Child Psychology For Idiots

New game!

Rules:
1. Get a Mr Potato Head and one or more small people.
2. Leave said Mr Potato Head out for children to play with.
3. Pick up Mr Potato Head at end of the day.

How To Play: 
Based on the way in which they leave the Mr Potato Head... psychoanalyse them. If you're playing properly, base all future decisions based on that. More fun that advice from babycenter.com

(Editor/Creator's Note: My kids have one each. No, not because we're minted, but because teaching them to share takes like way longer than clicking Buy Another! on Amazon).

Here's how Day 1 went:

Maia's Projection

 Maia, bless her, couldn't tell her ear from her eyeelbow. 

And last but not least messed up, here's Leah's Projection 

Not wanting to hurt its feelings, and slightly scared it may attack,
I chose not to point out that the lipstick was foolin' no one.   

So... Freud? Lacan? JBarton9? Anyone? What's going on with these dudes?

Getting Kids Back Into School

One The Guardian this week was a superb article about the Improvements in public education in Argentina. Sandcastles against a Tsumani it may be, but any positive story on education, in Argentina or anywhere else, is worth a read in my opinion.

Physically getting kids into school and involved in the institution is the first in what is a long journey to success. Education is one consistent differentiator between where someone is born and where that person end up in life.

And, whilst I am being pious, allow me to offer my own solution in this link - let's get these kids back into school: quick fix here. 

Dia del.. qualquiera



Dia del Maestro advert in Tucuman.
Hot Teacher + Chalk = Photoshop

Argentina has 18 Bank Holidays. EIGHTEEN. It's bloody brilliant.
As a teacher, throw in a strike or two, a day's illness and a school trip and you're down to about a 4 day year. And people wonder why standards are slipping! Your teachers are hammered, every long weekend, people, that's why.

Anyway, it's actually quite hard to keep track of what you're celebrating. I've coloured coded this entry to help you.
  

I for one am losing track of the dias. It was Dia del Maestro yesterday, Teacher's Day: we were served a massive buffet of superb food by the parents, and showered with gifts. Quite right too, we're bloody important, teachers, and frankly it is impressive organisation sneaking in a Teacher's Day in amongst all the holi-days.


Weird Science celebrate Dia de la Secretaria.
Kelly Le Brock, anyone? Seriously, anyone?

I got in trouble with the Secretaries last week, as I missed Dia de la Secreteria. If you are a male secretary, you find that you have been grammatically written out of this day. Then again, if you are a male secretary in Argentina, everyday is a gender equality struggle.

Not very good at this, am I? Dia del Amigo I missed completely. I was in the pub drinking with mates, so I hope they forgive me. And yes, through the colour choice I am trying to infer that Dia del Amigo is the campest day yet. Yes including Madri Gras. What are guys supposed to do on Friends Day? Well, here I suppose they sit around in cafes sharing a tiramasu and talk about their feelings.

The reason I missed Secretary Day was because it was completely pointless, and I had only just recovered from Children's Day.

And yes, I draw the line at Dia del Niño.

What are you doing for Dia del Niño? I was asked a dozen times an hour for a week. Finally, I snapped, as I was innocently asked what special treatsome plans I had in store for my darlings by a colleague in the Staff Room.



Piss off, you get every day anyway.

I'm not doing f*** all, if I'm honest. That's what, Carina, thanks for asking. Every frikkin day is Children's Day. I wake up every Saturday morning with a mental blueprint of the best possible weekend in store for the little uns. Sleep, sport, night out. Do I ever do it? Do I bollox! When's lie in with your wife day? When's get a good night's sleep day?

Every weekend is a tailor made kiddie holiday. Cause I'm a good father? No. Survival instinct and a very slow learning process teaches you that you base the day around them, not you.

If we did what I wanted - namely, write sarcastic blog entries all morning in a cafe, then go for a run, then spent the afternoon drinking and watching sport - then the day would be horrendous. I'd come home to a justifiably fuming wife and two bored, irritated children. So we don't do that: we go to the zoo, or the park, or play the Maisy the Retarded Mouse bored game (no typo), or watch Waybuloo and discuss NokTop's feelings about Ee-low (real names), or a thousand and one other things to get us through to 8 o'clock bedtime and booze. 

And is it fun? Yeah. It's amazing, and I love it. 

But don't expect me to do something special on Dia del Niño. Trip to the moon, kids? It's your special day after all.

Ingrates.

Flashmob Buenos Aires

Gotta love a flashmob... que buena onda

Tramites

Many things have been said about Argentine bureaucracy. None funnier or better than here:

Taller de la Ribera

It was Dia del Nino in Argentina on Sunday. More on that in the following entry, but this wonderful Taller de la Ribera was running painting workshops for little 'uns. So we took Leah.

I had seen a number of Leah's previous artistic efforts from jardin, and it is fair to say that she is still in a very abstract experimental stage. I understand that one is subjective as a parent, but I would argue that she is revelling in the juxtaposition of convention, colour and form, whilst a more objective response might be that she doesn't know what the frikk she's doing.

However, I had never seen her painting live. I was excited about seeing first hand her process.

First though, we had to decide on a subject. Leah has been going through a fascination of the interplay of light and canvas, so we though we should try to depict something relevant but also something that is very 'now', without descending into anything too derivative.

Pointilism.

After a brief, but I have to say fraught 'discussion' about the niceties of pointilism

After what could be describes as a clash of artistic ideals, she decided to do her own thing.

Reduced to a mere photographer, I sat back, judged, and snapped at people.

I'll be honest, I was quite impressed by the final effort. Remember, she is only 3.

Exam Questions You Will Never See

It's getting close to exam season with my Poli3 students (oldest ones, A level types). Reading through a Past Paper, one young chispa brillante (bright spark?) asked why exam questions were so incredibly dull.

- No one ever asks anything interesting, Sir? Why is that? They're always set in these ridiculous made up situations that would never occur in real life. 

He was bang on. Anyone who has sat an exam in the UK in the last 20 years will remember the classic Maths GCSE:

Question: Abdul, Takul and Wee Billy are playing in the sand pit. Abdul has 3 sandcastles, Takul has 2, Billy has none. Why is this?
Answer: Coz Billy's da says he's no ti play wi Pakis. 

That may not be factually accurate, nor is ever Billy a hideous racist (some of my best mates are called Billy. I would have loved to be a Billy myself...) but I do remember that it brought up more issues of race than it did arithmetic.

We had just looked at a Past Paper for the English Language paper, which had the following question:

Your local politician is organising a fun run, and would like to hear from students in the area who have fundraising ideas for charity. Write a letter outlining your ideas for a fun, fundraising idea. 

- For a start, Sir, if this was in Argentina, they would just be trying to steal our money, so no would send ideas. Secondly, what politician has to ask for school students - who can't vote anyway - for suggestions on how to raise money. That's their job. And, shouldn't they have taxes to spend on local charities?

Inspired by this rebellious thinking, I set them a homework task. Based on the themes of Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife, write an example exam question that you will never see. They had to state a form, an audience and a purpose. The themes are marriage, sexual orientation, gender roles, social expectations...

I don't think I have ever been so proud of a set of students based on some homework:

1. Discursive writing. Some people believe a woman's place is in the home. Others believe it is in the kitchen. Discuss.

2. You are a horrible racist. Write the transcipt of a 'listener phone in' conversation you have with your local radio station on the subject of immigration.

3. You are gay. Defend yourself.

4. Some people believe that homosexuals should be locked up. Others believe they should be shot! Write an essay arguing both sides of this argument.  

5. Write a magazine article exploring the following statement: An ugly (rich) man is more likely to get a beautiful woman than an ugly woman is a handsome man.