SOME DARES ARE WORTH TAKING!

As a post script, I won honorable mention in the Shabby Apple Dare to Design contest with this entry. I've already spent my prize gift certificate! My mom used to say, "take it big." I agree. We dreamers and darers need to take the even tiniest of successes "big."
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Kids (and their elders) need to dream dreams and find the courage to make their dreams come true. I’m entering Shabby Apple’s Dare to Design contest to prove I’m dreaming! Shabby Apple Dresses offers Internet shoppers dresses in classic and vintage styles.

My entry is a daffodil of a spring dress in light-weight cotton fabric, with white trim edging the round collar, cap sleeves and empire waist. Shabby Apple promises to include the winner in their spring list and this is the kind of dress I dream of finding--with simple, sunny comfort and a mid-knee-length skirt!

The contest is open until August 10, 2011, if you'd like to share the dare. Rules

DESIGN FOR SHABBY APPLE

A SADNESS SHARED

In my own grieving of so many losses during my fifty-nine years, I have learned to ask myself sooner or later in the process: “what is the gift of this loss?” Rev. William L. Vaswig, President P.P.M. (1990)

I awakened this morning to the news a grandson of a dear friend died last night of a drug overdose. My friend’s heartache is deep and unavoidable. She grieves for promise unfulfilled and sweetness lost. Her grandson wasn't a rebel or a tyrant. He was a gentle, artistic boy, troubled beyond his family’s reach. In her own mourning my friend hurts, too, for her granddaughter--the younger sister who found him lying on the floor. My friend is no stranger to loss. She’s faced death with strength and dignity often through her life. She wonders how her granddaughter will manage?

There should be pat answers and a five-point lesson plan for helping kids face death.
The closest I can find is the following meditation written by my pastor for
A Sadness Shared (1999), a chapbook Judith H. Hussain and I co-authored.

A COUNTRY PASTOR’S THOUGHTS ON CHILDREN AND DEATH

My son’s hamster died recently. Devastated, Joel mourned Chester as you and I would grieve the loss of a close friend.
I had read that it is good for children to experience the death of a pet without parents’ jumping in to save them. In this way, children learn that sorrow, with time, hugs and understanding, can be overcome. This made sense to me.
Although I hated to watch him suffer, I determined not to rush out and buy a replacement present, a game, or an outing. Instead, I escorted him, his younger brother, Seth, and a neighborhood friend to the back yard. Joel wept as he dug the grave and drove the cross into the ground, but the real pain came as each one of us said, “Goodbye, Chester. Thank you for being my friend.” The boys asked me if there was an animal heaven. I said I hoped so. As we prayed together, even I got wrapped up in the sadness.
From this experience, Joel learned that “dead” means gone from this earth. He also knows he is strong enough to survive sadness and that family and friends can help. He knows a little about funerals and mourning.
Above all, he understands that time heals.
Rev. Paul Demant

"Dead" means gone from this dimension of earth. With God's help, one can be strong enough to survive sadness. Family and friends can help. Funerals and mourning must be endured. In even the most wrenching loss there is a gift, if one can dare to ask. Time heals. We've learned these things, maybe to guide our kids through the same lessons.

Sharing Wonder

won•der [ wúndər ]

noun (plural won•ders) Definition: 1. amazed admiration: amazed admiration or awe, especially at something very beautiful or new

2. something marvelous: a miracle or other cause of intense admiration or awe
. . . online Encarta Dictionary

If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and dis-enchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.
If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gifts from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. . . . Rachel Carson. Woman’s Home Companion (July 1956)

I’ve spent lots of time thinking about wonder,wondering what fosters a sense of wonder in my life? I recognize wonder as a wellspring of creativity and find my answers both unique to me and essentially quite trite—my puppy Otis, each new blossom in my iris garden, bluebirds nesting in our homemade birdhouse, quiet time in the little overstuffed barrel chair in the corner of my office, any mountain stream with even the tiniest waterfall, children, answered prayer, honest friends, quirky family.

My mom used to say children only remember things they learned in a white heat. By that she meant things taught with wonder and excitement. My most beloved graduate advisor Larry Ecklund gave aspiring mathematics teachers the materials to make lots of hands-on teaching aids. I fell in love with one I never fit into a tradition primary mathematics lesson but used often, a small wooden viewer with a peephole, a birthday candle and a mirror at each end to reflect the light infinitely. He said it was to foster wonder. California’s standards based learning with scripted lessons leaves teachers little time to explore wonder in the classroom. Makes being an adult who can share wonder with children take on fierce importance. Think about what fills you with amazed awe and admiration and share it with a kid.

The Real Purpose of Education!

“The true purpose of education is to bring the child into his inheritance.” --
Curry, Charles Madison & Erle Elsworth Clippinger, CHILDREN’S LITERATURE. Rand McNally & Company, New York, 1923.

My coveted invitation to a Literary Gala, sponsored by the Arne Nixon Center and Petunia’s Place, included the directive to bring my favorite children’s book. After considering bringing one of my own (only a few seconds, honest!) I realized that my hands-down-all-time-favorite children’s book is my mother’s text book from her children’s literature class at UCLA during the roaring twenties.

This precious book, now too tattered to be repaired, offered student teachers training in literature instruction and many beloved classic stories and poems. Living on a remote cattle ranch in the central California foothills, my brother and I were a half-hour’s hike from the nearest neighbors. When we tired of exploring and arguing we read. Mother borrowed boxes of books from the library. Still, we ran out. Each of us had a favorite book (mine was Little Women Ralph’s, Little Joe Otter), but still we ran out and Mother would hand us Clurry & Clippinger's Children's Literature.

Nonsense poetry entertained us best. The book’s pages of traditional fairy stories and fantastic tales remain intact; poems by Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll and John Towsend Trowbridge are so worn as to be barely legible.

If your childhood was so deprived as to have omitted John Towsend Trowbridge, I must introduce you to his epic poem, “Darius Green and His Flying Machine.” While you read imagine my brother and me building wings from various household items and leaping off furniture while shouting as many of the five pages of rhyme as we could remember.

If ever there lived a Yankee lad,
Wise or otherwise, good or bad,
Who, seeing the birds fly, didn’t jump
With flapping arms from stake or stump,
Or, spreading the tail of his coat for a sail,
Take a souring leap from post or rail,
And wonder why he couldn’t fly,
And flap and flutter and wish and try,--
If ever you knew a country dunce
Who didn’t try that as often as once,
All I can say is, that’s a sign
He never would do for a hero of mine.

An aspiring genius was D. Green;
The son of a farmer,--age fourteen;

That’s about as much of the poem as either of us ever managed to learn, but the joy of the thing makes me giggle sitting here all alone.

Poetry feeds children’s spirits and aids in language development for both native and non-native speakers. Well-chosen poetry provides a uniquely pleasurable language experience while introducing the richness of our western literary heritage. I’m packing my mother’s precious old textbook to share tonight, after I finish reading the rest of these poems. No one will notice if I’m late.

The Emperor's Army -Available Feb. 10, 2010!

Talking about ideas!

Small people talk about others. Average people talk about things. Great people talk about ideas! - Adapted from a quotation by Eleanor Roosevelt

Years ago, a fellow education student shared this truism with me over some cheese and a loaf of many-day-old French bread while we avoided studying for finals. The two of us gossiped about instructors and classmates. Sometimes we considered things such as our inoperative cars. Rarely did we happen across anything that might have been mistaken for a great idea. I do remember thinking about the quotation again when considering levels of communication that influence children’s language acquisition.

In order to talk about Eleanor-Roosevelt-worthy ideas, children need vocabulary, words on which to hang their thoughts. In many households, communication between child and parent consists of "kitchen" English. “Come in.” “Shut the door.” “Sit down.” “Eat.” Little meaningful interaction or language acquisition happens in these conversations. It is only if an adult has the time and/or energy that communication moves to the next level, talk about others, e.g. “What ticked Grandma off this time?” It takes even more time and effort to reach the point where the child in included in conversations about things. “We need to figure out how to get that car started.” Rather than dismiss the chance for a child to discuss others and things as “small” or “average,” I celebrate any conversation in which a child is given the privilege to interact in ways that develop the vocabulary of socialization and practical problem-solving.

Still, I agree with Eleanor. Great people talk about ideas. In order to talk about ideas--mathematics or world peace, for example--a child needs experiences with the words that define those ideas. The struggle to provide the necessities of life deprives many parents of the time and energy to discuss ideas with their kids and don’t get me started on how the struggle to teach to standardized tests inhibits meaningful conversation in classrooms. Words, and the concepts they represent, are the framework upon which thought is built. Just as talking with an adult about others and things develops a child’s language and thought processes about those subjects. Talking about ideas provides the language of ideas needed for greatness. Children’s literature can help. Adults and children naturally share ideas over a good book. (Come on now, you can’t say you’re surprised this is where I was headed.) A whimsical storybook that introduces mathematics vocabulary like “rectangle,” “triangle,” “square” and “parallelogram” in a non-threatening way gives children the words on which to build ideas about informal geometry. A modern translation of the second chapter of Luke is appropriate for acquiring the vocabulary of the season of prayer for “peace on earth good will amoung men.” And on that note: Have a blessed Christmas, if I don’t see you before then!

Children’s stories follow the mythic Hero’s Journey.

There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.
--Willa Cather, in O Pioneers!

Some years ago, a writers’ workshop introduced me to the concept of the “hero’s journey,” the universal story structure that creates the most satisfying plots. Over time, my notes were lost due to the weathering and natural attrition that occurs in my home office, but to my delight a friend loaned me Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey: Mythic structure for Writers, which refreshed my memory.

According to Vogler’s interpretation of the model, all stories, whether myths, fairy tales, dreams or movies, consist of universal structural elements:

Ordinary World
Call to Adventure
Refusal of the Call
First Threshold
Tests, Allies, Enemies
Approach to Inmost Cave
Ordeal
Reward
The Road Back
Resurrection
Return with the Elixir

Not all of these elements are immediately recognizable in every story. (For a simplified telling of the “hero’s journey” see the creative writing lesson in The Warlord’s Fish study guide, FOR TEACHERS section @ http://virginiapilegard.com ) However, being aware of the elements of this time-honored formula gives children’s authors a powerful tool for creating pleasing stories.

The tale begins on an ordinary day. The storyteller introduces her hero in his everyday world, and then allows something extraordinary to happen—a call to adventure! The hero’s quest, the thing he wants most, is defined by the call. Perhaps he must avenge a wrong, seek a prize, or discover an answer.

At first he refuses the call. His refusal provides an important plot devise, helping the reader understand how risky and life-changing the journey will be. During this part of the story, the hero examines his objectives. What is he willing to risk? How important is his goal?

He soon overcomes his fear and commits to the journey, only to be tested at the first threshold. The first of many obstacles occurs—the thing that would keep him from entering the "special world" of the adventure. This test needs to be a dilly to convince the reader she’s being invited on an exciting journey. Remember the story must increase in intensity, so even though this is a worthy obstacle, it must be less dramatic than the ultimate ordeal to come.

Through this first challenge, the hero begins to sort out his friends, or allies, and his enemies. In this test, or immediately before, the hero meets his mentor, usually an older friend, who helps equip him for what is to come. Often the hero changes costume to something suitable for the battles ahead. (In a romance, the heroine receives a stunning new outfit. In spite of sexist language the hero’s journey is not gender exclusive.) The mentor offers the hero gifts he will need. Gifts may be magical, spiritual or something as simple as the advice: “Breath. Hang in there. You’re doing fine. You’ve got what it takes to handle any situation, somewhere inside you” (Vogler, p. 125).

The approach to inmost cave translates into “Have fun storming the castle,” in the movie Princess Bride. Now the hero must move deep into the “special world”. The approach provides a time for planning, more obstacles and the realization that the hero’s options, except the one that leads to his ultimate test, are blocked.

At this stage the hero faces his greatest challenge, the ordeal, and walks away the victor with his reward. His success turns out to be short-lived. He risks losing his reward during tests on the road back. He must return to his ordinary world. His journey has changed him allowing him to experience a type of resurrection and the storyteller must make sure the hero faces one last obstacle to show that he can apply the lessons he learned.

In the end, the hero returns home with the elixir, the object of his quest and the resolution to his adventure.

Vogler applies these elements to movies from The Wizard of Oz to Goldfinger. If a children’s author can apply them to her own story, she stands a chance of writing a classic.

And, having reread it, I promise to return The Writer’s Journey: Mythic structure for Writers, Michael Wiese Productions, Ventura, 1998, to friend Judi Hussain (creative force behind http://beautybread.blogspot.com) . I’ve probably had her book ten years, but it happened to surface in one of my office weathering and natural attrition cycles.