Loving Libraries (Flashback Friday)

Some time last year I was at the university discussing my upcoming employment. Since I wasn't actually employed at the time, I didn't have a library access card, but a friend snuck me in with a sneaky swipe of his. Unreasonably afraid of being discovered, I climbed the tiny back stairs instead of going through the main entrance. The staircase was so small I doubt my man's shoulders could have squeezed into the narrow space. The staircase opened into an area I'm used to calling the stacks... books so rarely requested that they are stored out of the way in a less accessible part of the library. The room was dark, with motion sensor lights flicking on slowly row by row as I tip-toed, enjoying the silence after an intense few months of stay-at-home parenting a child who needs constant noise to feel safe. The still air was filled with that special musty smell of old books. I may have cried, a little. There are a few places guaranteed to make me feel at ease: mountains, rivers and libraries. Nowhere really compares to a proper university library, though.

When I was ten, my father started his PhD and he, my younger sister and I lived on and off in an ex-ambulance parked near the university library. Dad fitted out the ambulance with bunk beds, and we showered at the university swimming pool. We had movie nights in the AV section of the library, where the selection of films was geared towards screen studies, meaning that although we weren't allowed to watch Sesame Street, we saw Thelma & Louise and Thelma & Louise. In the day time we lived in the library while dad was studying. We took dolls and built multi-story doll-houses on empty book shelves. We found the children's literature section and read all of it. The library was massive and one day we explored too far and got lost. After walking for what felt like hours Verity started crying and refused to go any further. I piggy-backed her, desperately trying to remember the Dewey Decimal codes near our starting point. Eventually we found a water fountain in a study hall and ran to it like desert explorers finding an oasis. I finally remembered the title of a book I'd seem near dad's desk, entered it into the catalog and despite no experience using a computer, we figured out the location. When we got back, triumphant at the trials and tribulations we had over come, dad hadn't even noticed we'd been gone. Universities in general, and libraries in particular, have been under my skin ever since.

These literate little birds have built a nest in the kanji for "tree". Picture thanks to Furiida.

Of all the emails I've had as a result of this blog, my favorite is from Vincent the librarian, who emailed me with a book recommendation. Because that is the magical power of librarians, guardians of the promised land. They reach out and tell you what you were looking for even before you know it yourself. Or, as he said: "I'm a librarian.  It's what I do.  Then walk off into the sunset." Thank you Vincent! One day I'll get around to writing about the book, Yokohama Yankee: My Family's Five Generations as Outsiders in Japan by Leslie Helm. It's a great read.

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Homeschool Graduates, Adult Adoptees and Nothing About Japan At All

I read a lot of blogs, on all sorts of divergent topics from dogs to vegetarian cooking to adoption to home schooling to Atheism and back again via academia and anime. Usually there is little relationship between anything I read. Lately, however, I have been noticing the same thing happening in two areas: blogs by home school graduates and blogs by adults who were adopted as children. Both groups are now, as adults, casting an often critical eye on their childhood experiences and making suggestions for how parents can prevent making the same mistakes with their children. Both groups are constantly being criticised by home schooling parents and adoptive parents for being “too negative”, “anti-“, in some cases having their stories challenged or dismissed altogether and of course, the classic “your parents just did it wrong, the system is fine!” / “Your experience was an aberration, the VAST MAJORITY [citation needed] had wonderful experiences and you should shut up and stop ruining it for everyone.”

From the comments thread of Homeschooling on the Open Seas

I find this baffling. Before going into adoption I wanted to be prepared. Part of that preparation was reading what adult adoptees, particularly transracial adoptees, have to say about their experiences. I read a lot of blogs by adoptive parents, too, but I place a higher value on what people who experienced being adopted, as opposed to adopting, have to say. One reason for this is how frustrating I have found it when my parents try to “correct”my statements about home schooling. They weren’t home schooled, I was. Being home schooling parents does not qualify you to talk about the experience of being home schooled. I say “baffling” but I guess it isn’t, really. Both adoptive parents and home schooling parents are making decisions they believe are in their children’s best interests, sometimes at great personal cost. I remember a home schooled friend’s mother talking about breaking down in tears when they made the decision to home school because she really, really didn’t want to but felt that she had to do it for the kids. I understand that it must hurt to receive not gratitude but criticism. When it isn’t just within the family, though, I really don’t get it. Every single time someone who was home schooled writes about how they struggled with social issues a dozen rabid home schoolers pop into the comments section and demand clarification: “Not all home schooled kids are poorly socialized! Not all schooled kids are well socialized!” Of course, this is true, and I have never seen anyone claim otherwise. On the other hand, how many home schoolers bother to clarify statements like “schools crush creativity and individuality” or this:

Image taken from When Homeschooling Gets Crunchy

And, in anticipation of the criticism I will get for pointing this out… no, this is not an anti-home schooling post. I don’t think all home schoolers are rabid, just the ones who stalk home school graduates. This is about parents silencing their adult children’s voices, whether it is an adult who was home schooled as a child being harassed by parents who are currently home schooling, or adoptive parents dismissing the pain expressed by an adult who was adopted as a child. First hand experiences matter, it is the reason blogs are so important to me as a source of information. If you are an adoptive parent, you have firsthand experience of being an adoptive parent but not of being an adoptee. If you are home schooling your children but were not yourself home schooled, please don’t tell us what home schooling is like. 

If you have no idea what I am talking about but are interested, here is some further reading:

Lost Daughters

Omitting the voices of adoptees of color and only asking white adoptive parents to recount their experiences of transracial adoption is a subtlety of structural racism.

Under Much Grace

I became acutely aware of the First and Second Generation Adult within or post-homeschooling when working with Hillary McFarland in the preparation of Quivering Daughters. SGAs, the “quivering daughters” themselves, loved the drafts. Their First Generation mother pioneers hated it far more often than not – and I had not anticipated the reaction at all.

 Family Ties

Adult adoptees have so much wisdom to offer because they know how it feels to grow up being adopted.  It is way past time for the industry, the media and legislators to acknowledge their voices without insulting their motives.

Darcy's Heart-Stirrings

For those of you invalidating our stories, saying "it wasn't that bad", can I ask you to take a step back for a moment? To gain a broader perspective? Because what may have been only a small part of your life, was our ENTIRE lives. You were adults when you chose to attend that Basic Seminar, when you picked up your first courtship books, when you decided to promote the modesty culture, when you chose to become part of a patriarchal system, when you made the choice to spend your kids' childhoods sheltered from the world in your own little reality and the culture you created. But us? We were born into it. We were raised our whole lives immersed in it. We spent the most formative years of our cognitive and emotional development in an alternate religious culture ruled by fear, shame, legalism, and authoritarianism. We had no choice. We knew nothing else. We had no other experience and knowledge and discernment to ground us like you did, to give us perspective, to compare anything to. For you, this was 10-20 years of your life. For us, it was our whole lives. It was all we knew. Our entire lives have been built upon a time period that was just a small part of your own life. So, yes, it was "that bad". Our experiences were nothing like yours and you'll have to see them through our eyes if you want to understand.

Gazillion Voices

 What do I want to write and talk about? I want to write about the number of adoptees who struggle with suicide and suicidal ideation because they lack a continuity with the past and because their attempts at continuity are denied by agencies that withhold birth family information, about the number of adult adoptees who are divorced because their identities are so wildly in flux it is hard for a partner to keep up, about adoptees who perform childhood even as adults. I want to write about loss; about issues with body image because for our whole lives, our faces did not reflect our immediate families or societal images of beauty; about attachment issues; about not eating or overeating as a representation of nurture; about substance abuse. I want to write about the structural inequalities on a global, political and economic scale that fully manifest when an adoptee attempts to hold the poverty of their birth parents alongside the privileges of their adoptive parents, and especially, when that adoptee tries to love them both.

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Sunday Surf

Sun-drying seaweed in Kamakura

This week the linkage is pretty parenting heavy, but let's start with a couple of completely-unrelated-to-children posts.

Ex-Pat Life

http://kirstyriceonline.com/2014/04/the-expat-cycle.html

At the end of a particularly good farewell brunch on the weekend I sat talking to our host, they’re leaving after 13 years in Doha. She talked about this special life, how your friends become your expat family. “It’s the one family you actually get to choose. That’s what makes it so good”.

We will be hit hard this summer, with some of our favourite people leaving Japan. I might have to pull this post out again in August.

Women

http://japaneseruleof7.com/japanese-women-and-work

“Anyway,” I continued as I unscrewed the wine, “let’s say your parents were going to buy a new house. Who’d make the ultimate decision, your mom or dad?
“My mom. And you better not eat those Calbee chips. They’ll make you fat.
“But they’re delicious. They’re black pepper. I love them. And I thought your dad brings home the paycheck?
“True, but it’s not his; it’s the family’s.
“Does your mom give him an allowance?
“She does,” she said with a smile, and this seemed to make her happy.
“Okay,” I continued. “So if they were going to buy a car, who would decide?
“Mom.
“Furniture? Sofas and tables and stuff?
“Mom, of course.
“Washing machine? TV? Fridge? Sony Playstation?
“Probably my mom,” she said, then added, as if surprised, “Huh, Japan is matriarchal!”
“I’m having a moment of clarity,” I said.
“You should’ve bought a bottle with a cork,” she said.

Ken takes a serious topic and puts a very entertaining spin on it. I have been pondering writing something on this topic for a while, but he has nailed it so perfectly I feel there is nothing left to say.

http://hanlonsrzr.blogspot.jp/2014/04/haruko-obokata-standing-nail-perverted.html
While I don"t agree with much of what he says, in this case I think he's spot on. A man would never have been so hounded by the media for the same mistake.

http://www.livesayhaiti.com/2014/04/on-taking-women-home.html

The word comfort is from two Latin words that mean "with" and "strong".  God is with these women and He makes them strong.  He is with us and He makes us strong. Amy Carmichael said, "Comfort is not a soft, weakening commiseration; it is true, strengthening love."  I hope that sort of comfort is what Haitian women are experiencing as they are brought home after giving birth.  

Just a lovely post... go look.

Dogs

https://shibasenji.wordpress.com/2014/04/18/attunement

Even though he didn’t carry the bottle all the way to me, I cheered so enthusiastically, another trail walker couldn’t help but wander over to see what my commotion was about. I started to gush about Bowdu’s amazing retrieve, but stopped short when I saw this guy was accompanied by a Labrador Retriever; I might as well have been raving about my Shiba’s beautiful dump in the woods.

Parenting, Adoption and Education

http://groundedparents.com/2014/04/15/teaching-your-child-to-talk-back-or-raising-the-young-skeptic

Why would you want a kid who talks back?
Well, because you aren’t always right; and because other people aren’t always right.  A kid who just accepts what she is told, uncritically, is a kid who unequipped to deal with a world full of propaganda and urban myths and flat-out lies.

http://redthreadbroken.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/chinese-parents-abandon-children-at-guangzhou-baby-hatch-response

 Between late January and mid March, the Guangzhou baby hatch took in 262 children. This was an unexpectedly high number, causing the baby hatch to close in late March. In late February, a photojournalist captured 24 hours at the Guangzhou baby hatch, exposing some heart-wrenching, tear jerking moments.

http://theaccidentalmommy.blogspot.jp/2014/04/rad-vs-cat.html

Here's where it affects the RAD. For years, Genea has had the most insincere tone interacting with little beings. Seeing her new baby cousin, she'd say "aww. Oh look. At. The cute ba- there's a squirrel  can I have a lollipop  you have to wash my clothes now", with the same tone as if she were saying " I gotta take out the trash". It made my internal organs cringe but honestly, I stopped noticing it ages ago. Just part of Genea, one of those things she is going to have to learn. But with Bindi, it's sincere. She sounds like she really does think Bindi is cute. It sounds natural, and that right there is amazing all by itself. 

http://www.findingmagnolia.com/2014/04/this-mothers-day-make-difference-when.html

 Samahope is a non-profit organization that uses crowdfunding to provide funds for doctors to give life-saving medical care to both mothers and children. The doctors Samahope partners with work in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Latin America, as well as right here in the city we call home, San Francisco.  These doctors do everything from correcting birth defects to providing safe birth services to helping families cope with trauma (ahem, right up our alley). And while you can give to these amazing doctors anytime during the year, there's an extra special way you can do it for Mother's Day, all while honoring your mom and giving her something special to remember.

http://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/2014/02/11/when-homeschooling-gets-crunchy-darcy-s-s-thoughts

 The fact that this is now being passed around by proponents of homeschooling and “unschooling” who are not religious and considered “progressive” is concerning. It seems that there is a new hatred of public school that is beginning to take root, and it has nothing to do with Christians. All the illogical, misinformed, sensationalist arguments against public schools that I’ve seen for years, is being repackaged, regurgitated, and spit out all over the websites of people who think they are some kind of pioneers, that this “rebellion” against formal education is all their idea. They ridicule other parents who put their kids in school, saying we must not love our kids if we send them to “government brainwashing centers” (sound familiar?). Which, of course, usually makes me laugh out loud because I’m pretty sure the homeschooling leaders of the conservative movement of the ’80′s invented that term.

http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2014/04/09/bullied-student-threatened-with-wiretapping-charge

A high school sophomore in Pennsylvania who had been bullied all year by classmates with no help from his teacher decided to audio record the bullying on his iPad as evidence.
But instead of disciplining the bullies, school officials called police on him, threatening to have him arrested for felony wiretapping.

http://educationinjapan.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/cool-product-buzz-study-organizer-extraordinaire
 No quote for this, but I seriously want one! Best feature: you can take it outside and study under a tree.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/03/17/reference/after-school-clubs-falling-short-as-more-moms-work/#.U1m0hVdIoxE

Many working mothers have had to give up their jobs just because they can’t secure spots for their children at such facilities. The problem has become so acute that there is now a term describing difficulties confronting working mothers with first-graders: “shoichi no kabe” (the hurdle of the first grade).
Even students who are fortunate enough to gain admittance to an after-school club benefit for only a limited time. Many clubs — particularly the traditional, publicly funded ones — accept students only through the third grade, meaning that older children often have nowhere to go after school. Many end up staying home alone, often with a TV or computer games as their only companion.

We have had so many issues in this regard that I am definitely going to devote an entire post to the topic, but this is good introduction to how f-ing stupid the system here in Japan is.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/16/opinion/soronen-foster-children/index.html?sr=sharebar_twitter

His roommate got to go home on school breaks and had a mother who called to check in on him. Adrian had no one to call when he struggled at school -- nowhere to call home, no one to send a gift, no one to see how he was doing. He worked nearly 60 hours a week just to pay for college, and when eventually his grades slipped, he was kicked out. He struggled with the ups and downs of depression. As Adrian said of children in foster care: "We are not equipped to go through this world alone."

 Although this article is about America, there are very similar issues faced by children in Japan who grow up in orphanages.

Tassie!

While I do read this blog (about foster parenting and autism) regularly, I confess I am sharing these posts solely because they have lots of pictures of the beautiful island of my birth, and made me nostalgic.
http://lovemanytrustfew.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/walking-talking
http://lovemanytrustfew.wordpress.com/2014/04/17/lake-st-clair

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Tiger Has a Wiener

These, in Japan, are wieners.

I’m a firm believer that children should be taught the correct names for all of their body parts. Teaching weird euphemisms like “Tinkerbelle” or “winkie” is not only detrimental to healthy sexual development but it’s downright creepy. Seriously. To quote a random website (http://www.kidscenter.org/prevention/tips-and-suggestions):

“Teach children anatomically correct names for their body parts. Research shows that when children are taught the anatomically correct names for their body parts, it enhances the pride they feel about their bodies. Just as you teach your children that a nose is a nose, they need to know what to call their genitals. Encouraging kids to use a correct and “universally” recognized word assists in other adults recognizing statements that could be abusive or worrisome. Additionally, providing correct language helps a kid understand their bodies and lets them know it’s okay to talk about and ask questions about all of their body parts.”

I grew up in a Christian, homeschooling family with an overworked mother and four siblings. This combination of factors resulted, by casual neglect rather than parental intention I should add, in my learning nothing about human bodies (including my own). I was in university and had been sexual active for several years when I first learned of the existence of the urethra. I’d never thought about it, but if you had asked me I suppose I would have said that women peed from their vaginas. I invite you to take a moment to think about how appalling that is. Needless to say, my menarche was more than a little traumatic. So, with my adult freedom from religious baggage, I planned matter-of-fact and open discussions about the body and sexuality with my children.

But. 

Thinking about wieners

My dogs don’t generally bite other people. One recent exception was a friend who is very tall and slim-limbed but with a little bit of a beer belly. This confused Hayate, who while sitting beside the-afore mentioned friend on the couch, once took a curious nibble of said friend’s tummy. Fortunately the friend was more surprised than hurt, but it did make me nervous about Tiger’s penis. Soon after moving in with us Tiger exhibited enthusiasm for running through the house naked. His crotch is exactly at face height for Hayate. I was concerned that Hayate might be curious about this bounding appendage he hadn’t seen before and take a nibble, so I tried to explain this to Tiger. “Hayate will bite me?” He asked looking scared. “No no, not bite you exactly, he’ll just… You know Hayate loves wieners, right? He might mistake your penis for a wiener and take a bite, thinking it’s food. He won’t BITE you bite you.” And from that day on, Tiger has been in love with the idea that his penis is a wiener and refuses to call it by any other name.

Hooking up with http://carnivalofatheistparenting.blogspot.com.au/

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School is a Happy Place

Usually school is a happy place. Sometimes there are zombies though. It's the risk you take when you allow six-year-olds to paint murals for the exterior of the school walls...

 I have written a few posts (and have a few more coming up) that talk about Japanese schools in a negative light. Overall I actually love schools here, it’s just that it is easier to quantify and describe the bad things than the good. It’s hard to write an interesting post about “atmosphere”. I’m going to try anyway, but forgive me if it’s a bit disjointed.

A hawk circles the harvested field beside the school

Class Personality

Teachers have a great ability to personalise and set the town for their class, especially at the elementary level where one teacher teaches one class all day long. Good teacher quickly establish class traditions and rituals. One elementary teacher I work with has a particularly funny way of saying “good job” with an accompanying exaggerated ‘thumbs up’. He will only do it when his class are exceptional at something, and they live for it. Every time I complemented them during English class they would turn to their teacher and ask “good job?” excitedly. Even if I said they were doing a good job they wouldn't move on until they had got the coveted praise from the teacher. In some classes, when a kid wins a game there is a special “class cheer” that everyone would do for them, in some cases with a little dance. Some teachers have the kids do a kampai (“cheers”) with their milk before eating school lunch. Some teachers allow time every day for the extroverted students to do a short performance of stand up comedy or puppetry or whatever else they are into (which is a great incentive for them to keep quiet during the rest of the day). Even at JHS where teachers only teach one subject, the teachers will adapt to each class’s personality. For example, one of my JTEs asks the class every lesson about the day, date and weather. The kids raise their hands to answer. One boy always raises his hand to answer the weather, and every time he says very happily “It’s SUNNY!” If it’s raining or snowing or what have you the JTE asks with great exaggeration “REEEEEALLY?” And every time the boy answers “僕の心にいつもsunny” (it’s always sunny in my heart). You would think it would get old, but seriously, I look forward to it every time. It’s such a silly little ritual but it feels so safe, so happy and so familial. And it sets the tone for every lesson I teach with that class.

Also, sometimes there is a penguin in the staffroom when I come down for coffee.

Students Love Their Teachers, Teachers Love Their Students

Of course this isn’t universal (I don’t think there was any affection between my very bad no good JTE and her students), and it may be more the case in my part of the world than in metropolitan Japan, but the relationships between most teachers and most students here are amazing. One of my favourite junior high JTEs recently had lunch with some of her former students to celebrate their graduation from university. Yes, they still keep in touch. During an incident rescuing a kitten (who sadly did not go on to have a happy life), the kids who I was helping said to one another in Japanese “as expected from a teacher; teachers really are intelligent aren’t they?” Compare this to the popular English expression “those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” Over the course of the year a class will often settle on a specific caricature of their home room teacher and then proceed to draw it in various situations, occasionally even comic strips. Sometimes teachers like these representations of themselves so much they have them made into stamps that they then use when marking homework or even to sign letters. For their part, you can get a sense of the affection teachers have for their students from posts like this one and this one.

They must especially love their teachers when it is snowing on school maintain climbing day...

Each Individual Has Value

I wrote an entire post about this, but I think it bears repeating. Despite the pervasive stereotype that Japan is group-centric and countries like Australia are individualistic, in Japan the entire class will wait for one student to catch up on the material. In Australia, the majority would take precedence over the individual every time. While this video is not representative of how most teachers would handle a challenge to their authority, I think the attitude of the students is pretty standard (although few kids would be brave enough to stand up to a teacher like that while so obviously frightened). The “group” is only as strong as the bonds between the individual members.

Friendship and "getting along" seem to me at least to be the primary goals of schools during the compulsory years. Academics are a very distant third behind socialisation and physical/emotional development. It's not uncommon for academic classes to be suspended for weeks at a time to give the students more time to practice their piggy-back jousting before sports day. I am completely serious. When I explain to kids the Australian system of staying back a year if you fail or skipping ahead if you do well, they were horrified at the idea of being separated from their friends. There's plenty of time after school to study, after all, but so little time to enjoy that shared experiences of daily life with your intimate friends. For reasons I don't need to elaborate on here, this appeals to me greatly.

The boys on the jungle gym are JHS students. Nobody minds that they come back to the elementary sometimes to play. There are no slides at JHS, after all.

This isn't an exhaustive list of everything I like about Japanese schools, just a starter!

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