Reading with kids is a joy

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being yourself, Jane Butler, listening, reading, second grade, teacher

Today I started volunteering at a local elementary school, reading for thirty minutes separately with two second graders. I’ll be going every week throughout the school year to be their personal cheerleader in reading.

We had a lot of fun because discovering the story together, was a delight. Even though I know the story already, and even though I read it twice in one hour, it was a special experience each time. Each of the kids saw different parts of the story as significant and each was excited by different parts.

The little girl I read with was ridiculously cute, asking me when I would be coming back. She was clearly keeping tabs on me, calling out as she left, “See you next Thursday!”

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Elementary school identity opportunity

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being yourself, Jane Butler, listening, trust

When my daughter was in fourth grade I encouraged her to be in the variety show at her elementary school. Her brothers had had a great run of it, testing the idea of standing up in front of their peers and entertaining them in whatever way they could find. They were stand-up comedians, or musicians, usually.

My daughter wanted to be at the piano playing a song called Jazzy Cat, and she wanted to wear cardboard cat ears stapled to a headband, and a cat tail that hung down from her waist and across the piano bench. She also had whiskers painted on her face. This was all her idea. Nobody else wore a little costume if they played a piano piece. In fact, the kids who played piano pieces typically play classical music and wore more serious clothes as if they aspired to be concert pianists.

The point is that this is what she wanted to do and just because no one else was doing it didn’t seem to figure in for her. She had a vision of who she might be, and trying it out at the variety show was a safe enough place. Since then she has not turned into a jazz dancer, a serious pianist (although our duets are pretty fun on a Friday night), or a theatre kid. None of it was literal. It was all for the fun of the moment and I am sure informed her about herself in some way I cannot appreciate.

Now we are on the college search. I feel the same desire to let her figure it out again, defining for herself who she is and where she fits in. In both cases I am right there talking it all through with her, doing what it takes to help support her as she explores her own identity. But what I am not doing, and very deliberately, is tell her who I think she is or what I think she should do. If she asks, I have opinions, but I try hard not to impose them on her.

It turns out that if I’d had it my way at the variety show she would have done something entirely different that I won’t even mention here, and I can see now it would not have been half as cool as a jazzy cat.

If you give a student a choice, you have to honor his choice

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being yourself, Jane Butler, listening, teacher, writing

I am mighty frustrated today by my interactions with my Goth student friend in second period at the high school. My charge today, from the teacher I work with, was to help this gentleman get his essay accomplished since he’d missed a lot of school due to a suspension he fulfilled much of last week.

He wasn’t having it though. No, no interest in working on the essay. His preference, which is the case most days, is to sleep during class. The three adults in the room often, in turn, urge him to wake up. We hand him pens to write with, a book to read, the outline of the essay that was due last week. The other students are working independently, revising their essays, reading the next text or completing a study guide. I offer my help to them, too.

But when I suggest to my Goth student that he and I work on the essay, he says he’d rather read. I say I’d rather write. He says he’d rather read. Okay, I say, read it is. But I feel the pressure from the teacher who asked me to help him get the essay accomplished. I feel the pressure from the student who legitimately chooses to read instead. After all, the entire class is given the same choice, do one of the three tasks at hand: essay, read, study guide.

And he did read, a bit. He read and he dozed, and he read some more.

It’s never a good idea to get in a battle of wills with a student. It is his choice to fail the class. I cannot make him do anything, I can only offer my support. When class is done the teacher, the aide, and me, despite our frustration, appreciate that he did some reading today.

In the end, I gather the spirit of what is supposed to happen here and tell him that maybe tomorrow we can work on the essay together.

He says, yeah, maybe tomorrow.

Minus the sexy parts, again

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being yourself, boyfriends, change, dreams coming true, express feelings, Jane Butler, joy, listening, mother, relationship, words

I posted this a few years ago but not much has changed in terms of my teenage boy challenging me.

I just started in cataloging all the boys and men I’d ever dated. We were alone in the car with 90 minutes in front of us, just my teenage boy and myself, so I started in. I knew of no other way to impress upon him the concerns I had about his relationship with his current girlfriend. You don’t tell teenagers directly what you want because they in turn, in keeping with their job in life to separate from you after a childhood of deliberate bonding, reject it. So the next best thing is to open myself up and share my personal experiences.

Turns out my litany of boyfriends, and there were not that many really, seemed a little interesting. And I say that not because of anything my son said, instead it was because of what he didn’t say. He didn’t say a word. For over an hour he said nothing as I detailed the reasons why one guy was good and another not, from my perspective as as teen and young adult, back in the day. I explained about the one who dropped cigarette ash on my rug, the one who was a high school dropout but doted on me like I was a queen so I stayed with him for five years, the one who had tons of money and a Porsche but his friends didn’t like him, the one who couldn’t ever find time for me, and those that had only one thing on their minds. I told him the entire experience of meeting his father and how we developed our relationship and why I liked him better than the others even though at first it was not so clear. I told it all minus the sexy parts. And he remained silent. But I could tell he was listening, and he even had a few questions, particularly about his father and me. He said it was cool that Dad really liked me even though I wasn’t that sure at first. He liked that part. The tenacity of his father, in love. Hmmmm.

The point is I needed him to know that staying with a girl for years, because it is easier than breaking up, is not that great an idea, and why. I threw in some examples amidst the smokescreen.

A few months later he broke up with his girlfriend. I was surprised, that is, until he pointed out that it was me who told him to do it.

The power of letting kids sit under the desk

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Jane Butler, joy, listening, start of school, teacher

Since it is the start of the new school year I am talking to my piano students about their new teachers and classrooms. One young lady informed me with great delight that she had gotten the one teacher in the school considered to be the very nicest. Now I know this school and I know that just about every teacher there is wonderful. These folks are really passionate about kids and teaching so I am curious as to what has this teacher standing above the others in the students’ minds.

My little pianist tells me with wide eyes and great joy that her teacher lets kids sit under the table during reading time. She also lets students take off their shoes. Not only that she puts on soothing music during tests and at quiet time! This dear girl even went on to say that she has had to confess to her teacher that there have been times when she was home and she wished she was at school!!!

This stuff is fascinating to me because it shows us how simple and free joy is. Joy can be made from gestures of kindness and understanding, respect, freedom, you name it, but it does not have to come from so many of the places we go looking for it.

My joy comes from just listening to this little girl delight in the experience of an adult who offers an awareness of what it is to be the one not in power.

Teach your kids to laugh so later on they can get the joke

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friends, hair, Jane Butler, laugh, listening, softball

Today on the sidelines of my daughter’s softball game we all had a laugh about a young lady who had a tight catch on a fly ball that was coming her way, yet took a moment to flip her hair first as if she had all the time in the world and issues of beauty took top priority. It was cute and unexpected and very teenager, so comments and jokes were tossed around among the parents until we’d exhausted all our silly thoughts. It was happy, easy, funny banter that is common, and I can see, builds community among us.

I am so conscious of such exchanges because there was a time when I was confused by such laughter. When I was a kid, laughter at my house was usually because someone was being made fun of. Once I left home and met my husband, we used to spend time with his family and friends all who excelled at the kind of silliness I saw on the sidelines today. His family comes up with jokes-on-top-of-jokes just for the excuse of entertaining themselves, but for me it was so unfamiliar I was sure I was missing something. At first, because I was not aware I should pay attention to silly talk I drifted out of such conversations, and when I returned I usually thought all the laughing was at me. Later on, after I’d learned from my husband that that was not the case, I imagined that everything was an inside joke that I couldn’t possibly enjoy. The truth is that these kinds of conversations are said in hushed tones because they are sometimes off-color, or in bad taste, or at someone’s expense, and happen quickly. They are rarely inside jokes, but you do have to be listening. My lack of experience left me handicapped and I couldn’t keep up. Hanging around my husband and his family for thirty years, though, has taught me a thing or two, mostly, that these conversations are situational and anyone can be in on the jokes.

They happen all the time among lots of people and they build community among us, but these are the kinds of things I didn’t have growing up because I was physically and emotionally isolated.

Teach your kids to laugh so later on they can get the joke.

Why kids are our best friends

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being yourself, control, fear, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, listening, piano, piano lessons, teacher, words

My little piano girl heard me say she should play the G scale with two hands and she immediately said, “I can only do one hand.”
“That’s funny”, I tell her, “because you were doing two hands just fine last week, so let’s just check, try it with two hands.”
“I can only do one hand,” she tells me.
“I heard”, I tell her, “but let’s just check and try it with two hands.” So she tries it with two hands and of course it is more than just fine. “Didn’t you just say you could only play it with one hand? And didn’t you just play it with two hands?”
“Yeeeees”, she admits.
When we open the lesson book and look at the latest assignment she says, “Bleck.”
“Bleck?” I ask.
“Yeah”, she says, “bleck.”
To make a long story short she of course played that one just fine too and I reminded her of her proclamation ahead of time, and that it didn’t really fit.
On the next page I see her check herself before she says anything. I ask, “Would you like to say something really negative and then we can cross it out after you play the piece real well, or would you like to say something positive.”
“I don’t want to say anything negative.”
I just wish there was someone following me around reminding me every time I attempt to sabotage myself or sell myself short, because it is surely as frequently as this little girl. Dang.

Speak now or forever hold your peace

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being yourself, change, control, dreams coming true, express feelings, higher power, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, listening, mother, trust, words

When I was little and when my mother was mad at someone, which seemed to be often, she’d say, ‘they’ll see’, or even,’someday they’ll find out’, as if there would be a final day of reckoning. Don’t get me wrong, my mother had a hard life and being mad at folks was absolutely legitimate, if you ask me. But I got the impression, as a child, that there would eventually be a time to confront everyone who had been mean to her or hurt her, and then they’d learn the truth of the situation and be sorry and my mother would feel better. But I watched her life and I know for sure that that day did not come. My mother went to her grave not having said aloud the things that bothered her and that hurt her and held her back. She bit her tongue her whole life; she waited for a day that never came. I was disappointed when I realized that clarity never came for her. She never got to hear the other guys’ side of things or air her own grievances or say aloud her pains or unload her heavy chains. She carried around so much pain with her everywhere she went, and always with the idea that someday it would all be lifted and the truth would shine. But she spent her life essentially waiting to die, if you ask me, because by not saying aloud her truths, her honest feelings, messy as feelings can be, she lost out on a lot of living. If you ask me.

So, as much as I don’t like it either, I am living my life by confronting those who bother me, and addressing the issues of today, today. I would love to imagine that someday, instead, it all comes clear magically to anyone with whom I’ve had an issue, but I have witnessed it going another way. I am not counting on that. I am living now, while I am here, and saying what’s on my mind today and not waiting for some mythical day of reckoning.

Some days kids teach themselves

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being yourself, change, goals, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, listening, piano, piano lessons, play, teacher

Today one of my piano students, my most physically active student, dove in headfirst. I feel like it is important to follow the lead of a student like this, one who is tough to engage at times because he wants to stand on the bench, or play too many keys at once, and not necessarily do what I have in mind. Lots of days I cannot get him to join me in the pursuit of learning piano for more than a few minutes at a time, me regularly saying, “let’s slow it all down and try it again”. So when I see him assign himself the task of labeling all the notes of a new piece, I sit back and wait to be needed.

Today he did just that. He started writing the names of each note below them in the Ice Cream Boogie just because that’s what he wanted to do. He had just said to me when I opened the book to this new piece, “I could never play that.” He knows me well enough to realize it was time to remind me to write that down in his assignment book. So after “Ice Cream Boogie p. 18”, I wrote, “I could never play that.” We both know that it is a challenge I am presenting when I repeat back his own words as if they are gospel, us also both knowing full well they will soon be eaten. And that’s what happened. I feel that because he was in the mood to name the notes and was ready to see them in a new way, that he was ready to learn this piece mostly without me. And that’s what he did. Once he’d named all the notes, and believe me that took a while, I even wondered if it was a good use of our time, he just sat and played the thing. We smiled and laughed at how silly we can be to claim such things as “I could never play that”. Then I crossed all that out to remind us how quickly and easily we can change our minds.

Contact sports

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being yourself, change, dreams coming true, express feelings, fear, friendship, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, listening, relationship, trust

I called my sister’s grown daughter yesterday, all the way across the country, and had such a good time. It sounds easy enough doesn’t it? But I have only done it once before because it is tricky. Afterward I thought, oh no, this is not good because it will mess up the relationship I have with my sister, that is, one of nothingness. It is actually frightening to think of disturbing that. It has taken me a long time to be able to accept the idea that my sister ran away and has never come back. That she doesn’t want to know me as if I did something wrong, when really I am pretty sure it is about our difficult past. It is much more likely about our problems of growing up in isolation and then having to figure out how to relate to others, than about her wanting to dismiss me personally for something I did. I tell myself this, and therefore the idea of disturbing that carefully crafted story of what happened to us is not welcome.

I loved talking to my niece, though, because she was open. She wanted to know what it was like for me as a young parent because she is approaching that period of life herself. She wanted to know what I do now and she wanted to know about me. I felt flattered that she shared her plans to move soon, to be with her boyfriend and start a new chapter in a distant city. I loved having a niece for a few minutes, one old enough to decide for herself if she wants to talk to me, and not feel guarded by issues of before. In the moments we were talking it was delightful.

Now, however, I worry that she will tell her mother about our conversation and that it will be ruined. My sister has shown signs of not wanting me and her daughter to be friends, just like my mother didn’t want me to be friends with my aunt, the aunt I eventually grew to love and trust. Lessons of before are hard to rearrange. But my niece was clear that she wishes for more contact with her relatives. And now she is old enough to choose for herself.

The point is, reaching out once a year to say happy birthday to my sisters and brothers and their children yields varying results. It would be nice to have more relatives and have contact with the younger generation, but do you see what I mean about it being a little tricky?