A #slowchated for Giving Thanks

img credit: http://www.andertoons.com/thanksgiving/cartoon/4206/no-end-of-november-bad-for-me

It's been a while since we've had the pleasure of engaging in #slowchated. But I couldn't let this week go by without expressing thanks for one of the venues that connected me with some of my closest PLN members.

I spend a lot of time looking at what's being demanded of me. I still need to get this done. That's on my list. I will look into that. My staff, my bosses, my sons, my wife, my friends - they need me to do stuff. I like being needed. At times, I stress about my commitments. My job in education has become incredibly political. Keeping abreast of policies and mandates and threats from the powers that be increase my stress level. I confess that I lose sight of the pleasures in my life due to the stresses.

Thanks to Justin Schleider (@schleiderjustin), I spent last week thinking about how we pause and find the positive. (Sidebar: I met Justin IRL over the weekend, and he's every bit the positive force he seems on the Twitters.) But I digress.

In my house, there are two things we do each night at dinner. We cheers before anyone eats, and everyone must pick one thing from their day that was really good to share. If there are more things you want to discuss, we talk about it. These little things are for a few reasons. We all get on the same page about where we are and why, we get a 5 year-old boy and a 7 year-old boy to talk about specific events and how they felt about them, and we also get to really focus on all the good in our world.

That's why Thanksgiving is my favorite American holiday. It's a time to focus on being thankful. In its idealistic core, Thanksgiving forces us to pause, reflect, and realize that no matter the stresses, the losses, or the challenges we face, there are positive things in our world.

It is in this vein that I intend to walk us through a wonderful week of giving thanks on #slowchated.

Q1: How do you show appreciation for the people in your life? #slowchated

Q2: How have people shown appreciation for you? #slowchated

Q3: Do you have family traditions of showing thanks? #slowchated

Q4: Happy Thanksgiving to those of you celebrating! How are you spending your Thursday? #slowchated

Q5: Today's question is for #FF. Tell everyone who in your PLN you're thankful for and why. #slowchated

Q6: Black Friday was once considered the officially beginning of the holiday season (despite Christmas commercials since October). Does Black Friday stand in direct contrast to Thanksgiving? #slowchated

#edcampNJ Super Quiz Add On!!!

Links for #edcampNJ presentation:

Quiz

Super Quiz Video instructions

"Is Congress a Good Guy or a Bad Guy?"

"Is Congress a Good Guy or a Bad Guy?"

So that's a question that came up at the dinner table recently. My seven-year-old asked, and then I set about trying to explain what Congress is, why it exists, how government works...

It got out of hand, and the subject was changed. It got me to thinking about - well, a lot of stuff. I wondered when children really needed to start learning about voting and the election process and how government works and what decisions are made and what ones are left behind.

So now, on #totallyrossome, we're going to be playing a game:

It'll work like this:

How old should a kid be...before we talk about marijuana legalization? After all, here in the great state of NJ, one of the most prominent cases was about a 3 year old girl. Children relate to children. How do you have the conversation?

How old should a kid be...before we talk about how women are still fighting for equal rights - a hundred years after campaigning for the right to vote?

How old should a kid be...before we talk about the trend of being born rich counting more than the hard work you put into your education?

How old should a kid be...before we talk about the dangers of guns? After all, 1st graders are no longer safe from attack. (I'm not challenging the 2nd Amendment. A look at the gun violence (injuries and deaths) in the last 72 hours supports this claim.)

How old should a kid be...before we talk about the fact that any company that has more money than them has more influence in an election?

***

There's a lot about this world that we try to protect our children from. We need to eventually teach them what's out there and be honest about how it's impacting them. 

This is not going to be an easy conversation. It's not an easy world.

I do hope that you come by and share your views in an open, respectful way. Our young people are counting on us having these conversations and getting better so that our world can continue to do the same.