Sometimes we only see what we’ve been told to see. What if there is something entirely different to see? During 7th grade, Natalie and I enrolled in a magnificent class on the artist Rembrandt with Zhenya Gershman, an artist-educator who was teaching at the Getty Center at the time. She warned us that we might become addicted. To Rembrandt that is. She was right. That is why I found myself, two weeks ago, snaking up the winding roads above Sunset Boulevard to her studio. I was sitting in on another Rembrandt class she was teaching (as it was a school day, I had to promise Natalie I would tell her…
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Stressful Schools = Toxic Apples
Madeline Levine’s book Teach Your Children Well (see Judith Warner’s review, NY Times 7/29/12) includes a startlingly true statement that serves as a call to action. She says, “When apples were sprayed with a chemical at my local supermarket, middle-aged moms turned out, picket signs and all, to protest the possible risks to their children’s health, yet I’ve seen no similar demonstrations about an educational system that has far more research documenting its own toxicity.” A few years ago while I waited for our 12-year-old daughter’s swimming lesson to end, I heard a mother bemoaning her children’s lack of enthusiasm for school. “Each year I hope they’ll realize the…
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Pamela’s Interview at Lifebyme.com
uncertainty innovative home schooler. lifelong learner. possibility seeker. Pamela Beere Briggs is a filmmaker, writer, and the mother of a happy teen. Her passions include good food, engaging books, and re-thinking the wisdom of middle school. When we’re learning, we’re so much more open. There’s a freedom, a feeling of being able to change, of knowing we can make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. My central goal is to always be in that process of learning. My husband teaches at the University of California in Los Angeles and his dean’s favorite piece of wisdom is “The gift is in the problem.” When I’m learning and having fun, I’m aware…
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The Key to Healthy & Happy Lives? The Answer Might Surprise You.
In his eye-opening book Outliers: The Story of Success (Little, Brown and Company, 2008), Malcolm Gladwell tells a cross between a fairy tale and a detective story about a town whose inhabitants enjoyed good health. A curious and diligent doctor figured out that it had little to do with the food they ate, or the exercise they did, or the doctors they went to. It had everything to do with how they treated each other. It sounds like one of the storybooks we used to read to Natalie that would begin something like this: In a town called Roseto, Pennsylvania the people stayed healthy. They lived long, happy lives. What…
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A Parent Asks About High School After Home School
A mom recently sent me an email to say that she is thinking about home schooling her son for a year or two to allow for opportunities that aren’t possible because of the cultural pressure to “keep moving fast and forward without much time to reflect and be centered.” She also asked some excellent questions: How is Natalie adjusting to high school? Has she gotten a lot of questions from kids or been viewed negatively? While she was homeschooled, how did you make sure her social skills didn’t get neglected? Did she have opportunities to work and play with kids her age? Here is my answer to her email and…
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Funny Ladies in the Comics Pages?
Sometimes we have to ask a question more than once. Natalie reads the comics pages in the Los Angeles Times every morning while she eats breakfast. Recently, in the middle of eating her scrambled eggs and toast, she said this, “There’s only one comic strip that’s by a woman. Why’s that?” She had noticed that only one comic strip –“Stone Soup” by Jan Eliot — (out of 27 comic strips in the Los Angeles Times), is by a female cartoonist. The other 26 are both drawn and written by men. Her question sounded disconcertingly familiar. In 1991, I made a documentary film about women cartoonists, which won many awards, screened across the country, and…
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Reading in Bathrooms & Standardizing Testing
Every once in a while, an essay by Claire Needell Hollander appears in The New York Times. I make sure to read it. She is smart & witty & wise. And, her writing, which both entertains and enlightens, always inspires me to write down my own thoughts in response to whatever it is she is writing about, in this case: standardized testing in classrooms & the wisdom of reading in bathrooms. Here’s the link to her latest essay titled “Testing My Twins,” in the The New York Times (10/20/12): http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/opinion/sunday/testing-my-twins.html?_r=0 And here are the memories, observations and thoughts about bathroom reading and testing she inspired me to jot down: I…
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A Memorial That Moved Us to Tears
Have you visited a memorial that moved you to tears? Walking on a glorious fall day in Pasadena, California with no destination in mind, we had already come upon some interesting sites, including: The Pacific Asia Museum, which was originally “The Grace Nicholson Treasure House of Oriental Art,” a fascinating architectural structure that blends both Asian and Californian styles with a beautiful garden courtyard surrounded by galleries that house art from Asia and the Pacific Islands. Five bridal parties having their photographs taken among the pillars, arches, domes and gardens of Pasadena City Hall. and then, across the street from City Hall, the Jackie and Mack Robinson Memorial. Jackie…
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Knit On!
I’ve been knitting for 8 years, more than half my life, but have only recently discovered that I enjoy teaching people how to knit. After having made multiple scarves, a hat and a sweater, this year I became president of my high school’s knitting club. So far, twenty students have joined and the two meetings we’ve had have been fun and productive. Suddenly students are walking down halls with balls of yarn and knitting needles in hand. In a few weeks, we’ll have our first knit-in when we will knit scarves to donate to a local homeless shelter. Lots of people have developed a fondness for knitting, including Russell Crowe, Julia…
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How to…
During our two-year home school adventure, we (not just Natalie) learned how to do a lot of different things. We spent time making things: a garden, a quilt, recipes, scarves, a schoolhouse, a newspaper. One thing I know is this: making things is fun and it is also empowering. The middle school years are an ideal time to spend time creating things with our hands, engaging with different people, learning new skills, trying different languages, being in nature… How creatively and kindly we approach these years helps us imagine who we might want to be in the world. And it also makes us more open to trying new things in…
