Gail's Blog

Today Ridge is 61! He's taking it in stride. I bought him a laptop for Christmas and his birthday, with help from the "kids". We all went to Best Buy to pick it out, with Dan on his cell to his Dad for more help. Ridge likes it. I wanted to get him one because he doesn't have a job and I am wondering if he'll have to do consulting work. In that case, he certainly will need his own laptop. We are taking this no-job thing day to day, depending on God's grace. Lots of people are praying for him, anyway. Church has called him once or twice. We are taking him out to dinner with the Murphys, Geers, Dan & Alix, and Katie at Sunsets in Belmar. I got a nice bonus from preschool that I'm donating to the cause! It's like God gives you what you need when you need it.

This was quite an evening. Sue and I walked our usual four miles along the Spring Lake Boardwalk, while thunderstorms raged out over the ocean, up near north Jersey and New York. When this sight greeted our eyes I pulled out my phone and snapped this picture. I love the guard stand laying on its side right in the middle. This sight says home and peace to me.

A few years ago my daughter Katie and I went down to W. 14th St. in Cleveland to visit the Greek Orthodox church where I was baptised. Across the street from the church was a kafenion, or coffee shop, where the men congregated when the service became too long for them! On this visit, the coffee shop being in the same place it was when I was born, Katie and I ventured in. There were three men drinking that thick brew known as Greek (or Turkish, if you want to be difficult) coffee, smoking and gabbing. The only other person there was the woman making the coffee. Katie and I might have been the first women customers in 75 years! We drank our coffee, and talked with the customers. A little while later we scurried out, having made our "statement". Recently I learned that this institution had closed. I am glad the two of us had the chance to "integrate" it first!

This is a snapshot (remember that word?) I recently scanned into my computer. It is of my extended family on my father's side, before a few other children were born. I am on the right, on the floor, sitting pretty in my black and white (really) window pane plaid, sleeveless dress that I loved, a flower in my hair. I was probably 5. My brother, Bob, sits on my Grandpa's lap. On the left is my grandmother, Elizabeth. I barely knew her because besides being more at home in Greek than English, she was also schizophrenic, and was often in the hospital. Grandpa paid for it out of his own pocket, because he had no hospitalization (they didn't call it health insurance, then). She must have been in her early 50's in this picture, younger than I am now. And yet she was an old Greek lady, in a housedress, hair pulled back. She would smoke, sitting on the back stoop, legs apart, just like I saw women in Greece do when I visited there 27 years later. It was an embarrassment to her

She grew up loving animals. She trained guinea pigs to jump over DVD boxes set up steeple-chase style. She was central to the training of our two poodles. Now she is an office manager training people. Her biggest challenge to date: Trying to train her boyfriend to eat healthfully. Will she succeed?

It is Saturday, 5:30 PM. Ginger (one of our poodles) and I arrived here and started opening windows. This house doesn't have AC, so the windows, and their are plenty of them, are crucial. So is the ceiling fan in the dining room, and all the other fans we have here. It never gets as hot as DC--okay, it did get to 103 degrees quite a few summers ago over July 4th when we had house guests who subsequently never came back, but that was when the whole east coast was broiling. I have sent up my laptop in the dining room. Ridge is due shortly. We take two cars so we can go separately when we desire. He isn't as enamored with the factory outlet stores as I am,and he doesn't go dancing on the Boardwalk! We will be going to sing the Brahms Requiem with the Shrewsbury Chorale on Tuesday (dancing night, I'm afraid--can't do everything). We do their sing-along every year and it is always some long piece that we practically know by heart. I'm looking forward to it. Our frien

Teaching children: My mother as child http://my.clevelandclinic.org/disorders/Depression/hic_Treatment_Options_for_Depression.aspx

The girl is my mother when she was in elementary school. The dog and boy were neighbors. I scanned this photo recently, though I've had it on the mantle in a pewter frame for years. Photoshop is miraculous! I can see the detail, now. Looking at a photograph is like looking through a tunnel to the past, with the path traveled since etched on the walls. I see her as a bright-faced child and yet also see the pains and pleasures on the path she took since then. I know my mother's life wasn't a happy one, with a pedophile for a father, and job descrimination as a Jew in WWII era Cleveland. She quit school before high school to work, and then quit a dry-cleaning job where she was referred to as "The Jew girl". She afterwards wrote "Protestant" where it asked for religion on job applications. When she was fifteen, my mother moved to "The Projects", as both my parents called it, and met my father, who was not Jewish, but a handsome boy whose first lan

The child with the stethoscope was language delayed and getting services. Before this picture was taken, we had spent several days for Valentine's Day on learning about the heart. We had run in place and felt our hearts beating. We had passed around a real stethoscope to hear our own hearts, and listened to each others. We had even listened to my dog's heart when he paid us a visit. We drew outlines of each other's bodies and then filled in anatomy, relying on a big book of anatomy for children as well as our examinations of our own bones. This child did not speak very much during these activities, though he participated as well as he could. Then, during a play period, he decided to play doctor on Scooby Doo! I teach my college students, mostly childcare workers, that assessment of very young children consists of using many different avenues to knowledge of the children. Work samples are, of course, classic examples of assessment, put in portfolios for a good picture of

Children imitate what they see and hear. Then they learn through playing out what they have observed. In the play, they not only imitate, but they create new scenarios from what they have observed, especially once they are in the "Preoperational Stage" (Piaget). Their play is serious work. They go deeply into it, if allowed. This little girl at the beach has a stick in her hand. It represents a microphone! She rehearsed a singing and dancing routine with a big finish over and over. The last bit involved sliding on her knees with her arms in the air. What motivates her to practice this routine? Children come into the world eager to learn, to construct knowledge, and to practice skills until they are mastered. Their motivation comes from the whole self--physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. When she is in school, will she be able to continue to pursue her musical interest? To deepen her musical knowledge? We have an obligation to make sure this happens.

This is a former student (she's going into first grade, now). When I teach courses on young children and the arts, this picture resonates for me. A child who has the opportunity to listen to music, feel it, and respond to it is finding her creative center. In schools, today, children need to learn through all their senses, through their bodies, as well as their minds and imaginations. I teach my college students that American children are several years "developmentally delayed", musically. As a nation we are more music consumers, than music makers. I show them videos of children in other cultures making sophisticated rhythm and music when they are only four and five years old--mostly unheard of here. I emphasize the connection between musical and language development, and how those areas of the brain are close together. We discuss ways to infuse music and movement into every aspect of the curriculum. Before the state cut out the Community College class on Music & Mo

In July, I stayed at the Shore for two weeks. The second week I was by myself in the house, but my friend was nearby, and we "played". This is a picture of her doing a line dance on the Boardwalk. We drive over, find a place to park (not easy), and hot-foot it over to the pavilion for country line dancing. Because of the newly planted dune grass, we can no longer see the water from there, a bummer. But we can hear the ocean, feel the warm breeze, and enjoy the excitement of being with alot of strangers who love to dance.

I needed a new picture for my Blackboard site. The one I had posted was several years old and had my old hair color and cut. Also, I've LOST WEIGHT since then (: So Katie and I went outside and she took this picture. The weird thing is that when I posted it to blackboard it came out speckled. But it looked like me so, so far, I haven't taken it down. I'm the only CHD faculty at the Loudoun Campus with a picture posted. It makes me feel kind of out-there, but after all, I was once a performer with a headshot, and having a headshot seems very natural to me. When I taught a class after the first picture was posted online, a student said she knew it was me because she'd looked at the picture online before the first class. I liked that!