Bully Awareness Day

Today is Bully Awareness Day.  To acknowledge that at Freeman, we encouraged all students and staff to wear BLUE.  The word “bully” has developed to be quite the buzz word around schools, households, and with media.  I don’t think 20 years ago the word bully was even used.  Sure there were things that took place that was called bullying, but perhaps there just wasn’t a word for it yet.  I remember kids being bullied in school growing up.  In fact, if you are a girl and have survived the teenage years, I am sure you have experienced some bullying of some kind.  It’s a natural part of growing up.  Is it something that should be tolerated?  No!  Does it happen?  Yes!

In August, I read a book to the students called, The Little White Owl, by Tracy Corderoy and Jane Chapman.  It’s not a book that I would necessarily classify as a bullying book, but there are some characteristics that makes me think it could be.  The story is about a little white owl who lives by himself. One day he set out to explore the world and found a whole tree full of colorful owls.  He tried to be friends with them, but the beautiful, colorful owls told the white owl that he was plain, he didn’t belong and to go away!  The little white owl pleaded with the others to give him a chance.  In the end, they all became friends because they discovered their uniqueness and that how you look on the outside doesn’t tell the whole story of what you are like on the inside.

I love the message the book sends about how we are all special and unique in our own ways.  I told the kids that the colorful owls just didn’t know what the white owl was like and they were a little intimidated by him. But once they got to know each other, they decided they were pretty cool and became friends.  I also used the saying, “don’t judge a book by it’s cover.” 

Each year in school, bullying issues come up.  It’s a very sensitive and delicate topic.  I think as a society, we are really quick to use the “bully” word.  It’s our job to educate students and their families about what true “bullying” is and how to deal with it. 

By definition, according to the website: www.stopbullying.com :  Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose. 

Sometimes students have disagreements or conflicts with other students, but that doesn’t mean that they are bullying.  If a person looks at you wrong, it’s not bullying.  If someone argues with you, that’s not bullying.  If you purposely make someone feel bad and you know it, THAT’s bullying.  If you seek power over others, and get other people to join in with you, THAT’s bullying.  Here are some helpful ways to distinguish between conflict and bullying.

Normal Conflict

* Equal power/friends
·         Happens episodically
·         Accidental
·         Equal emotional reaction
·         Remorse
·         Effort to solve problem

Bullying

·       *Imbalance of power
·         Repeated pattern of behavior
·         Intentional
·         Unequal emotional reaction
·         Blames target
·         No effort to solve
·         Seeking power

Bullying is a serious issue.  It is something that shouldn’t be ignored.  Talk to you children about bullying and ways that they can stand up for themselves, or people that they can reach out to, to talk about it.  Probably one of the biggest ways to help your child is to monitor their social media usage and what they are doing with it.  It’s important to watch out for not only if your child is bullying, but also if your child is doing the bullying!  It’s always a good idea to have your child’s passwords and logins, watch what they are doing on their phones, computers, iPads, etc.  It also teaches your child responsibility and respect.  Of course, any time you have concerns or questions about bullying, always talk to the teachers and administrators at your school.

Mrs. Sieh's September Book Reviews

Each month I HOPE to read a variety of books and post a review about them.  Most days I could spend time curled up in my sweats reading a good book.  In fact, today would have been a great day for that with all the rain and clouds we have been having this week.  I also like to keep up with what students are reading.  It’s a good way to try and relate to students and spark some conversations with them about a topic. 

Below are the books that I read in September.

My Mouth Is a Volcano!  By Julia Cook

I read this book to the Pk-6^th grade classes for the month of September.  It’s a really good, humorous book on interrupting others and the struggles that kids have with waiting their turn to speak.  A boy named Louis loves to talk and sometimes he just can’t help himself.  Whenever he gets in trouble for interrupting he says that it’s his volcanoes fault.  One day, he was star student of the week and got interrupted by 2 students.  Louis talked about it with his mom and decided that it was rude.  His mom pointed out that that is how others feel when Louis interrupts them!  After trying a strategy his mom taught him to keep from interrupting others, Louis was able to keep his volcano from ‘erupting’ again. 

I really like the message this book gives to students.  I even told the students a secret.  The secret is that adults interrupt sometimes too!  Raising your hand and waiting for your turn to speak is so hard especially when you are little and have so many things to say. 

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

The Fault in Our Stars peaked my interest because I saw a lot of 5^th and 6^th graders carrying a copy around with them to class.  I of course had heard of it, but was curious about what all the buzz was.  Lots of adults had read the book and were raving about how good it was.  So I finally broke down and borrowed a copy out of the library.  This book is about young adults and teenagers with cancer.  There is a support group that meets where they can talk about their different struggles and how it affects them from being a “normal” teenager.  Two students meet at a support group and develop a friendship that ends up to develop into a romance.  Without giving away the entire book, it ends in heartbreak as one of the characters loses their battle fighting the deadly disease leaving the other friend sad over the loss of a dear friend.

As I started to read this book, I was a little taken aback about the content and some of the language.  I wasn’t sure that it was appropriate for the 5^th and 6^th graders to read.  Would I let my own girls read it at that age?  Probably not without me reading it alongside of them or having lots of discussions about it throughout.  It is a sad book.  Cancer is sad.  Little people or teenagers with cancer is sad and it seems unfair, but it is a very real topic.  You hear about stories of little ones fighting this terrible disease more and more.  Look at all the publicity Team Jack has created.  That’s just one of hundreds, maybe thousands of kids that are going through some cancer battle.  It does create a pretty realistic about cancers ugly side and how you can’t really be a “normal” teenager.  A good story, but definitely one that merits discussion with your children if they are reading it.

A Few Thoughts on Reading

*Note to reader:  I started this post 2 weeks ago, but it never went live on my blog.  So today I finished the post.

September 22 & October 1, 2014

Reading is a big part of our lives.  In fact, think about the number of times you read something in one day.  I would venture to say that it would be impossible to go through an entire day without reading something.  I am not talking about reading a book, but just reading signs that tell you what street you are on, which bathroom to use, even if you watch TV all day, there are signs and phrases that you would see on shows and commercials.  We all can remember how we first learned to read.  I can recall learning to read in first grade (standards weren’t so rigorous on kids back then and more emphasis was put on creativity and play than academics like it is today).  All of us had anxiously awaited learning how to read.  We got our books out and I remember opening the page and looking at the words expecting them to just start flowing out of my mouth, but instead it was hard!  How could this be?  I was an ace at my alphabet.  I could read the letters, write them, find them on the chalk board topper and identify objects that started with letters.  So why was putting all the letters together to make words so hard?  Reading wasn’t as easy as I anticipated but it took lots of practice.  I loved reading though. 

The first series of books that I remember falling in love with and spending hours reading in my bed over Christmas break was The Babysitters Club by Ann M. Martin.  I know some of you are shaking your head because you remember those stories.  My Grandma Smidt first introduced me to the books for my 8^th birthday.  Once I got to know about Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia, and Stacey I had to keep going.  As each book in the series came out, I snatched up a copy from the book store and kept reading about the additional characters and adventures from “the baby-sitters.”  It wasn’t just The Babysitters that excited me.  There was The Boxcar Children, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Sweet Valley High, Nancy Drew, and for some reason I loved the books by R.L. Stine, even though I probably had nightmares about them.  They were so scary to read at night.

As I have grown up, I have continued my love for reading.  I am an emotional person and I get so caught up in the story like I am part of the family or mystery that is taking place.  I often think about how the characters feel or what it must be like to be battling a disease, overcoming an illness, celebrating milestones, going on adventures, or even learning about real people and events in history.  Historical Fiction is one of my FAVORITE genres!

Even now as a mom of young children, I want to instill a love of reading with my own kids.  I have had so many parents over the years tell me that they love reading, but they just can’t get their own kids to appreciate it.  For some, it takes some time or even years to discover a love for reading.  Some of it has to do with finding a series or book that peaks their interest.  My girls love books.  We are always “reading.”  They just turned 3 years old and now they are starting to read books on their own. Now, I don’t mean reading word for word, but turning the pages and making up their own words.  It is so fun to see.  I don’t want them to start reading yet.  Just learning to love books and looking at pictures is enough for me.  They have plenty of time to learn how to read the actual words on a page.  One of their favorite types of books are animal books.  There are so many things that you can discuss with them while “reading.”  We talk about the different types of animals, where you might find them, what they eat, compare them to humans, and just enjoy looking at the pictures.

Recently I ran across an article about reading titled, “Why Can’t I Skip My 20 Minutes of Reading Tonight?”  The article illustrates the difference the amount of time spent reading by students on a daily basis is.  For example, if Sylvia reads 20 minutes a day, that equates to 3600 minutes or 60 whole school days.  Now look at Bob who reads 5 minutes a day which equates to 900 minutes or 12 school days.  Sylvia will read about 1,800,000 words and Bob 282,000.  I think that it is easy to see the difference between reading for 20 minutes and 5 or none at all!  Make reading a family activity.  Sit down together and have everyone read for 20-30 minutes and share afterwards what you’re reading was about.  Read together, take turns reading paragraphs or pages, read magazines, newspaper articles, websites, etc.  All forms of print are good practice.  Besides, kids need good modeling so having you read to them is a great way for students to learn how to read more fluently and learn harder vocabulary.

I recently was part of one of those silly Facebook challenges.  This one had to do with reading so I thought it looked like fun. The idea was to write down the top 10 books that have been meaningful to you.  Below is the list that I created.  The books are in no particular order and they were the ones that I thought of rather quickly.  Of course there are tons of books that I could share with you, but for now this is a list.  The genres are a variety of Young Adult, Children’s, Christian Lit, Fiction, and Historical Fiction.  If you have read any of them, let me know what you think.  Also, from time to time, I will be reviewing books on my blog, so look for those as well!

Several of the books on my list have now been made into movies.  So you might ask yourself, why not just go to the movie instead of reading the book?  Well, as most literature lovers will tell you, the book doesn’t really compare to the movie.  Why is that?  There is so much more detail and emotion that goes into a book.  You have to use your imagination to create the scene in your head instead of having Hollywood do it for you.  There have been some good movies produced from books, and if you haven’t read the book you might think they were good.  Just some things to consider the next time you pick up a book….

Happy Reading!

 

10 books that I love or that have been meaningful for me include, in no particular order:

1. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
2. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
3. The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
4. Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
5. Gods at War by Kyle Idleman
6. American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
7. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
8. Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers
9. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
10. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

****Honorable Mention- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and all of her novels. Mostly because my grandmother (the English teacher) loved them and I took a J-term class about them in college thinking it would be "fun!"