Daddy, Can You Fix It?

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I recently flew with my daughter on a solo flight to El Paso, TX to visit my paternal grandfather for his 80th birthday. It was a wonderful trip where we met up with my parents, who had made the long drive to be there as well. This trip had many learning opportunities for me, but the one I'd like to focus on involved a souvenir my daughter received from my mom that didn't last nearly as long as it should have.


While in El Paso, we visited a store called The El Paso Saddle Blanket Company, which if you are ever remotely near El Paso is worth a visit. This place has a little bit of everything, including beautifully beaded jewelry. My mom decided she wanted to buy my 3 year old a necklace and my daughter was very excited to have the present, so much so that she then wore it for the rest of the trip.

Skip ahead a few weeks and we are back home and my daughter is still loving the necklace and keeps telling us it was a present from grandma. However, due to her "extreme" love for the necklace, my daughter decided to try and wear it as a belt and while sliding in over her shoulders the beaded necklace shattered. Then the tears began. "Daddy," she pleaded, "can you fix it?" And like a dagger the words hit me because I knew that beadwork wasn't one of my talents. I'm not sure who was more crushed, my daughter because her beautiful beaded necklace was destroyed, or me because my little girl mistakenly thought I could fix it.

Just then it hit me, I may not have the skills needed to fix this shattered memory, but I did know someone who could, a mother of one of my students. I got in touch with her as soon as possible and explained the situation and she agreed to take a look, while informing me she could make no promises. After looking over the wreckage, she agreed to fix the necklace, but let me know it would look different since she had no idea what the original design was like. My main request was that it be made of a stretchy string.


I had no way of fixing the necklace, but I knew someone who could and was able to get in contact with them. As parents, we don't know all the answers, and we don't have to as long as we know where to find them. We need to make sure we have trusted confidants with whom we can go in times of need and struggle. By have a group of friends or family members who can help us, we become even better parents and our children do nothing more than benefit from the influence of others. We shouldn't be embarrassed or afraid that we don't know all the answers, unless we aren't willing to look for them.

What happened with the necklace? This parent came through and delivered not only one, but two beautiful necklaces that are very much 3 year old proof with stretchy string and all!

Cross Posted at EdTechBabble.net.

Creating Headlines and Capturing the Essence of Our Family Vacation

Good newspaper headlines capture the essence of an event or story. Great headlines draw a reader in and make him want to read more. While headlines don't share everything in a story, good ones express the most important aspects of a plot. Often, the best headlines not only inform readers, but also entertain them.

One of my favorite thinking routines for helping students' capture the heart of what they are reading is Headlines. This routine asks students to write newspaper-type headlines to summarize and express the crux of the matter at hand. We use this routine often in my 6th grade reading class, and I have found it a useful tool to help me formatively assess my students' understanding.

In my class students create original headlines after each chapter they read in a text. We sometimes share these aloud in class. Often, we ask the writer the follow-up question: What makes you say that?" Occasionally, I ask students to write a headline for the days' learning as their "ticket out the door." We've also used the routine as a way for small groups to report to the class on the core their group's discussion. It's a useful tool, and I recommend you give it a try to make your students' thinking visible. Students need practice summarizing and identifying main ideas, and headlines are a good way to practice.

My school has eagerly embraced the Project Zero thinking routines, and my sons' teachers use this routine in their classrooms, also. Creating headlines has spilled over from school into our home as well, and I love to hear my children ask each other for a headline after a family outing or event.

We are on spring break this week and have traveled to Copper Mountain to ski. At the end of the day Monday, as we were riding back from the slopes, my second grader Andrew chimed in with his "headline" for the day. We liked his so much that Eric, Sam, and I added ours as well. I shared them on Facebook as a way of keeping friends and family updated on our trip. The headlines really do capture the heart of our family vacation. So, we added our girls' headlines and continued writing them at the end of each day. Here they are so far:

Monday, March 11

• Philip: Where's the Ibuprofen?
• Eric: Up Down Turns
• Sam: First Day - A Success I Say
• Andrew: Cold Cold Colorado

Tuesday, March 12

• Philip: No Longer 25
• Debbie: Not As Bad As Yesterday
• Eric: The Journey to the Top Continues
• Sam: Family Fun Skiing 'Till the Day Is Done
• Andrew: The Fast and the Furious
• Evelyn: Getting to Ski with Dada

Wednesday, March 13

• Philip: How Did They Grow Up So Fast?
• Debbie: She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain
• Eric: The World of Turns
• Sam: Bittersweet
• Andrew: Tree Trouble
• Evelyn: Skiing Is Fun

Do you think you have a good idea of what our trip has been like? How might you use this with your family or your children? I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences about writing headlines as a method for capturing the heart of an event, idea, or concept.


"Creating Headlines and Capturing the Essence of Our Family Vacation" originally appeared at http://philipcummings.com.

Wild Things

The role of the writer, as I see it, is to harness the inexplicable and give shape to the unnameable. The trouble is that the act of creating images from fleeting moments of wonder is an impossible feat. Many have tried, some more successful than others, but reality is simply too grand in scope to be portrayed using petty tools such as words.

How can language ever be enough to share the feeling of riding a motorbike through the jungled roads of Phuket with your five year old daughter gripping your hands, as the tender golden soft light of the sun falls from the leaves like drops from a balmy rainstorm? Robust clouds of white and grey give chase, the wind on your faces as you whisper, "Are you okay?"  You give the accelerator a gentle pull. Coming down the hill the vast ocean sparkles and waves caress the patient earth. She takes her helmet off as you stop to admire the sea. How can these words possibly explain the confidence with which she swings her hair and carries the helmet on her wrist?

Back on the bike, you smell burning garbage and coconut rusks, the grilled shellfish and roasting chili peppers. You are aware that this very moment is being engraved onto her consciousness and shaping her dreams. The notion of risk taking has been forever altered as you check and re-check the mirrors, make sure to slow down around each turn, but you cannot ever be too careful. After all it is adventure that gives these moments their brightness, you know this, but her safety comes first. Never again will you throw caution to the wind and do things just to see if they can be done.

You think back to the freedom of youth, amazed you were able to navigate the vast loneliness of all that space. You are coming down the hill, "You know I love you right?" The wind is howling, so you whisper again into her ear. The giant red helmet nods affirmative. Men often gripe about domestication and the staleness of family, but you know that these are the moments of rebirth and second shots at childhood. You will show her the world, every inch of it, in all it's wonder. She will be there to grip you tight and nod her head in affirmation every step of the way. Not only a receptacle of your devotion, but also an active agent of love. She is your anchor, your friend, your partner in this reincarnated freedom.

You pull the accelerator once again and howl as tears pool up in your eyes. Beyond the sound of the engine and the wind you here her voice echo what you already know- the things you can never explain. 

Cross posted at Intrepid Flame