Boredom? Never!

A segment on the Today Show the other morning discussed what parents can do to keep their kids from saying,"I'm bored," over winter break. (Heaven forbid we don't entertain a child!)

Suggestions ranged from making crafts to cooking. The crafts were kind of cool- using magazines to make a collage of what the child's aspirations for the coming year would be and refrigerator magnets or book marks from old costume jewelry. But the cooking idea was horrendous! It looked like vanilla frosting layered between giant chocolate cookies and rolled in candy pieces, chocolate chips, etc! Can you see the headline?

Child Scales Empire State Building- Today Show Cooking Idea to Blame!

I remember telling my own children that "bored" was a bad word and they'd better not say it around me. They knew I meant business because I was a teacher and it was MY winter break too. I was likely to give them "homework" in the form of folding laundry or cleaning their rooms.

Consequently, they learned to use their imaginations to make their own kinds of fun. They produced plays and presented them in the living room. They even made hand printed programs so we would remember who the actors were.

They built structures out of household castoffs or the couch cushions and experimented to see how they'd withstand force. They even "cooked"- inventing their own recipes such as green beans with chili powder and spice, dice, and slice toast.(I don't remember what was in that one but it took a lot of diplomacy to choke it down.)

In other words, children have built-in resistors to ward off boredom. They are called imaginations. All we have to do is to insist they use them and praise them when they do. Oh- and don't be afraid to taste the results!

Reducing in the New Year

The new year promises to be greener than the last. A quick web search brings up a host of curriculum materials teaching students how to reduce, reuse, and recycle. But is that enough?

In a speech about his Cradle to Cradle design approach, William McDonough said if we don’t work to change our environmental policies and ways of doing business, No Child Left Behind will tragically be a reality.

So what can we as educators do? First, we need to emphasize the reduce segment of the three Rs. It is important to teach children to keep from adding to the waste stream by becoming thoughtful consumers. We can do this by modeling our own three Rs – reason, restraint, and responsibility. Encourage children to think before buying. Teach them to ask themselves these questions.

• Do I really need it?
• Did I see it on TV?
• What will happen to it after I’m done?

Another idea is to examine the packaging the item comes in. Pretend the item costs $10 and count out 10 ones. Then take a dollar and throw it in the trash. Talk about how we throw away this much of each item as packaging.

Granted, it is more difficult to teach children about reducing because it is a more abstract idea. But solving our environmental issues will not be easy. Starting early to encourage children to be responsible consumers is a good beginning.