There are questions regarding the precise authorship of the Hippocratic Oath. Some scholars believe it to be Hippocrates, others believe it may be Pythagoras. Whomever the Greek philosopher that originated this doctrine, I wonder if he, or his wife or mother had any thoughts about an oath for parenting. Do No Harm- Ouch.
Parenting seems to be a series of potentially harm-producing acts to stop thousands of negative behaviors while attempting to nurture, teach and prepare offspring for survival. A small task. Simple really. There are a few ways to go about it. Look back and do all the opposite things your own parents did to find out they did a lot of things correctly to begin with. Do everything the same way your parents did to find out some things were in need of change. Don’t do much of anything- let your children decide their own paths. Do everything in your power to make their lives free from any harm while in your charge- life gets hard but your children are special and fragile little beings, do everything for them, about them.
I took an erratic approach, unintentionally. Each new event somehow presented itself with the clarity that told me I had no idea what on earth I was doing. I parented from the gut at times. Other times it seemed to come from the bowels (of hell), still other times from Dr. Spock, or Dr. Brazelton. I took tips from parents I admired and took aim with those I felt were clueless or harmful on some level or another. At times, I parented with the intensity of a S.W.A.T. Commander. I tried to do it with kid gloves, hugs, smiles, and an open ear. I took a creative, earthy approach. I slipped and did it with rage or disappointment, and tried again with patience and care.
I may have caused harm. I hope none too irreparable. I imagine none of us go into this with “intent to harm”. I looked into the original Hippocratic Oath and stumbled upon the modern version that I took liberties with and applied some parenting language. Perhaps it will be helpful to others:
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will respect the hard-won non-scientific gains of those parents in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow (aka my children).
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will apply, for the benefit of the young, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overindulgence and underhanded criticism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.
I will remember that there is art to parenting as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the parent’s scorn or the parent’s fear.
I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.
I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my relations, friends, colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a child’s upbringing.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
I will respect the privacy of my children, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death (especially during those turbulent adolescent years). If it is given me to support and nurture a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life (insert I brought you into this world, I can take you out….) this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
I will remember that I do not parent an extension of myself, an unlived dream or goal, but an individual human being, whose individuality may impact the future, great and small. My responsibility includes these related factors, if I am to care adequately for the child.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will prevent harm whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cause.
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the dependent and young.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of parenting those who have been blessed upon me.
Maybe we will all still continue to stumble when deciding: Bottle or breast? Schedule or no schedule? Are television, snack food, video games, harmful? What’s a decent bedtime? When can they go into town or the mall alone? When can they start dating, driving, working? Is it harmful to provides sweets or harmful to restrict them? Oh well, try your best not to do harm, provide balance, admit defeat occasionally, dust yourself off and get yourself back in the game. It is after all one of the most demanding and rewarding experiences you can ever imagine and it goes by so quickly, but I'm realizing it stays forever.
"Primum non nocere" translates to “First, do no harm”. Maybe second could be clause- If you caused harm, attempt to recognize it and repair. Maybe there could be some vague and nebulus language around harm.
And grandparenting seems to be the time to make it all good, if time and interest allows.
Errare humanum est but remember,minima maxima sunt To err is human, but the smallest things are the most umportant.
Per Aspera Ad Astra - Through hardships to the stars.
And when all else fails... Quae nocent docent - Things that injure teach.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Sunshine and Education: NYSED falls short on Reading Section
While the State of New York and the nation as a whole, attempts to pick apart and poke at public education to find best practices, we seem to miss the forest for the trees.
In our efforts to raise the scores and prepare our students for what lies ahead, we continue to fall short. Why? How? What can be done to meet the needs of students and improve our scores? Are we trying to educate our students to compete in the global economy? What skills are identified for the task? We continue to compare ourselves to other nations in an effort to create education that helps prepare our children for their future, and ours. The goal is, I believe, to prepare students to be able to compete, contribute, and keep the status we have achieved as a world power. Yet, we hear about, and read reports that continue to point out how we are lagging behind in math and science skills. We don’t fare well as readers or writers.
So we test and we worry. We worry over our students test scores and make attempts to prepare them for the test of the week. We field test. We grade-level test. We test against the standard. So, why then, do we continue to feed our students with narrow, world views? If they gain the academic skills we strive for, they probably won’t make it with the social skills we tend to ignore or minimize.
The 7th grade ELA test featured a story about Africa/East Africa/Kenya. As if these place names were synonymous and interchangeable. Continent, region, country. (When do we give the geography test?)
The story that students listened to was titled Cooking with the Sun. The article was excerpted from a story published in Highlights Magazine. The story was about solar cookers and the American (U.S.) doctor who introduced the cookers to Kenyans. Must we continue to push this egocentric, colonized world view? The problem as I see it, is that the story that was edited and presented as the listening component of the ELA exam portrayed Kenyans/East Africans/ Africans as poor, without clean water, carrying sticks on their backs, journeying for a day to find and gather firewood to cook. Mothers and children did this. Fathers were barely mentioned. I imagine this is not far from the reality of Kenyan life for some, perhaps most. I challenge the concept that this is bad or backwards. It is a way of life and a different standard of living worthy of a level of respect, but that is missed. The article states that Dr. Robert Metcalf changed the future for thousands, maybe millions, of Africans. He knew that billions of poor people around the world depend on the use of wood for cooking. Thousands/millions/billions! WOW! While the solar cookers are truly a great asset, the presentation of information is very limiting. They do save time, natural resources and make water safer to drink. This story could have easily been shared from these vantage points without perpetuating stereotypes.
I take offense that this seems to be the predominant image that we expose our children to regarding Africa and dare I say, possibly African Americans and all people of color? Needing help from outside, few male leaders, poor women and children. The stereotypes and cultural perplexity are taught and therefore supported, and on some levels institutionalized. There are plenty of children in our own continent/country/state/community that lack adequate food and basic needs. I have worked with many students who lacked water or electricity because service was cut off due to numerous missed bill payments, they were in the process of eviction or they simply had no other way to resolve the problem. Other students were determined to drop out of school because “that’s what their parents did”. We simply don’t glorify or attempt to romanticize these images. Maybe we should. Maybe the reality of our own limitations will reveal more about the testing and providing appropriate education than our weak attempts to create new, improved tests.
Many of the students I work with have a limited view of the world beyond their own homes. The belief about diversity, for some, is already too narrow. There were numerous, sensitive ways to report the information regarding solar cookers in Kenya, and the original story did so. I can only guess it was deemed too long for a reading section. Pertinent information that provided more of a holistic telling was eliminated. Instead we were asked to read and provide sound bites of hope and rescue for an entire country/region/continent.
The culture of Kenya is rich with diversity. The students, gaining skills by leaps and bounds. Efforts are being made, and realized to educate girls, as well as boys. The literacy rate is somewhere around 74%. Not so far from our own- 78% by some standards. According to a 2001 U.S. Census Bureau report, 94.9% of Kenyan immigrants aged 25 and over have at least a high school diploma. Comparably, only 87% of the American population has graduated from high school. Additionally, the proportion of the 700,000 Africans in the United States aged 25 and over with at least a bachelor's degree was 49%, much higher than the average for the general population of 26%.
I imagine some of our local students would enjoy a hot cooked meal from a solar cooker- when the stove isn’t working or the utilities discontinued. Sunshine can be an alternative to fire, testing needn’t be an alternative to education, or at least the need for sensitive, diverse, education.
We have not inherited this land from our ancestors; rather we have borrowed it from our children. Kenyan Proverb
In our efforts to raise the scores and prepare our students for what lies ahead, we continue to fall short. Why? How? What can be done to meet the needs of students and improve our scores? Are we trying to educate our students to compete in the global economy? What skills are identified for the task? We continue to compare ourselves to other nations in an effort to create education that helps prepare our children for their future, and ours. The goal is, I believe, to prepare students to be able to compete, contribute, and keep the status we have achieved as a world power. Yet, we hear about, and read reports that continue to point out how we are lagging behind in math and science skills. We don’t fare well as readers or writers.
So we test and we worry. We worry over our students test scores and make attempts to prepare them for the test of the week. We field test. We grade-level test. We test against the standard. So, why then, do we continue to feed our students with narrow, world views? If they gain the academic skills we strive for, they probably won’t make it with the social skills we tend to ignore or minimize.
The 7th grade ELA test featured a story about Africa/East Africa/Kenya. As if these place names were synonymous and interchangeable. Continent, region, country. (When do we give the geography test?)
The story that students listened to was titled Cooking with the Sun. The article was excerpted from a story published in Highlights Magazine. The story was about solar cookers and the American (U.S.) doctor who introduced the cookers to Kenyans. Must we continue to push this egocentric, colonized world view? The problem as I see it, is that the story that was edited and presented as the listening component of the ELA exam portrayed Kenyans/East Africans/ Africans as poor, without clean water, carrying sticks on their backs, journeying for a day to find and gather firewood to cook. Mothers and children did this. Fathers were barely mentioned. I imagine this is not far from the reality of Kenyan life for some, perhaps most. I challenge the concept that this is bad or backwards. It is a way of life and a different standard of living worthy of a level of respect, but that is missed. The article states that Dr. Robert Metcalf changed the future for thousands, maybe millions, of Africans. He knew that billions of poor people around the world depend on the use of wood for cooking. Thousands/millions/billions! WOW! While the solar cookers are truly a great asset, the presentation of information is very limiting. They do save time, natural resources and make water safer to drink. This story could have easily been shared from these vantage points without perpetuating stereotypes.
I take offense that this seems to be the predominant image that we expose our children to regarding Africa and dare I say, possibly African Americans and all people of color? Needing help from outside, few male leaders, poor women and children. The stereotypes and cultural perplexity are taught and therefore supported, and on some levels institutionalized. There are plenty of children in our own continent/country/state/community that lack adequate food and basic needs. I have worked with many students who lacked water or electricity because service was cut off due to numerous missed bill payments, they were in the process of eviction or they simply had no other way to resolve the problem. Other students were determined to drop out of school because “that’s what their parents did”. We simply don’t glorify or attempt to romanticize these images. Maybe we should. Maybe the reality of our own limitations will reveal more about the testing and providing appropriate education than our weak attempts to create new, improved tests.
Many of the students I work with have a limited view of the world beyond their own homes. The belief about diversity, for some, is already too narrow. There were numerous, sensitive ways to report the information regarding solar cookers in Kenya, and the original story did so. I can only guess it was deemed too long for a reading section. Pertinent information that provided more of a holistic telling was eliminated. Instead we were asked to read and provide sound bites of hope and rescue for an entire country/region/continent.
The culture of Kenya is rich with diversity. The students, gaining skills by leaps and bounds. Efforts are being made, and realized to educate girls, as well as boys. The literacy rate is somewhere around 74%. Not so far from our own- 78% by some standards. According to a 2001 U.S. Census Bureau report, 94.9% of Kenyan immigrants aged 25 and over have at least a high school diploma. Comparably, only 87% of the American population has graduated from high school. Additionally, the proportion of the 700,000 Africans in the United States aged 25 and over with at least a bachelor's degree was 49%, much higher than the average for the general population of 26%.
I imagine some of our local students would enjoy a hot cooked meal from a solar cooker- when the stove isn’t working or the utilities discontinued. Sunshine can be an alternative to fire, testing needn’t be an alternative to education, or at least the need for sensitive, diverse, education.
We have not inherited this land from our ancestors; rather we have borrowed it from our children. Kenyan Proverb
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Uncle! I give!
I still have this conversation from time to time, or a close rendition: Would you rather be a boy or girl? It's no longer with fellow eight year olds though. It's typically with women lamenting or downright caterwauling- maybe screaming like banshees, about the disparities between men and women. Financial inequality, parental responsibility, lack of freedom, etc. These topics come up time and again. And yet I was never convinced that being a boy was better. I could play with trucks, run through the streets, cry, emote, bake, and look pretty from time to time. Points for girls! Who would ever want to be a boy?? Icky, stickey, smelly, gross!
All those rules! Misunderstood machismo demands and expectations, arghhh! Men, they never have much to say. They are usually self-involved. They can't find anything. They don't usually know when their own children go to sleep, have a sports event, a big test, doctor's appointment or crush on someone cute. We are told from an early age that they are not as smart as women. Who wants to be dumb, or dumber than an entire gender?
While I don't particularly love having to manage all the appointments, rapid growth clothing replacement, studying and down-right nagging to have anything completed, I do like being involved and aware of what goes on in the lives of my children. Another point for being a "girl". We stay informed!
So, I now shout UNCLE out loud and at the top of my lungs because I am starting, or perhaps deep, in the throes of menopause. Night sweats, insomnia, mood swings, hot flashes! Let's just pause here for a moment, shall we? Hot flashes? I thought this meant a sudden and quick flash of heat. It seems to mean, at least for me, a slow flashing of heat across and over different and unpredictable body parts or regions- as though someone, creepy, no doubt, is holding a lighter under the skin and slowly moving it. Not in a sensual manner but in an altogether intrusion of personal space manner, with almost the sensation of an alien insect attack to boot.
And while my head spins and the pea soup emerges, or I am suddenly crying in that odd, awkward way that no one can relate to because we are sitting outside on a sunny day enjoying a sandwich with avacado and fresh cheeses- who on earth would be crying under these circumstances? And this all comes on suddenly like those hot flashes, so what does one do to attempt sanity, or feign composure?
And men? What? They get a girth that they quickly learn to play with and rub as though they were Buddha junior? Bring it on! Girth that is enjoyed? How does this make any sense? Those children that I mentioned earlier? The ones I enjoyed knowing so much about and doing so much for? They are hanging with the man with the fun girth. Suddenly it is so easy to be happy-go-lucky when Mrs. Fire-Cracker-One-Man-Band-Crying machine walks through and asks if anyone wants to watch a movie, or explain why they are thankless.
It's over! UNCLE! For the next couple of years, maybe it wouldn't be so bad being a smelly, gross boy, with nothing much to say and weight gain that was fun to be with? I could do that. Jiggle does rhyme with giggle, after all. Girth rhymes with mirth.
Stay with me as I hum, "How lovely to be a woman......., or maybe "I feel pretty"
All those rules! Misunderstood machismo demands and expectations, arghhh! Men, they never have much to say. They are usually self-involved. They can't find anything. They don't usually know when their own children go to sleep, have a sports event, a big test, doctor's appointment or crush on someone cute. We are told from an early age that they are not as smart as women. Who wants to be dumb, or dumber than an entire gender?
While I don't particularly love having to manage all the appointments, rapid growth clothing replacement, studying and down-right nagging to have anything completed, I do like being involved and aware of what goes on in the lives of my children. Another point for being a "girl". We stay informed!
So, I now shout UNCLE out loud and at the top of my lungs because I am starting, or perhaps deep, in the throes of menopause. Night sweats, insomnia, mood swings, hot flashes! Let's just pause here for a moment, shall we? Hot flashes? I thought this meant a sudden and quick flash of heat. It seems to mean, at least for me, a slow flashing of heat across and over different and unpredictable body parts or regions- as though someone, creepy, no doubt, is holding a lighter under the skin and slowly moving it. Not in a sensual manner but in an altogether intrusion of personal space manner, with almost the sensation of an alien insect attack to boot.
And while my head spins and the pea soup emerges, or I am suddenly crying in that odd, awkward way that no one can relate to because we are sitting outside on a sunny day enjoying a sandwich with avacado and fresh cheeses- who on earth would be crying under these circumstances? And this all comes on suddenly like those hot flashes, so what does one do to attempt sanity, or feign composure?
And men? What? They get a girth that they quickly learn to play with and rub as though they were Buddha junior? Bring it on! Girth that is enjoyed? How does this make any sense? Those children that I mentioned earlier? The ones I enjoyed knowing so much about and doing so much for? They are hanging with the man with the fun girth. Suddenly it is so easy to be happy-go-lucky when Mrs. Fire-Cracker-One-Man-Band-Crying machine walks through and asks if anyone wants to watch a movie, or explain why they are thankless.
It's over! UNCLE! For the next couple of years, maybe it wouldn't be so bad being a smelly, gross boy, with nothing much to say and weight gain that was fun to be with? I could do that. Jiggle does rhyme with giggle, after all. Girth rhymes with mirth.
Stay with me as I hum, "How lovely to be a woman......., or maybe "I feel pretty"
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