So, I just read a couple of interesting books, "How to Think Like Leonardo DaVinci" and "Reinventing Yourself" and of course I surf the web when I'm listening to audio programs and I just happened upon my blog and though, "wow, my blog looks boring". So I want to change it... but I don't know how. More on that later.

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So, I was trying to think about how to get poorer districts good teachers at a price that the residents can actually afford and I suddenly was struck with an idea. It goes a little something like this:

A Schedule

3 hours - 15students/teacher	Math, Language, World/local knowledge
1.5 hours	Lunch, Recess and Freeplay
3 hours - 50students/teacher	Group Problem Solving, Creative Expression and Dance

B Schedule

3 hours - 50students/teacher	Group Problem Solving, Creative Expression and Dance
1.5 hours	Lunch, Recess and Freeplay
3 hours - 15students/teacher	Math, Language, World/local knowledge

What Problems Does it solve?
1.) Oversized classes - There is no way that you can pay talented teachers what they deserve without forcing them to teach more students. It's a simple aspect of mathematics. Each member must put forward a certain amount of their income (an income otherwise used for food, shelter, etc.) towards child education. The greater the class sizes, the fewer each person has to pay. So, since it can't be afforded you can either teach children less well or teach children a lower amount of time.

I see it this way: you either a. have a classroom with 30 children that nobody can keep track of and nobody can teach for 6 hours OR 2. You can have fifteen children each for half a day that you will teach effectively for 3 hours.

Community oriented thinking - While it may seem stupid to teach people how to draw or dance on such a large scale, think of all the large scale artistic projects that required that many people. Think about spending a week building a playground for the school. Think about teaching groups of fifty how to dance in synch. Think about doing group problem solving exercises amongst a group large enough to actually represent real populations. Talk about mini-society, plays, presentations, research projects, all of which require the help and minds of many people and how little opportunity we get in classes to actually allow children to develop those large group working skills. Combine that with the intellectual advantages of small classroom learning, I hope you see where I am going with this. Besides, creativity is best done uninhibited making it ideal for the large spaces.

HOW COME OUR SYSTEM STILL WORKS

1. We have people paying for a service they don't use.
2. We have children teaching themselves.
3. It actually isn't working, which is why we have such high divorces, law suits, crime rates, etc. People have forgotten how to work as a team.

So, there's the big idea. What say you oh people of Nutang, can you spot me with some group thinking?

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When I have my baby, I think I'll need a backpack
Because I will carry him up mountains
down valleys,
and visit streams

When I have a baby, I think I'll need a backpack
Because we will go to zoos and museums
And I will lift him up to see the animals and the mummies

When I have a baby, I think I'll need a backpack
Because we will go to operas, baseball games and football games
And we will need to learn to be really quiet
and REALLY LOUD!

When I have a baby, I think I'll need a backpack
Because we will have to talk to other moms, dads and other babies
and I hope, they will have backpacks, too

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So, I was looking in the mirror just now and was struck by a remarkable thing.

You see, my little kiddos wander around copying a lot of things I do. I find it to be simply delightful as anyone would who sees them as four year old pint-size admires. Well, recently Anna has been doing this thing where she puts her tongue up in her lip and goes, "hrm.." or very nearly. She didn't do this before and I wondered when on Earth she started.

That was when I was standing in front of the mirror, thinking and I suddenly actually looked at my own reflection. There, staring back at me, was me doing that self-same gesture. Hrm... I wonder how long that has been going on.

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I like that saying, "Life's messy. Clean it up", but you know, sometimes you really just have to just give up and let it go.

This morning I was getting ready for work... okay, so I was 'getting ready for work' while actually writing down another (slightly shorter) list of "Things I would like to make a goal of". I was using this rotten blue pen. It write well, but it leaks any chance it gets. So, it leaked all over my fingers (yet again) and I cried out:

"Why do I KEEP this pen! This is a terrible pen!" To which, as I angrily slapped on the cap, the pen replied:



Later, I was teaching my four year olds. I decided to try "Cutting with Scissors 101: Attempt 42" with a cute little set of Humpty Dumpty finger puppets. My little Eric... he is not an ace with the scissors. In fact, his approach to cutting is much like his approach to drawing with his bright blue crayon (to scribble wildly all over the paper). I am sad to report, that all the king's horses and all the kings men could not put THAT Humpty Dumpty back together again.

So, the scattered bits of Humpty Dumpty joined the pen in the trash. Time to try again tomorrow.

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My four year old always have problems with this concept. Lines? But why? And why do we have to color in them? And why are they only allowed to be drawn in certain ways? At least these are the questions that I ascribe to them. Frankly, I think the only thing they are think is:

"MWO?!"

Still, I was going to give in another try. After all, I can't write letters with them forever. So, I took out these little disks that we have in the giant math box of wonderful things and I gave them all disks.

I started out simple: I let them play with them. It was very difficult for me because it didn't look a lot like "I'm learning how to write letters in English". It looked a lot more like, "I am playing with tiny red disks and spilling them all over the floor." However, when I showed them how you can make lines, they all started to make lines. When I showed them how to make a circle, one little girl, who really had a hard time with this whole idea of pencil and pens and sitting in a chair, made a tiny little circle, just like mine, on her table. I gave her a sticker for it and all other kinds of circles starting popping up all over the table.

Then, I made a heart and hearts started to appear. I made an "A" and after a long while of staring and humming and hawing, a couple of "A"s appeared, too. "Booyah!" I thought. Lines and shapes!

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