Lamb Storms and the American Preschool Education

You know me. I'm the one who names her cats after Jane Austen characters and follows the Bard with love in her heart. And after several literary tours to the UK with my students, I married my lovely Brit, Patrick. So when my dear friend George, Patrick's daughter, suggested that I look at Robert Macfarlane's book Landmarks, the quintessential book on British landscapes, I excitedly found a copy and read it.

 When Landmarks came out, the reviews read like love letters. One of my favorites from the Daily Express said, "Surely no one since the young Ted Hughes has written about British landscape and wildlife with such fierce enthusiasm." 

Horatio Clare, from the Daily Telegraph, wrote, "Passionate and magical...a deep scholarship of the countryside with an adventurous approach, all rendered in immaculate, delicious prose." 

But it was this one from the Guardian that got me thinking about the American education system: "So important, enriching. Ought to be read by policymakers, educators, armchair environmentalists and active conservationists the world over." Educators? Hmm. What was so important that a teacher needed to read about the environment and animals in Great Britain? Well, read on.

Since this is a blog post about words, I'll focus on one expression that Macfarlane offers and we'll go from there. A lamb storm, also referred to as a lambing storm, is an unexpected snow storm harmful to newborn lambs. Farmers across the northern part of the UK understand this phenomenon well around March lambing time when adverse weather conditions, thanks in part to global warming, mean lambs need to be monitored throughout the night to make sure they're warm and comfortable. Farmer John Fagan writes in Farming Independent, "I'm just back from the lambing shed. It is allowing me just a period of calm amidst the lambing storm that is taking place. I'm glad to have plenty of pens but it is hectic. The lambs are getting barely enough time to mother up, sucked and out to grass. I've no choice but to get the lambs out quickly...it is vital to watch them carefully to make sure the ewes are looking after their new families. Nothing gives you more satisfaction than letting out a bunch of ewes and lambs and seeing them happily bounce away with their mothers."

Since my brain frequently leaps to metaphorical if not symbolic conclusions, another group of lambs comes to mind, precious little vulnerable pre-school children, many of whom will be experiencing a structured school setting for the first time. And unfortunately in American public schools, and perhaps many private ones as well, we lag far behind other developed countries as we prepare children for the long journey from pre-school to high school. It's lambing season, folks, and the storms are brewing.

The U.S. ranks 26^th in preschool participation for four year olds, 15^th in teacher-to-child ratio, and 21st in total investment relative to country wealth. Finland’s child ratio is 1-11 and Sweden’s is 1-5. The U.S. at best is 1-15.

In addition to looking at basic demographics and statistics, research-based early learning curriculum indicates greater efficacy occurs when teachers spend less time on strict discipline and more time on curious discovery with children. (Picture lambs frolicking about in the meadow.)

It is an established fact that a trusting relationship between teacher and child helps preschoolers learn through playful activities and experiences. These children are still trying to understand the meaning of everything—how and why things work. They’re also curious about what effect their actions will have, and as they grow they will continue to test the boundaries. Hearing “bad” words that are inappropriate for a four-year-old to use?  The child most likely has no idea what the words mean, but he has deducted from the tone of the person who first used the words that this behavior might be testing the waters. What better way to find out than to use them themselves?

It should now occur to you, dear reader, that frustration, harsh words, and punitive behavior are no different from the lambing storms that are so harmful to newborn lambs. I recently heard a distraught mom admit that her pre-school child hates school. As soon as she picks him up in the afternoon he tells her he was bad and his teacher doesn’t like him. How long can a child endure this kind of disparagement and how long before the damage can be reversed? Are we making sure our little lambs are safe and warm, or are we sending them out into the storm? 

According to Unicef's most recent Child Well Being in Rich Countries survey, children in the Netherlands are the happiest kids in the world, and this is based on material well being, educational well being, and behavior and risks. The study concluded that Dutch kids feel no pressure to excel in school and have very little stress, but these children actually do thrive in a happy, relaxed school setting where they are encouraged to enjoy learning.

I’ll close with ten healthy discipline strategies published by the American Academy of Pediatrics that work not only in the classroom but also at home.

1.       Show and Tell. Teach children right from wrong with calm words and actions.

2.       Set limits.

3.       Give consequences.

4.       Hear them out.

5.       Give them your attention.

6.       Catch them being good.

7.       Be prepared for trouble.

8.       Know when not to respond.

9.       Redirect "bad" behavior.

10.   Call a time-out. (“Go to time out and come back when you feel ready and in control.” This strategy can help a child learn and practice self-management.)

The Cauldron: Vessel of Magic?

If you have read or seen at least one Harry Potter story, you are familiar with the word cauldron, that large black vessel where potions are developed and spells are cast. The truth, however, is that the first recorded use of a cauldron--yes, a rather large iron, brass, or copper kettle used for holding liquids, can be traced to the late Bronze Age period and was used primarily for cooking. Cauldrons were extremely valuable and would have been passed on in wills.

The word cauldron derives from 13th Century Middle English, but the word was actually borrowed from the Norman, meaning "hot bath." Prior to cauldron, it was cetel, kessel, ketel, and chetel, making it easy to see its connection to kettle.

Today cauldrons are seldom used for cooking. Dutch ovens that are a bit smaller than the large kettles have taken their place on the stove or in the oven, and cauldrons have become a cliché popularized by fiction stories of witches and leprechauns. But this wasn't always the case for centuries, as history has proven with a number of valuable archeological finds.

The Gundestrup cauldron is a Bronze Age vessel, a richly decorated silver cauldron believed to be from between 200 BC and 300 AD. It was found in a peat bog in Denmark where anthropologists believe a burial or ritual may have taken place.

The Battersea cauldron, a large bronze vessel dated to 800 BC to 700 BC found in Great Britain, now in the British Museum, is estimated to be 3000 years old and is made up of bronze sheets melded together. It was found in the River Thames near Chelsea Bridge that connects Chelsea to Battersea. It is thought to have been used for communal feasts and deliberately placed in the river as a religious sacrifice.

Cauldrons were important family possessions for cooking, brewing, and simply holding hot water. Their connection to the hearth, the fireplace considered to be the heart of the home, increases their symbolism throughout history. The Greek goddess Hestia was the symbol of the hearth and fire, the importance of domesticity, the family, the home. The Greeks believed Hestia helped to keep peace in the family that gathered around her hearth to share meals. Newborn babies were taken to the hearth as a token of respect and gratitude to Hestia. Because cauldrons on the hearth accompanied healing, they were also associated with good magic.

All early American fireplaces boasted a cast iron cauldron hung from spit dogs, long poles from which could be hung kettles or pots. The cast iron Dutch oven was also a typical container for cooking. The fire never went out. Embers might be covered by a brass or copper curfew and pushed to the back of the fireplace to be rekindled the next morning. Small piles of hot coals would be pushed to the front of the fireplace and smaller pots with covers would be set on them. Cauldrons had no cover. Instead stopping sides kept the liquid from boiling over. Dutch ovens were the first ovens used for baking. Coals would be placed on their flat lids as well as underneath.

Chuck wagons became necessary on cattle drives where food might have been scarce and hungry cowboys needed to eat. When a clever fella equipped a wagon with the necessary tools and supplies, a large cast iron vessel--perhaps a smaller cauldron, was an essential item. I doubt those cowboys would call what was in that pot magic, but the absence of a meal after a hard day's ride would have caused potent distress!

When my daughters were in Girl Scouts, I volunteered to be the camp-trained mom who would accompany their troop on numerous camping trips. My training happened to fall on a cold, rainy weekend in January. Needless to say, I shivered for two days, but cooking outdoors was great fun and  delicious relief. On the second day we dug a hole in the ground, arranged coals and made a fire, and placed a black cast iron Dutch oven filled with peach cobbler ingredients in it. We covered it with more coals and waited. May I tell you, dear friends, that this dessert will never be eclipsed by any other dessert. It's possible that the comfort of that cobbler may have had due influence, but after all these years I remember it as if it were yesterday, my cauldron cobbler, superseding that cold, miserable weather in my book of greatest memories.

My mother had a reputation for creating magic in her kitchen. Her black cast iron Dutch oven, passed down to me,  was the cauldron of her day. The shrimp and crab gumbo, beef stews, roast beef with roasted root vegetables, and vegetable soups she made in it cast a spell over her family. It might have been a food coma we all experienced at the end of one of her feasts, but the memory of the camaraderie and affection of that precious family time--and incredibly delicious food, too, will always remain magical in my heart.

Jungian analysts believe that breaking bread with others is reminiscent of the Eucharist, partaking of the body and blood of Christ. Whether or not you are Jungian, Episcopalian, or Anglican and accept this belief, I think you will agree that sharing communal food can be sacred as we give and receive that which brings newness of life to us all. As much as I love Harry Potter, I choose to think of a cauldron not in a mischievous or evil way, not even for my beloved Shakespeare and his Macbeth witches, but as a vessel of nurture and love.  

Ouroborus: My End Is My Beginning

For forty-six years I taught English, speech, and drama on the high school and middle school levels. For fourteen of those summers I served as a Master Teacher at Rice Summer School in Houston. After a long and fruitful career, I retired, determined to use the free time that was now available to me to write, to engage in creative endeavors, and to spend much more time with my family. Because I had worked for so many years, including summers, I didn't fully understand how this time that unfolded before me would change my life. The novel I had started writing years before suddenly took off, and by the end of that first year I was finished. Everything improved--my relationships with family and friends, the garden, my new book club, our house and its maintenance, and even my health. The end of a long teaching career was the beginning of a new life in unfathomable ways.

Teaching literature eventually led me to taking courses at the C.G. Jung Center in Houston for fourteen years, and the language of symbolism became an integral part of my classroom experience. The stages of life/death/rebirth could be identified in every hero journey story, and soon students could recognize this archetype in their own lives as well. One of the most powerful symbols of that journey is the ouroborus, the snake biting its tail and forming a never ending circle.

Ouroboros (pronounced aw ro bawr us) in Greek means "tail devourer." The original depiction was a snake biting its tail in a circle, but the snake is sometimes characterized as a dragon instead, and it isn't Greek in origin but Egyptian. The oldest depiction of it appears on a golden shrine in the tomb of Tutankhamen in 13th century BC. Generally it refers to cyclical time rather than linear, and the Egyptians understood this symbol through the yearly flooding of the Nile River as well as the sun's cyclical journey.

And so this archetypal symbol of renewal and regeneration reminds us all of the rebirth we implore. It's about do-overs and second chances, finally getting it right. On a simplistic but nevertheless important level, it includes recycling and repurposing, perhaps even replanting each spring, changing jobs, and renewing our lifestyle to accommodate the changes in our lives we must make. We love second chances, starting afresh with a new outlook and new possibilities. Many of us never keep our New Year's resolutions, but we make them anyway. Just the idea of a second chance is mesmerizing.

But then there are the more serious renewals: finding a more suitable partner after a failed relationship, renewal of wedding vows to strengthen a marriage that perhaps needed a shot in the arm, recovering from a serious accident or illness and learning how to live with new rules of the game.

Saying goodbye to the old life is rarely easy. Starting over can be scary and intimidating, maybe even painful, because not only do we all fear the unknown to one extent or another, but we liked the comfort of that old life.

When I lost my beloved Patrick, grief had to take a back seat to the responsibilities that coincide with this kind of loss. It was unexpected and yet putting the brakes on my grief gave me a chance to think and take care of myself slowly. As the necessary tasks came to an end, I suddenly realized how alone I was. I kept expecting him to walk into the kitchen or sit in his favorite chair to watch our lovely BBC series. I expected to look up and see him sitting at his computer or his drawing board. All along I knew I was beginning to carve out a new life for myself, not the one I wanted, but one where his spirit would feel clearly present to me in so many areas of my life that it was almost palpable. I began burning scented candles to create a new atmosphere, but it only added to the sacredness of the space we inhabited together.

I have no doubt that ancient Egyptians and Greeks also thought about rebirth in the context of death. The concreteness of their symbols, especially the ouroborus, belies their belief system about life and death, art transcending words. The end was a beginning for them as it is for us centuries later. As I traverse this journey of loss and renewal, the ouroborus certainly speaks of new beginnings for me.