finally had a few minutes and thought I’d take a peak. Amazing! So far I’m on page six of at least 15 link pages where my name is mentioned. I would expect to see my name on my blogs, web sites, and social networking profiles, but I was quite surprised to see the other places my name appeared — so far. I found that one statement I made was quoted on several sites. One article from my web site was quoted and credited, but with no link back to my web site.  It was also  summarized on a Chinese web site. I had forgotten about all the comments I had left on other people’s blogs. I even found myself listed in the county records as the informant of my mother’s death, since I was with her to the end and did report her death. Just now on page eight I filled out a form that appeared to give me a chance to correct company information on a directory listing. When I hit preview, I discovered it was a come-on to get you to pay for an upgraded listing. Boo! On page nine the listings start to be mostly  really not me or repeats.

What I discovered is what many have already said –  what you say on line tends to stay there. I try never to say anything I would be ashamed of if anyone I knew read it. I can see that when you start down the social networking road your name does get out there and stays out there. I suppose I also have a paper trail, but most of what I write is no longer on paper.

How Many of the Thirteen Best Children’s Books Have You Read?

In his New York Times Op/Ed column on July 4, 2009, Nicholas Kristof notes that many children fall two months behind in reading level during each summer break. He encourages parents to pry their children away from their keyboards and get them to read instead. He offers his list of the “Best Children’s Books Ever.” I have to admit that I have not read everything on the list and don’t like some of his choices. I was happy to see Charlotte’s Web, Anne of Green Gables, Little Lord Fauntleroy, The Prince and the Pauper, and Lad, A Dog. (I confess I never read this last one, but a lot of my customers like anything by Terhune, and I know he’s a good writer.)

On to Oregon cover.

I was very pleasantly surprised to find two of my favorite children’s books on the list, however, The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be and On to Oregon. I used On to Oregon as a read-aloud when we were studying the Westward Movement, and when we finally got to see many of the  sights along the Oregon Trail in 1989, the children were excited to actually see the places they had read about. I recommend the book, but it’s not as easy to find as it was when it was still in print. I bought a lot of them back then and I’m offering the paperback version in nearly new condition for only $7.43 on tomfolio.com.  I still like it as a read-aloud, since there is so much to talk about, but it’s still a good adventure story for those who want to do some independent reading.

Teh Dog Who Wouldn't Be cover

I also have The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be, which focuses on Mowat’s boyhood on the Canadian prairies and his special canine friend — Mutt.  Mutt didn’t fit your usual dog stereotypes. He climbed trees and ladders (all the better to chase cats) , and when he rode in an open car, he wore goggles. Although he had no pedigree, he was a genius at hunting.
Mowat is a great writer. I also like his Owls in the Family, which is at chapter book level and relates a boy’s adventures with  his two pet owls, Wol and Weeps. If you don’t think owls have distinct personalities, this book will prove you wrong and keep you laughing at the antics of these strange pets who shake up a Saskatchewan  neighborhood and turn a household upside down. Wol outsmarts Mutt (the hero of The Dog That Wouldn’t Be), brings dead skunks to the dinner table, and rescues their young master and his friend from the neighborhood bullies.  Weeps, on the other hand, was afraid of everything and everybody but Mutt. This is also a wonderful book to read aloud.

Maybe you have your own favorite children’s books you’d like to share. Please use the comments section to add your recommendations for good summer reading.  Keep your children’s reading levels up by encouraging the reading of interesting books this summer. Maybe your children’s reading level will even be higher when school begins again.

Previous Knowledge in Content Areas is Essential to Reading Comprehension

As a supplier of educational resources for teachers,  I probably sell more materials to help teach reading skills — especially comprehension — than for any other subject area. (Those are available here.) I know teachers are under the gun when it comes to preparing for those all-important standardized tests, but maybe they should take some time away from the reading comprehension workbooks and spend more time in science, social studies, art, music, and even sports. I’ve always believed this is important, but now I’ve found a short video that makes this point very well. I turned off the sound because I found it distracting; having it on won’t add to the content.

Most home school families have already discovered the value of  using a lot of “living books” — those books which capture the imagination as they satisfy a child’s thirst for information. Many children, especially boys, are more interested in the real world than in fiction. They want to understand how things work. They want to explore the world of nature. They like true stories about real people who made exciting discoveries, explored far away places, and had exciting adventures in various periods of the world’s history. Girls will also appreciate nonfiction about their interests. Historical fiction will also help children acquire a frame of reference for what they may later read.

Other  resources home school families have more access to than school classes, as budgets are cut, are field trips and educational travel. There’s nothing quite like taking children to visit historical places or science museums to help them make connections when they later read about places they’ve seen and processes they’ve observed. How different my understanding of the Civil War was when I visited Gettysburg’s Battlefield, saw the peaceful rolling hills, observed the living history enactments and  saw the maps of the battles light up in the visitors center as I listened to the narration of the battle events during those bloody days of war. Visiting the living history parks at Sturbridge Village, Salem, Jamestown,  and Plymouth helped me understand the early history of America much better than reading about places I hadn’t seen.  Something as simple as visiting a local working  farm, post office, newspaper,  adobe, or factory can supply a lot of information children can later draw on. I still remember visiting the old Helms Bakery  and a paper factory in Los Angeles on school field trips when I was a child.(The picture here is of Carl’s Sandburg’s family Bible on display in his childhood home in Galesburg, Illinois, which we visited on our way to Massachusetts in 1989.)

On one of our first family vacations after we had adopted our two children, we visited the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park. If we had been reading an unillustrated book about these Native American homes, even if they were described in words, I doubt if the children would have really understood what they were. But we walked past them, went into them, and then went to see some dioramas in the visitor center. When we got back to our cabin by the lake, re went into relax while the children played outside. The picture you see here is how Sarah processed the information she received from that portion of the Mese Verde visit.

When we were home schooling we our children had many more chances for this type of field trip than they would have had in school. But even if your children are in school, you can take them to places where they will learn. Go on nature walks sponsored by your local parks. Have a scavenger hunt for bugs, different kinds of rocks, leaves, pine cones, acorns, or other things to be found in your yard or on your block. During the summer, take your child to the local court house to see a court case being tried. Read a book about it together first so your child will understand what he is seeing — and so will you. Since our children were in the foster care system, and then adopted, we had a lot of required trips to the courthouse. Our children had some personal experience about what social workers do and how protective services works. Visit an animal shelter. Visit the closest zoo. Do anything that will expose your child to first hand information he would not otherwise have.

Another wonderful place to visit is your local library. Find books that will help your child learn more about the things that interest him.  Bring them home. If they are above your child’s reading level, make sure they are well-illustrated so your child will have something to look at as you read to him. If you can’t get to the living history museums, check out these beautifully illustrated books that will show you what you would see there.  Even very young children can learn more about the world they live in by reading (or having you read while they look at ) a Gail Gibbons or Ruth Heller book.  Crabtree also publishes some wonderful books on science subjects which are illustrated with  full color photographs of animals, habitats, life cycles, and more. Whether you are a parent or a school teacher, you can use your vacation time or weekends to give your child a better frame of reference in subjects that will help fill those content knowledge gaps, and that will make your child a better reader. You will all enjoy those shared experiences.

What do you say after you bury a daughter?

Sarah, the child we knew.

It’s been a long three weeks since we learned that our estranged, adopted daughter, whom we haven’t seen nor heard from in fourteen years, took her life.  There’s a reason I haven’t been blogging for a while. This kind of information takes some processing. Sarah was the last of our two children. Jason, her natural brother, went first, in a jet ski accident, in 1991, when he was fourteen.  Sarah lived to be 36. Before she left home we had issues we could not resolve.

I began this late last night. It occurred to me this morning that in my exhaustion I left out the picture of the delightful little girl Sarah often was — the young girl you see to the left.  She delighted in animals, in helping to make our home orderly, in playing the piano, and, most of all, in her relationship with her brother. She had a lot of artistic talent. She simply had trouble trusting adults and being honest in her relationships with others. That’s why many of us had so much trouble understanding who she really was, and which of the selfs she presented to others was genuine. She may have been some of all of them. I often wonder if she herself knew. I believe she spent a lot of her life searching for her identity. She was very interested in her roots in her natural family, and that may be why she  decided to cast her lot with them rather than with us in her later years. I have heard that for many years she had blamed her mother for some of what happened to her as a child. It is interesting to note that one little envelope in the package of pictures her husband sent to us contained some inspirational clippings and bookmarks, two of which were the “Footprints” poem many of you are familiar with, a “God Made Us Friends” verse by Rebecca Barlow Jordan, and a verse I will save for the end of this. Also in the envelope was a picture of her with Jason and a yellow sticky note with these words: Mother: I blame her for nothing — I forgive her for everything.

Sarah came to us at the age of nine through the foster care system, along with Jason, whom we had met first because he lived in a foster home next door. Unlike Jason, who had merely been neglected by his birth parents, Sarah had been sexually abused by her birth father. Though she was in counseling almost her entire eight years with us, she was never able to bring herself to confront the issue and work it through. This resulted in some unresolvable problems when she was almost 17, and that put her back into the foster care system, by her choice. After that she was in three foster homes, at least two of them with people who had especially requested her because they had known her when she was still living with us.

In the first home, she functioned pretty well at first, though she still would not obey the rule of the county that she could not be alone with the 37-year-old man(whom I will call M) she had been secretly meeting while she was with us and for whom she ran away.  M falsely accused the foster family of abuse and they almost lost the foster baby they had been planning to adopt. Naturally, Sarah was removed from that home.

Sarah was next placed with a “real” foster family. That means that this family already had other foster children and had been fostering for a long time. They were on a budget, and Sarah complained she had actually had to drink powered milk instead of the bottled milk she had been accustomed to at home and in the first foster home. At her request, Sarah was moved after two weeks into a home that had gotten a license just to take her in.

This third home should have been an ideal match. The father of the family was a professional musician, and Sarah was also a talented pianist. The family, although not extremely wealthy, was  more economically well off than the average family in the community. They had a large home in one of the better sections of town and  a landscaped yard with a custom swimming pool.  Sarah was definitly able to live the good life there, above what she was accustomed to, and probably considerably above the lifestyle of the average foster child. This home was tailor-made for Sarah.  Unfortunately, she continued to break the rules, and the family had to send her back to the county system.

From there she went to a group home, where she discovered that what she considered restriction when she was with us was nothing. Now she really couldn’t do those things she told the county she couldn’t do when she was with us. She really couldn’t go anywhere without supervision, she couldn’t sneak out a window in the middle of the night, and there were other restrictions she never had at home. She discovered the hard way that if you will not accept reasonable boundaries, the time will come when you  will have stricter boundaries enforced you cannot get around.  After spending some time in the group home, Sarah finally agreed to visitation with us — in fact she called and wanted us to bring her home for a visit when she had refused to see us before.

We had had hopes she might finally be ready to come home and work on resolving issues, but that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to come home simply because she thought she’ have more freedom since we couldn’t keep 24-hour watch as the group home did. She wanted to make phone calls that she wasn’t allowed to make from the group home and use us to evade their rules. When we didn’t bend, she asked to go back and then tried to get us to drop her off  an unmonitored location instead of where we were supposed to take her to meet her social worker. (The group home’s location was supposed to be a secret, so the workers would meet their wards in public parking lots and take them back to the home.)

When Sarah was 18, she was released from the county system. For a time she worked as a live-in aid to some elderly people, but none of these elder care positions lasted long. She occasionally called me for a recipe or to help solve some problem during that time, but we never were able to talk about much of substance. During part of this time she lived with M but she also lived for a time with my brother’s family, and then with her half-brother’s family.  She did not stay very long in any of these living situations. We last heard from her after we moved to Paso Robles in 1992, while she was staying at a ranch not too far away. She mentioned she might come visit, but she never did and she never called again.  We later heard from her half-brother that she had moved to Colorado to be with an aunt (birth family).  Later she moved from there into a common-law marriage that lasted for 14 years, until her death on May 13, 2009.

We got the tragic news from Sarah’s half brother. He had been contacted by the aunt, and she had been contacted by Sarah’s husband. We were immediately thrust into issues such as who was next of kin by law so that we’d know what part we would have in planning for burial and the memorial service. We were given the number of the funeral home in Texas, and we were able to contact the husband. We learned from him that Sarah had made known at the beginning of their relationship that if anything were ever to happen to her, she wanted to be buried beside her brother in California. All of the California family had already wanted to comply with those wishes, but we didn’t want to act against the husband’s wishes, whatever they might be. He wanted to comply with Sarah’s wish, and gave us permission to arrange everything, since he could not afford the tremendous expense.  We have spent the last three weeks trying to see that Sarah’s wishes were carried out.

Yesterday was the culmination of this.  The memorial service was held around the grave Sararh now shares with Jason at Forest Lawn Sunnyside in Long Beach on  June 6, 2009.  It was an informal service where the message was split between Bob, Sarah’s half-brother, and my husband, Kosta. Bob began by putting  Sarah’s life as he had witnessed it since her birth into context for those of us who had only seen part of it.  Around the grave were Sarah’s mother’s mother and sisters, her father’s mother, Bob’s family, my brother and his family, and some close friends.  (Sarah’s parents had preceeded her in death.) After Bob shared the stages of Sarah’s life on earth, my husband tried to give the mourners some encouraging words and offer some hope from his unique perspective as to where Sarah was bound.  He focused on Romans 8: 28 through the end of the chapter.

Many people simply can’t deal with the spiritual issues surrounding a suicide. It is our contention that no one but God  truly knows the heart of a person or what drove them to such drastic action.  People like to make rules about what God will or won’t do in some situations,  But God cannot be put in that sort of box.  Some people think that suicide is an unforgivable sin, but nowhere in the Bible is it judged so. We are told that when someone belongs to Christ, no one can snatch him or her  out of his hand. In Romans we are told that nothing can separate a believer from the love of God. There is always room for hope. Sarah had a very difficult life journey.  As a child she had to face what most of us never have to.  These early experiences made a lasting impression. If a child is physically crippled, we don’t expect her to be able to perform athletically as well as a child who was always physically healthy. Yet we seem to have the same moral expectations for children who are spiritually and emotionally crippled as we do for children who have lived normal emotional lives in intact and emotionally supportive families. We tend to look only at actions and judge a person’s heart. God sees it all. He has always welcomed the captives and loosed their chains. He died for us while we were yet sinners. Not a one of us is righteous in ourselves. All of us must be dressed in the righteousness of Christ. At the gate of Heaven, it is not our good deeds that will gain us entrance, but our faith that Jesus took our sins upon himself and met the standard we could not meet to bring us to the Father.  We have reason to believe Sarah believed that. There was evidence, according to her husband, that even in her life with him she believed that. We know that Sarah was being treated for depression at the time of her death. Depression, like cancer, is an illness. Like cancer, it can lead to death — this kind of a death. We believe any judgment should be left in the hands of God, who knows all the details and what they mean.

After the service, most of us went to Bob’s home to share our memories, including a big box of pictures Sarah’s husband had sent to me. (He was, unfortunately unable to attend because of the travel expenses.) All of us had been hungry to see what Sarah had looked like as an adult. Except for her grandmother, Bob, and a couple of other relatives, none of us had seen Sarah since she was about 20.  Even Bob and her grandmother hadn’t seen her for a couple of years, when   she made a visit to California.  As we looked at pictures in small clusters, we exchanged information, as each had different experiences with Sarah at different points in her life. All of us pretty much agreed that although we loved Sarah, she had trouble receiving it and being able to feel loved. We told her often that we loved her, but she seemed to have a wall up that kept the message from getting through.

Bob and Sarah’s grandmother had known Sarah since birth. But Sarah’s best friend through her high school years was also sharing her perspective, which as a confidante, was quite different. Three families Sarah had lived with at various times were also in the room, including us, so we all shared the pieces of the puzzle we had — all hoping for a better understanding. In these situations, no one of us will ever fully understand why Sarah found it necessary to end her life — including Sarah’s husband, with whom we talked on the phone for three hours.  All of us have a unique grief experience. All of us will take some time to work this through. Our parenting journey is over now, but our love for our children is not. Here is that other clipping, from a newspaper, whose author we do not know:

If you are ever going to love me,
Love me now, while I can know
The sweet and tender feelings
Which from true affection flow.
Love me now
While I am living.
Do not wait until I’m gone
And then have it chiseled in marble,
Sweet words on ice-cold stone.

If you have tender thoughts of me,
Please tell me now.
If you wait until I’m sleeping,
There will be death between us,
And I won’t hear you then.
So if you love me, even a little bit,
Let me know while I’m still living
So I can treasure it.

If you would like to know more details about Sarah’s life story and see pictures of her growing up, please check here: Sarah: The Suicide of a Child It deals more with the living Sarah, her problems growing up, and what factors  might have contributed to her fatal choice as an adult. It also contains useful resources for others dealing with this kind of loss.

The National Day of Prayer Observance

Today the people of the North County came together in the Paso Robles city park to observe the National Day of Prayer. It was hot out — even when I arrived early at 5:30. I didn’t have a chair, so I sat on the grass. But I’m glad I went. At first I thought I didn’t know another soul there.

That didn’t make a difference, though, since you don’t have to know each other to pray together. The Master Chorale sang for a few minutes before the meeting started, and that in itself made sitting on the ground worthwhile.

When the Chorale finished, three people and their instruments led the entire group in singing songs I didn’t know. Then the first of many pastors — none of which I knew — got up and explained the format. Each pastor would lead one segment by reading a passage from the Bible and directing us to pray alone or with a small group on the topic he read about. Then the pastor would close that topic with a group prayer. He would be followed by another pastor, and so on, until we were through. The segments were praying for our government and its leaders; for our military families; for education; for businesses; and for families. Then we all joined in singing a rousing praise song. That was the official end of the meeting.

It was far from the end for me. The Chorale started singing again right afterwards. Their music was like a taste of Heaven. Their faces were radiant. And only a few scattered people of all those milling around were paying any attention to them. People continued their conversations through this live performance without even moving farther away from the bandstand to allow those around them  to hear. I wondered what had happened to common courtesy. Perhaps  people are so used to constant sound from their various media, that they hardly are aware of what they hear. Perhaps it hadn’t registered that they were ignoring real people who were singing their hearts out for a group that largely seemed unaware of them. Their smiles and the light in their eyes didn’t fade. It occurred to me that they were singing for a higher audience who was listening from the heavens. They were making an offering of their music whether it was appreciated by other humans or not.

After they had stopped singing, I went up to thank them and tell them the truth — I haven’t heard such music in years. Their singing had transformed my rather gray mood into a new feeling that maybe God was forcing me to the end of my rope to take me into a new place I’d really rather be. There is nothing like music to lift one’s spirit!

One member of the Chorale came up to me and said he had focused on me for the entire concert because he knew I was really listening. I told him what a blessing the music had been. That led to talk about music and history. I finally found somone else who knew the last verse to the national anthem and the third verse of “America the Beautiful.” I think a new friendship has been born.

Footnote:  When I turned around after the official end of the meeting, I discovered my own pastor and our youth pastor were both sitting behind me. A little later on, two people I knew from the home schooling group in our city whom I hadn’t seen in years came up to say hi. So I did know other people; I just didn’t know they were there.

Is This What They Mean By Socialization?

I just read this story on the CNN site and it made me very sad for the family and angry at whatever made this happen. As a former teacher  of children in public schools I saw more than my share of playground behavior. Even students in private schools can be very cruel. When my son was still in public school, he was happy in the classroom and miserable on the playground, even though he was friendly and outgoing. At the time he was still a foster child and some of the other kids knew it.  My daughter, in another school’s special ed program, was perfectly happy for two years with a wonderful teacher. Then that wonderful teacher had a sabbatical midyear and her class (in which Sarah was the only girl) got a male long-term substitute who didn’t mind pushing values that were different from ours (and the former teacher’s) at his students in the 3-4 grades. But it was the playground that was the worst problem. Our daughter would come home and complain that the boys  were always propositioning her during recess. (She was a very attractive fourth grade girl.)

We complained to the principal and were told that the teachers on duty at recess can’t see and hear everything. As to the classroom situation, the best we could get was that Sarah would be moved to a resource room with a female teacher after her female teacher aide went home the last hour of the school day.  These are the things that are part of the background of my reading this news story. I also lost my son , but not this way. My heart goes out to the mother and sister who got the terrible shock of seeing their loved one hanging in the closet. It’s a terrible thing to lose a child. You don’t ever get over it. But to know that your child was so unhappy at 11 that he would take his own life — that is one of the very worst ways to lose a child. There is only one way I can imagine that would be worse, and that way always makes the news, too.

On our journey to finding the right education solution, we tried private schools. We finally found one that would take both my bright son and his sister, who was behind due to some emotional baggage she was carrying from her life with her birth parents. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, as it turned out, the school closed after one year.

The next year we found a principle approach private school that was just right for the next two and two-thirds years. I had always wanted to home school, though, and that last third of the last school year, I got my chance. My husband was on a contract job in the Seattle area and we all went up to see him during Easter break. We went with another family to let the children play in the snow, and my daughter’s sled got stuck. When my husband freed it for her, he tore a ligament in his arm that required surgery, and he needed us to stay and help. I called our principal at home, and he convinced my husband, who was always the one who objected, that I would be perfectly able to teach the children, who were then in grades 5 and 8. I had been teaching English part time in his school for a year.

Washington was a marvelous state in which to begin the home school adventure. Although we had textbooks at home that were used at the school we were coming from, they were still at home and we couldn’t leave for a couple of weeks to go and get them. So we used the Auburn Public Library, near where we found a house to rent. The school district was also good to us when they heard of our situation.

Jason, surrounded by friends at beach BD party

We loved home schooling, but we heard what almost any other home schooling family hears from friends and neighbors. What about socialization? Many people think that home school children sit home with their books all day and never see anyone outside the home. Maybe they don’t realize that children who study at home still play soccer, go to youth group, join the scouts, play with the neighbor children, and learn to get along not only with their peers, but also their families and people who are younger or older than they are. Jason’s  social life improved 100% when he started studying at home. He could actually get along with children who couldn’t get along with anyone else.

In public school, Jason had been teased because he was small for his age and because he was a foster child during his kindergarten year. He often came home unhappy. He loved learning, and was naturally compassionate and helpful. I had watched him comfort younger children in the neighborhood who were crying, but he didn’t know I was watching. He didn’t know how to respond to the meanness he encountered at school on the playground. Is this what a child needs to be considered socialized? To learn to respond to bullying and meanness from others?

One of the boys who lived next door to us was also an adopted child, and he had been abandoned in Korea by his birth father — just left at the train station. He was also handicapped — he had a leg brace. He was dealing with a lot of issues. Jason had lived in his house first, and that’s how we met Jason. I will call the other boy X, since he became the neighborhood bully who delighted in getting the younger boys in trouble and then would disappear just before the adults came on the scene. There were enough adults around, however, to make sure things didn’t go too far, to give comfort after such an event, and to try and help prepare our children for the next temptation to misbehave X lured them into. X never was able to overcome his emotional baggage, and he caused even bigger problems in his adoptive home than he caused in the neighborhood. Eventually he  had to go back to the juvenile system. Meanwhile, though, while he was still around, all parents kept a watchful eye when the children were all outside playing.

So just what is socialization? According to my American College Dictionary, to socialize is “…to make fit for life in companionship with others; to make socialistic; establish or regulate according to the theories of socialism.” The application for education is “to turn from an individual activity into one involving all or a group of students. ” For the moment I won’t ask just what part of this definition others are concerned about when they ask how home schoolers will socialize.

What I don’t see here is that to socialize means to accept bullying, learn to be insulted at a young age,  subject oneself to verbal abuse and just shrug it off.  On one hand we are told how devastating it is when a parent or other adult is verbally or physically abusive. If such socialization occurs at home and it is reported, the children are often removed from the home. Yet we mandate by law that children must go to school where they often receive this kind of abuse and more from their peers, and the principals and teachers say they can’t really prevent it  — in spite of their anti-bullying programs. That’s what it says in the CNN article. That’s what I found in my child’s school in a good neighborhood. This doesn’t just happen in the inner city.

I do not think socialization is good  in itself.  In my opinion, there is good socialization and bad socialization. Children get their first introduction to socialization in their families, learning to speak, share, take turns, sit and eat and talk with the family, etc. They learn to get along with their siblings. They still do all these things when they study at home. They also, as mentioned before, socialize in sports, community, church, and home school groups with children and adults. My son’s friends’ parents were amazed that my son always chatted with them when they came to pick up their own children from youth group. Their school-socialized children avoided talking to adults unless they had to. My son enjoyed talking to them because he considered adults people, too. His very best friend was a fireman who had acted as an adult mentor when my husband was on those contract jobs. But the friendship went two ways. Jason tried to comfort Terry, too, when Terry’s marriage was breaking up. Both Terry and his wife were Jason’s friends, and the break-up was hard on Jason, too.

When Jason died in an accident at 14, I was amazed at all the friends of various ages he had. Some were younger children he played with. Some were his own age. Some  were boys and some were girls.

Many were adults we didn’t even know he knew from around the neighborhood. He would ride his bike around and start talking to any adult who appeared to be doing something interesting outside, especially if they were doing something mechanical. (That’s actually how I met Jason when I was working in the garden in the front yard.) These became his new friends. He’d get up at 6:30 AM to go visit with a construction crew in the neighborhood while they had their cofffee before starting their work day. They even let him watch them work for a bit before he had to come home for breakfast and to start his school day.

One day he came home from a construction site in the afternoon. (He often went back when school was over for the day.)  He was very exited because he’d met the geologist who was checking the area around the site for signs of faults. He also brought home clay from the soil on the site the geologist had given him . He was excited because the geologist told him they were building the homes on a fault. What a tie-in to a science lesson.

I think Jason had a very active social life — more active than he ever had when going to school. He also kept ties with friends made in his last school by joining their Boy Scout Troop. His Scout friends played an active part in his memorial service. And Terry stood there and cried, along with about 399 others.

So what was missing in Jason’s socialization? Being bullied? Being subjected to peer pressure to do drugs? Learning words that would not really enhance his vocabulary? He got enough of some of those things just playing with the kids in the neighborhood. Would it have been better to get more of it on the playground where there were not enough adults to intervene? Just how much  did socialization help Jaheem Herrera? How I grieve for his family, who will miss socializing with him the rest of their lives. How glad I am that when my son died, it was not like that, but while he was out at the lake with his friends, where he rode a jet ski to Heaven.