JUSTIFYING TIME OFF FROM WORK IN NOVEMBER

The boss at the daycare wants to know people's schedule for fall term. This makes her job of scheduling people for work a lot easier.

I will be gone for three weeks in November. This is my way of telling the boss why I am going to be gone.


November 9, 2009 through November 27, 2009: International Studies Program

This will be an intensive study of parent and child relationships in Germany, Austria and Italy with an emphasis on the public transportation options available in Europe today and the effect on families utilizing those options.

Two days and one night will be spent in Salzburg, Austria analyzing transportation options available to Austrian families under the Nazi regime during World War II. A highlight of the visit to Strasburg will be a guided tour of the local countryside with a discussion of the role of music during those years.

Three days of study in Germany on the Bodensee (Lake Constance) will be followed by thirteen days in Italy with stops in Venice, Rome, Assisi, Sienna, and Florence. Studies in both countries will focus on the history of those cities and the influence of religion on the culture of the region.

The final days of the program will be spent traveling through Switzerland on board the Golden Pass train. The train is made up of panoramic cars that provide a spectacular view of the landscape and the Swiss Alps. An in-depth study comparing the geography of the valleys and the mountains will be conducted on board the train.

While the knowledge gained and the experiences from the course are priceless, this is a non-credit class. Thus no exams or summary papers will be required.

MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO!

This place where I am working with 1-2 year old kids has “size appropriate tables and chairs”. That’s fancy early childhood education lingo for “kiddie chairs and tables”. This is a good thing for the kids. Easier for them to sit down and eat. One of the drawbacks is that occasionally we have to tell a child to put his or her feet on the floor and to get off the table. Mostly they start to climb on the table and we catch them. Sometimes they will be lying on the table. That has been the extent of their misdirected behavior (another fancy bit of ECE lingo that means “misbehaving”).

Recently, however, we had a new child enter the group. This child is a climber. One of the first things the child did was climb on a table. In a flash, the child was standing on the table, grinning back at us. “Hey, look at me!”

This wouldn’t be so bad except that this event happens at least five times a day. To make matters worse, all the kids who only started to climb have learned from the master and are now full fledged climbers. And kids, who would not have even thought about climbing, are joining in. We now have a room full of toddlers who are table dancers! Every one of them with a big smile on the face, “Hey, look at me!”

Not to be deterred by the climbing restrictions, the new child has another trick that occurred on the playground the other day. I saw that familiar grin on the kid’s face but this time it was accompanied by a wood chip about the size of a cotton swab. Yes, the wood chip was being used to clean the ear. I broke all the new rules about talking to the child about what is happening (“I see you are jamming a piece of wood into your eardrum while you think you are mimicking your mom cleaning her own ear.”) and I pulled the hand away, tossed the chip to the ground and breathed a sigh of relief. Thinking that was enough excitement for the morning recess, I found out otherwise. When I turned around, the number one monkey see, monkey do kid in the class was standing there, looking at me, with wood chip in hand. And the grin on the face.