Why don’t more people fence? Here are 5 reasons why you should.

That’s a question Emery asked me a couple of weeks ago. Actually, his statement might have been more along the lines of “I wish more people fenced.” That’s a question I’ve been thinking about as I wish more people were fencing.

Emery started fencing when he was nine. We had been through the usual sports—swimming, karate, soccer, none of them were keeping him interested in enough to continue longer than a season. Our local YMCA had a Saturday morning fencing class and I figured “Why not?”

I think I had a lot of misconceptions of fencing. To me, it was a sport for (and forgive me for my stereotyping) upper class people like lacrosse and polo.

But, it’s not. Soon after we started fencing at the Y, the teacher moved to another city. But he recommend a local fencing school and a few months later, we gave it a try.  Four years later, Emery is still fencing.

And, here are my top five reasons why you should seek out your local fencing school:

1.    Exercise. The point is, they probably don’t understand how much exercise they are getting. I doubted the amount of exercise until I started watching practices, and it’s a full body sport that focuses on strategy, strength, and balance.

2.    It’s not a team sport. Not all kids are suited to team sports. And, if you’re kid thrives on creativity and theatrics; this is their sport. Oh, and boys and girls compete against each other.

3.    There’s not a crazy crowd and it doesn’t have to be competitive. I was surprised at our first fencing tournament. First, there were not many parents there and no shouting or even applauding during bouts. Even now, I’ve seen overbearing parents chastised by their children or carefully encouraged by event managers not to interfere.Again, fencers have the opportunity to compete in our fencing school at a level with which they are comfortable. Emery doesn’t have to compete, but if he does it’s always a good experience.

4.    There are opportunities to interact with other age groups. At Emery’s fencing school, fencers of all ages fence and encourage each other. Emery fences 8 years olds and 40 something year olds.

5.    If you find the right fencing school, it’s really not that expensive. Our coach has equipment that he loans out to students. The tuition is minimal.

And for those of us in the warmer parts of the country—fencing is a year-round, INDOOR sport. That’s right, no sun.

I think perhaps given its scarcity as a school sport (at least where we live), many people are unaware of it. And, I can’t even think of the name of a famous fencer, while I can name a golfer, basketball player, football player, and ice skater, so there are not many role models for kids to want to become someday. And, I’ve never heard of a fencing mom.

What I really want to convey in this post is that there are so many sports for kids these days and I think it’s important for them to find one that promotes a life-long relationship with personal fitness. For me, it was swimming. For Emery, it’s fencing. What’s yours?

Emery’s note: I agree with most of these statements, but when did we do soccer? But I would defiantly rather learn fencing then those other sports. Its a lot more fun to me, involving a lot of thinking ahead, like chess.

Why I’m still playing Pokémon Go even though my son isn’t anymore

July 7, 2016, I started playing Pokémon Go. To be honest, I did it mainly to connect with Emery. I joined his team, Team Insight (the yellow one), and let him name my character (Stayoxiclean, in case you’re curious). We would walk daily across the street to take over our neighborhood gym (from Team Blue-Team Mystic). We would dash out of the house to catch a rare Pokémon wondering out in our neighborhood, and we took long walks to hatch eggs. He would tell me how to play more strategically and the college campus where I worked was a treasure trove of gyms, Pokestops, and Pokémon. Our trip to New Orleans that summer was especially fun as we had fun battling people on street corners for a neighborhood gym.

Six months later, I had to force Emery to go on walks with me or fight gyms. I would even get a gym to the level where he had to just leave a Pokémon to get him to spend time with me. I couldn’t convince him to join me during events and recently he confessed he removed the app a long time ago to make room on his phone for other things.

And yet, I still play. And, I think I know why. I had a fitbit a long time ago, now uncharged and sitting in a drawer. For a while, it was exciting to count steps, but it just became too cumbersome to sync and to wear what is not the most flattering wrist band. With Pokémon Go, I can still track the distance I walk—and I get to hatch an egg at the end. And, there’s something about the competitive nature; I enjoy walking for a bit, fighting a gym or capturing a rare Pokémon, that is so satisfying when I’m having a tough day.

I haven’t figured out the recent changes to the game—for example, the battles and how to get coins, but spinning gyms and catching a Pokémon each day has just become part of my routine. Unlike Emery, I have the luxury to take out my phone a couple of times a day and that consistent action has just become a habit, maybe even a healthy one.

Emery's Response

As humans, we all feel the need to keep moving, whether its progressing in life, changing things up a little or making the next move in a board game. To not move on is like having it be your turn in chess, but you just do nothing. Not making any moves, not forfeiting. It gets boring fast, and you feel like you’re losing purpose. This is why I stopped playing pokemon go.

         Pokemon go is a good game. They defiantly changed some things that needed improvments and it was fun. But like all good things, for me it had to come to an end. Eventually, I stopped finding much enjoyment in it. It was very repetitive. My mother however, enjoyed this kind of simple gameplay, and encouraged me to keep up with it daily. I went willingly on walks, because while I enjoy taking a walk, I did not play much pokemon go while on them. It took up a lot of space on my phone, so about two weeks ago I just deleted it. I had to move on.

Emery's Review of Don't Starve

Don't Starve Has Its Own Line of Action Figures

DON’T STARVE REVIEW

            Don’t starve or DS is a adventure\survival game that has you playing as Wilson a gentlemen scientist from the 1920’s. He is failing at some science-y thing when the radio starts to talk to him. With the help of the demented radio he makes a big science machine. He pulls the lever and is taken by some big demon hands to the setting in which don’t starve takes place. When there you wake up and are greeted by the antagonist, Maxwell, who quickly disappears.

            The point of the game is to survive as long as you can at least in sandbox mode. Adventure mode I won't tell you about because it would spoil things I think the best way to explain the game play is to explain what I do in the starting season of the game, autumn. On the first day you want to go around and find as many berries, flint, rocks, twigs and grass you can. Make an axe and cut down some logs and make a fire when night comes. ALWAYS HAVE A FIRE READY FOR THE NIGHT! Unless you want to die to a monster you cant kill (a.k.a. Charlie). Gather the materials for a science machine so you can make stuff.

             I won’t tell you much more because I want y’all to explore the game for your self. It is really a game of trial and error and I recommend it. 10/10.      

From Emery's mom

What Emery didn't tell you is there is a Don't Starve Together, which is apparently the same game except you can play online with other users. I've come a long way in letting him explore the online world--and I'm even okay with his playing on other servers. He was bummed for a while because no one would play on his server, but as of this morning, he has had a few visitors. I guess it's true face-to-face or online, kids want connections, validation, and community. 

I get to see my university's theater department in action. 

Email and the other William

I have been receiving emails from Emery for the first time. I believe the first email he sent me was a forwarded message from his choir teacher that I asked him to send me.

Then, I got this one:

Mom jon (named changed for privacy) needs to check his E-mail so tell his mom to make him look at it

-Emery

I must admit I wasn’t’ sure what that email meant. Was jon not checking his email? I sent what I hoped wasn’t too awkward of an email to Jon’s mom.

Apparently, Emery wanted “jon” to check his email so that he could learn about the assignment they had due the next week. Jon wasn’t at school that day. How Emery expected me to know all of this is beyond me.

I remember a colleague of mine saying that recently she felt like her child was expecting her to do things for him. I believe she said she felt like she was becoming his secretary. I think this was one of those moments.

But onto more important things. Emery’s been double cast as William in LSU’s production of Frankenstein. (Which, by the way, is the first play I haven’t had to pay for him to perform in. It’s been a great experience and perhaps the easiest, shortest rehearsal schedule ever. Part of the reason is that the role was double cast that means he doesn’t have to be there for every performance. But for me, it’s been fascinating seeing my colleagues in their environments. I had no idea of the caliber and work that goes into each production—and I have seen quite a few, just never the prep work that goes into it. They design costumes, compose music, choreograph fight scenes, and plan for lighting and special effects. They are scholars in their own right, and this was my first time seeing another department’s work.

If you’re not familiar with the story, the creature accidentally kills Emery’s character in the second act, and it’s quite eerie seeing one’s child killed repeatedly. Every time is devastating. The actor who plays the creature is a professional and they practice the scene before each performance, but there’s something in that moment that makes me sad. Every time.

But, it’s been great working with this cast and the director who are all amazing. And, even if it means seeing Emery die on stage again, I’ll do it as long as Emery wants too.

Emery’s comment: dying on stage is fun! I am glad to be in a professional performance for once! I’m sorry though that mom is sad when I die on stage (who knew!) oh well.

What we did this summer

I haven’t blogged in forever. It was a crazy summer and then the school year started and well, here we are. And, I want to blog about being on sabbatical, resilience, middle school, and the latest young adult novels I’ve read. But, first things first. Our summer. . .

Four years ago, Emery asked to go around the world. Thinking he would forget about it, I told him we would do that when he turned 10. Well, he never forgot, and we managed to circumnavigate the world in the shortest and cheapest way possible. It was awesome.

Here are the facts:

1.    Three stops (with layovers in Boston, Iceland, Moscow, and Los Angeles) Paris, Venice, and Tokyo.

2.    13 days.

3.    Start and end in New Orleans

Yes, it was expensive. But we saved and I taught summer school to help finance it. And, my husband is a genius. He bought a series of one way tickets and paid in advance for the hotels on discount sites well in advance of our trip. It was so much cheaper than any way I came up with (travel agent, multi-city airline tickets, etc.)

Victor and I are not convinced that Emery appreciated the trip as much as we did or as we hoped. To be honest, every time we flew to a different country we would up sleeping for 14 hours before embarking on a whirlwind trip of must sees, which began with figuring our that city’s public transportation system (I could do an entire blog post on Tokyo’s public transportation system).

I’m not sure how to recount the trip other than a way suggested by my colleague who suggested that a good way to help Emery remember the trip is to have him write captions for some of the pictures we took. Well, colleague, Emery’s captions may not surprise you:

 

This is definitely the best trip a family can take. 

It's a tower. Yay!

Are you sure I won't burn the place down? 

Tips for summer trips

1.    Less is more. Don’t try to see everything. Taking in just two sites a day really is enough.

2.    Tours are your best friend. We took a tour in Paris and in Tokyo and they both were memorable, educational, cheaper than if we had tried touring on our own and efficient. Yes, it’s a little touristy, but the tour of the Opera House in Paris is something I’ll never forget and wouldn’t have done if we didn’t have a tour as part of our package. I like the put together your own itinerary better than the having to stay together with a group for an entire day.

3.     Okay, professor moms (and dads). Say you really want to go to the Guggenheim Museum in Venice and you’re rushing there because it’s Tuesday afternoon and they are closed on Wednesdays, and you are only in Venice for three days and of course the first day you had to see the “big” sites, and then you pass by a little church that is advertising an exhibition of working wooden models that Leonardo da Vinci made. You go into the exhibit because you think you have enough time to make it to the Guggenheim before it closes. Your son is clearly having fun with the models (and honestly you are too) and you stay longer than you thought you would. Don’t be sad and try to convince the museum to let you in for the last ten minutes they are open when you finally get there. Stay longer at the da Vinci exhibit.

Remember, this is a trip for your child(ren), not for you. 

Summer School Fun

 

Sorry, Emery. Pacman is a playable character.

Just finished my first week of teaching two summer courses. The first one is for a teacher certification program. That course covers planning, management, and evaluation. It’s an odd class to be teaching when students aren’t able to put into practice the material they with which they come into contact. They are out in the field and some will actually teach this summer, but I wonder how much they will remember for the fall when they begin teaching.

My other course is secondary school curriculum. It’s my third time teaching this graduate course for secondary school teachers and I love it. Their conversations and engagement with the course content is complex, multi-layered, and challenging. Their experiences are as diverse as their educational philosophies that discussions sometimes become quite heated—but no fist fights as of yet.

We meet three times a week for approximately three hours each meeting. Here’s how I structure the course (you know I love routine as much as I love a good gimmick):

TED Tuesdays—Watch and discuss TED talks about education.

Work Wednesdays—Work on final group projects.

Theater Thursdays—Watch a film or television show that relates to the week’s readings and focus topic (We watch clips from season 4 of The Wire, Waiting for Superman, Teach: Tony Danza, and Chalk).

Each class session begins with a student-led discussion over the day’s readings, and then we move to the focus of the day. On TED Tuesdays, we watch TED talks about education including those by the creator of Kahn Academy, an innovative approach to schools in England called Studio Schools, and a TEDxMahattan talk by Michelle Rhee.

I then have my students create a lesson based on either a TED talk or an Youtube video using TED-Ed’s software. It’s really user friendly and fun to use. I think I might get Emery to create one on video games . . .

Speaking of Emery, I hope he tells you about the new game he previewed at Best Buy this past week . . . The picture at the top of the blog is a hint.

The Summer Doldrums

We have now hit what I think of as the summer doldrums. For those of you familiar with your children’s literature, a reference can be found to the doldrums in the Phantom Tollbooth as a place where people are stuck in a routine of lounging around. And, they also refer to, if I remember correctly, calms spots of weather, without winds or storms, on the ocean.

A quick google search confirms that we are in the summer doldrums as this USA Today Money article notes. Only, they are referring to the financial markets. I’m referring, however, to the period of time that exists between the end of school and the beginning of summer camps.

During this time, parents often have to scramble to find temporary child-care options. That might mean visiting grandparents, friends whose parents work at home (or are not teaching), or taking your children to work with you.

For professor-types, the doldrums (at least for those of us who teach in the summer) exist in the days after the semester has ended and the beginning of summer classes. Summer reading, video games, and gardening beckon. Alas, who can justify relaxing when in just two weeks, classes start and there are syllabi to update, course material to read, and papers to be written?

Redmag's blogs for moms has a column on 10 tips for getting kids to read. While I applaud their

I asked Emery what he was going to do this week. In addition to posting more videos to his Youtube Channel, here’s his list:

Monday-fun, violin, movie night

Tuesday-help mom cook

Wednesday- set info for server

Thursday-make minecraft server, clean house

Friday-Friends come over

p.s. Redbook magazine's Momrama blog has a column on 10 tips for getting kids to read. While I applaud their efforts and like the tips about finding what your kids are curious about and find books about those topics, they overlooked a very simple tip--give them good books. I wish they had listed some sources on how to find those books, and it's quite possible that my next post should be on locating good books for your kids. Because no matter how much kids love learning about the planets, they will not bother with a  poorly written book on the topic, and we shouldn't make them read them.