Reconnecting.

I'm on vacation!! Yay! In the physical, mental and familial aftermath of billing 250 hours last month, I decided to take this week off.  For real.  I have only checked my email twice since Sunday.   My hubby and I took the boys on a short "one tank" trip for a couple of days to get away and strengthen the family ties that have become worn because I am out of place.  Yes, out of place.  When your husband has to call you to come home from work at midnight because you're still there engrossed in a project- that is out of place.  When your seven year old is the ONLY child in his class whose mommy didn't show up for the Mother's Day program because she had to work out of town- that is out of place.  When your four year old can't sleep at night (because you're not home) and is taking three hour naps in preschool to make up for it- that is out of place.  When you have no desire to be a wife to your husband because you've just worked a string of 14+ hour days- that is definitely out of place.  I knew that a change had to come, but spending time with my family this week confirmed it.  I haven't been this happy and relaxed in months.  My boys haven't been this happy and relaxed in months.  My husband and I haven't gone this long without snapping at each other in months.  Good times.  Yesterday we went to the zoo, the mall, out to eat, and swimming in the hotel pool.  At the end of the day I took a video of the boys to recap our adventures. When I asked them their favorite part of the day, the four year old answered immediately:  "Being with you!"  My thoughts exactly.   I am praying for a new opportunity to open up soon.

Excellence is Deliberate!

A moment of Understanding.

Chinese character for "Love"

Yesterday my oldest son participated in a Chinese character recitation contest at his Chinese school. He had to go before three adult judges alone and correctly identify at least 50 characters using the appropriate Chinese tone. We practiced for several weeks, but I honestly wasn't able to help him with many of the words because my American ears have difficulty hearing the slight differences in tone that are critical in spoken Mandarin. About two weeks ago I realized that we weren't going to master everything so I switched to an emphasis on doing his best.

The car ride to school was nerve wracking for all of us because my son announced that he was "scared" and that he didn't want to go. Then he told my husband that his heart was beating really fast. Nerves. I felt so bad for him because this was the first time that he had to step into a evaluative situation without complete mastery. My husband prayed that God would give him courage and peace about the contest.

The situation got more tense when we arrived and found his teacher drilling the class on the pronunciation of each word without mercy. I'm 35 and I was nervous. I snapped at the teenage teaching assistant when he told my son, "This is easy. You would know these if you practiced. This list is a lot easier than all the other classes (for older students)." I immediately told him that it isn't easy when you don't come from a Chinese speaking family and informed him that we had been practicing. I really wanted to SLAP him right in the face.

Just when my son was about to short circuit from the stress, the judges came in and called his name to go first. My brave little six year old walked alone into another room where three adults were seated at a table. He sat down in the fourth chair and they drilled him for 60 seconds to see how many characters he knew. As I watched through a cracked door, I suddenly knew how my mom must have felt before all those piano recitals and track meets that I put her and my dad through as a child. Knowing that I was scared. Knowing that I wasn't guaranteed to finish first or play a song perfectly. Knowing that I didn't want to do it, yet willing me to finish. I had a true moment of understanding.

My baby finished the contest and exited the room with his head held high. I have NEVER been prouder of him. That was the greatest test of his character that he has ever faced, and his courage inspired me.

After the class I thanked his teacher for working with him and told her that he had been very concerned before the contest. She told me that he is doing very well and reminded me that it is much more difficult for a child to pick up Mandarin (or any language) without someone in the home that speaks it. My son is the only non-Asian in his class and most of the students A) have Mandarin speaking parents, and B) Are 2 or more years older than him. He is hanging with these kids on a weekly basis. Excellence is deliberate.

I learned later that my three year old also had a contest in his class- they had to recite numbers and identify colors. He knew it from watching me work with his older brother. Excellence is not only deliberate- it's contagious.

Next up for my global citizens- a tutor. It's time to get serious about this thing.

I hope you all are doing well and not using as much Zyrtec in your neck of the woods as we are!

Talk to you soon. Have a great week.

Rethinking Segregation as a Bad Word...

Today I had a great conversation with a friend about the unique educational challenges facing black children today.  We agreed to begin meeting on a regular basis to provide enrichment opportunities in math, science and cultural awareness for our children.  I am so excited!

Later, I saw the following story online and thought I'd share it with you.




I think they're on to something with the idea of pairing black mentors with black kids.  One of the most frustrating aspects of my oldest son's current school is that there is ZERO racial diversity among the staff.  The only black adult faces he sees all day are the janitorial crew that clean the school at the end of the day.  There are also no male teachers- honestly, I am OK with that at the kindergarten level.  I am going to begin searching for the research in support of a single sex, single race environment for black students- particularly males.   If there was a school with that demographic profile near me, I would enroll my son in a heartbeat. I have no fear that he will be unable to engage other cultures. Here is a link to a charter school in Illinois that I admire called Urban Prep.

To read more of my thoughts on education click here and here for previous posts.

Excellence is Deliberate! I believe that and so should you.

Until next time,

In his own words

Dear Reader,
I am watching the President give the State of the Union as I type this.  He just said something that should have brought every parent to their feet.

It's family that first instills the love of learning in a child. Only parents can make sure the TV is turned off and homework gets done. We need to teach our kids that it's not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated, but the winner of the science fair; that success is not a function of fame or PR, but of hard work and discipline.

Thanks for telling the truth Mr. President. Parents first.  The last part of the quote about success is crucial for all of us to embrace in the current culture of shallow stupidity that allows shows like, "Jersey Shore" and "Housewives of (ATL, NY, Beverly Hills etc.)" to distract us from real thought.

To read a transcript of tonight's speech, click here.

Kitchen Cred: Five recipes I am trying to master

This morning I made a traditional breakfast for my family of blueberry pancakes, bacon, and scrambled eggs. I must admit, cooking a meal that is well received always boosts my confidence in my credentials as a wife and mother. As I watched my five year old eat his second helping of pancakes, I came up with a list of five recipes that I would like to perfect to secure my place in the minds of my husband and children as a true master of home cooking.

1) Pancakes.  Still working on the recipe- my goal is to figure out what IHOP does and copy that.  My pancakes still tend to be too heavy and doughy for my taste.  I want them to be light, slightly sweet and delicious.  I might as well work on waffles while I'm at it.

2) Turkey and the fixins.  I have only prepared one turkey in my life.  It was dry and only slightly flavorful.  This one will require practice during the off season (times other than Thanksgiving) to perfect.  I also need to settle on a recipe for Greens, Macaroni and Cheese, and potato salad.  The cool thing about side dishes is that every family has their own tastes, so I just have to perfect them for the taste buds of my household. 

3) Chocolate Chip cookies.  I feel pretty confident with my current recipe and it already wins rave reviews from my family members. My next goal is to memorize it and be able to throw it together at will.

4) Pound cake/ birthday cake.  Cake has never been my strong suit in any form.  My mom makes the best pound cake, but I have never been able to duplicate her recipe.  I will continue to practice.  I'd also like to be able to make a delicious yellow or chocolate flavored cake for birthdays without relying on Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker.

5)  Baked pork chops or chicken breasts.  Every time I make a baked piece of boneless meat, there is at least a 50% chance that I will overcook it until it's dry.  When a pork chop is baked right, it's delicious and succulent.  When it's cooked wrong, it's like seasoned rawhide.  This one is just a matter of technique- I am confident that I will figure it out.

Let me know if you have any recipes you are currently trying to perfect.  What recipes do you remember most fondly from your mother's kitchen?  I love my mom's Oven fried chicken, pound cake and macaroni and cheese.  I also love the way she makes fried eggs:)

Game Changer?

Yesterday, in the midst of a conversation with my five year old son about his school friends, I asked him to bring me his class picture so that I could connect faces with names.  After pointing to a few people, he looked at me and asked which kid I thought was the cutest.  I immediately pointed to his picture (of course) and had my three year old respond to the same question to confirm my assessment. My son looked up at me and said, "I'm not the cutest. I don't like the way I look."  As the hair stood up on the back of my neck, I asked him what he didn't like about his looks and he looked at me and said, "my skin, my eyes, ... everything."  I knew where the conversation was headed, but decided to make him go all the way there.  "What's wrong with your skin?" I asked.  ""You have the same brown skin as mommy. Don't you like our color?" His response, "Yes..errrr ... no. I want to be lighter."  I wanted to scream, cry and throw up in that instant.

Over the next few minutes, I probed gently and listened as my precious, intelligent, cute as a button, five year old black son told me that he is tired of being different.  In his words, "I am tired of only having 3 brown people in my class. Everyone else is white."   I had noted this fact very early on in the school year and been grateful that he had one other black boy in his class.  (I have never met the third little girl and truthfully, her racial makeup is not immediately apparent from the school picture.)   There is one other black boy in all of the school's four kindergarten classes.  He also told me repeatedly that he wanted to have more "brown people" to play with at school.

This conversation was deeply painful for me because I agonized for months over where to place my son for kindergarten, in part for this very reason.  I home schooled him for about a year when he was four and only gave up on that idea when it became apparent that I had to return to work for financial reasons.  One of my greatest concerns as the parent of two black males is how to balance their educational opportunities between exposure to a significant level of diversity and access to the best academic environment.  Generally I have found that the two tend to be somewhat mutually exclusive.  The most academically renowned private and charter schools generally tend to have very low diversity.  Equally troubling is that even the "best" public schools typically have jaw dropping achievement gaps when you factor in the performance of their black student population as compared to the whole.  We chose my son's charter school  because the performance among black students on end of grade testing was on par with their white counterparts in most areas. To me that demonstrated a climate of high expectations for ALL students and was an indicator that my son would be held to (and receive support in achieving) a higher academic standard. 

Dear Reader, I must admit that my son's confession shook me.  I wonder now more than ever- are my husband and I doing the right thing in terms of his education? How can we affirm his "blackness" in a way that allows him to enter a school with zero black authority figures and a 95% white student population with confidence and a sense of belonging? Should I try to find a school with more diversity and sacrifice some of the academic rigor? Should I revisit the home school option and believe God that He will work out the financial details? Should we keep attending an all black church so that he can be exposed to his peers in that environment? How do other black parents deal with this balancing act?


The scary thing about parenthood is that time only moves in one direction and you don't get a second chance to raise your children.  Sometimes I look at my son and pray that I don't "mess him up" because I see such great potential in his innocent eyes.

Is this a gamechanger?  What would you do?  How do you achieve a balance if your children have encountered this issue?

Looking forward to reading some comments on this one...

A Call to Arms!! Black Parents, It's Time to Grab a Mirror and Stop Waiting for Superman.

Say what you want to about the Tea Party -- You can question their motives, criticize their candidates and poke holes in their agenda-- But one thing you can't do is ignore their effectiveness.  They saw something they didn't like and mobilized to change it.  It's time to get organized black parents.  
This post is a call to arms.
Seriously.
I read a study today that first saddened, then enraged, then inspired me.  I hope it will do the same for you. The study was published by The Council of the Great City Schools, a consortium of urban public school systems from around the country. The subject: academic underachievement among black males.   If you are the parent of a young black male, YOU MUST READ the recently published Call for Change study. If you are not the parent of a young black male but know someone who is, YOU MUST READ this study and pass it along to someone else.  Oh, and if you are the parent or know the parent of a young black female, you are not off the hook.  YOU MUST READ this study because what it says about our daughters isn't any more promising. Put simply, the word CRISIS is now an understatement.
  
Some context...
Yes, we've all heard the hoopla in recent weeks surrounding the new Bill Gates backed Waiting for Superman documentary.  You know the one that everyone from Oprah, to President Obama, has been touting as a "call to action" for our country?  The one that laments the fact that U.S. students are now ranked a lowly 25th in math among 30 of the world's developed countries.  The one that points out the shocking statistic that by fourth grade, 68% of public school students scored below a proficient reading level in 2009. The one that blames the public school bureaucracy for pretty much everything.  Well, if you're a black parent and you thought things were bad, perhaps you should sit down. It gets MUCH worse.

First let's look in the MIRROR:

• In 2009, only 11% of black boys in 4th grade performed at or above PROFICIENT levels in reading. (Students attended public schools in cities with populations of 250,000 or more)
• In my hometown of Cleveland, OH, only 3% --That's right--THREE measly PERCENT of 4th grade black males scored at or above proficient levels. UGHHHHHHHH!

Think it's just a financial issue? WRONG...Read on:

• In 2009, black male 4th graders NOT eligible for free or reduced priced lunch (based on income) had reading and mathematics scores similar to or lower than white males who WERE eligible for free or reduced priced lunch (based on income).  About 21% in each group performed at or above proficient levels. 
• By 8th grade,  the achievement gap between this same group widened to six points in favor of white males.     

Can't blame economic disadvantage for that.

That's pretty bad, but here's the real slap in the face. Brace yourself and read on:

•  In 2009, black males WITHOUT disabilities performed worse than white males WITH disabilities! Only 13% of non-disabled black male 4th graders compared to 17% of disabled white male 4th graders performed at or above proficient levels in reading.

These stats are just the tip of a very big, immensely depressing, iceberg of negative data on the state of academic underachievement among black boys.  The study also looks at many other enlightening data points including some demographic insight into what's left of the black family unit,  high school and post-secondary achievement and earning potential as adults.  It's all related and it's not pretty.

I read this study today, all 106 pages of it. And I was ready.  With each dismal statistic, my will to be part of the solution grew stronger.   But when I read the "Plan of Action and Recommendations" conclusion, I realized (with anger) that the study authors in their "scholarly wisdom" had once again let me and every other black parent off the hook. Not one of the recommendations asks black parents to do ANYTHING differently (much like the Wait for Superman, blame the system approach). The word, "parent", isn't even mentioned.  That is sickening. Our babies are failing at epidemic rates, and we have no obligation to change the outcome? Ridiculous.

Let's Do Something About It.
Black parents, we need to pick up the mirror and face the fact that the blame for our children's failure starts and ends with us. Not the school. Not white racism. Not cultural bias. US!  We need to take ownership of success of our next generation like our ancestors did and our counterparts in other races still do. Realize that the schools can't and shouldn't have to do it all.  

I am fired up and ready to start a movement of black parents ready to return our children to excellence.  Our black boys are too precious to leave in the hands of anyone else. If you're ready to take some responsibility, please jump in.

Dear Reader, I crave your thoughts and prayers on this issue.  It has been near to my heart since the birth of my first son and for some time I have felt that God has a purpose for me that includes helping black boys to achieve. I am still seeking God for exactly what this purpose looks like, but I know that it starts with raising our two sons to be high achieving, Godly, men of character.

Stay tuned, this is a call to arms!!




P.S.  Don't forget to read the study for yourself to fully understand the populations of students examined- there are some significant nuances that I didn't get into here.  Also, the first nine pages are an Executive Summary that lays out the parameters of the data examined and includes every data point separated by bullets.  The rest of the study is mostly graphs illustrating the data.

Father of the Year, James Jones.

Back in the day when parents still took their role in the family seriously, and having a father in the home was not seen as a noteworthy accomplishment, the idea of a black father going into warrior mode (when needed) to protect his children was seen as a necessary part of his job description. Not so today. Today's expectations have plummeted so far within society in general and black folk in particular, that most people gladly congratulate the black father for just showing up. Excuses abound. And note to the media-watching President Obama kiss his daughters a couple of times a year doesn't even begin to balance out the constant barrage of stories portraying the black father as a deadbeat, abuser or flat out loser. However, this morning I saw the story of a black father who, while wrong in his approach, got caught doing something right.

They were poking me with pencils, calling me outside my name and condoms were being thrown on the bus.  Chatari Jones

On September 2, James Jones learned from his precious 12 year old daughter, Chatari, that she had been bullied on the school bus by several boys. Chatari has cerebal palsy and she has already missed a year of school due to health concerns. Mr. Jones was understandably upset and he decided to accompany his daughter on the bus the following day to speak to the driver. While waiting at the bus stop the next day to speak to the driver, Mr. Jones became furious  when he saw the chaos on the bus as it pulled up twenty minutes late.. Mr. Jones stormed onto the bus in warrior mode and directed a profanity laced tirade toward his daughter's tormenters. He was later arrested and charged with disorderly conduct which might bring jail time.
Mr. Jones and Chatari appeared on this morning's Today Show along with his wife, Deborah, and the family attorney, Natalie Jackson.
Father and daughter both spoke through tears as they recounted the pain this situation has caused their family. Mr. Jones said it best,  

I am just an average dad protecting his daughter and that's it.  James Jones

Chatari had to be hospitalized after the bus incident and hasn't returned to school since. As a parent, I don't condone Mr. Jones' actions, but as a parent, I understand.  Every child deserves a parent that is willing to go to war literally and figuratively for their protection. Everyone (including Mr. Jones) knows that the situation should have been handled through the proper bureaucratic channels. But given the circumstances, and the complete lack of order on the bus, Mr. Jones' misguided approach inspires more admiration than condemnation from this blogger.
See the video here.