willow turned six today. she really is a wonderful little girl. i am always happy when i think about her, and about how lucky i am to be a part of her life... the only sadness i feel is how, as lynn said to her jokingly, she will never be five again (or four, or anything else). her sixth birthday is, oddly enough, as much a vanishing act as it is a reappearing act...

i am feeling pretty tired right now. there are far too many things to do. i have to do an extensive clean-up of the house. this afternoon, i weeded the front sections, cut the grass, and (hardest of all) i pruned the snowbush hedges on the right side of the house, both on our side of the hedge and the (unfriendly) neighbor's side. with the latter, it really felt like i was cutting a path through the jungle, cutting all the branches that leaned into me, and pulling the weeds that had grown almost as tall as the stone wall...

i want to work on the animation for willow's b-day. i also would like to make a pika-chu for the pin the tail on the pika-chu game. i intend to make a pizza-chu, that is, a pizza in the shape of pika-chu... but time is so hard to come by.

***

in my last sped 603 class, the instructor gave an influential lecture on how to handle a crisis, a meltdown. it was interesting and significant on many levels. crisis situations were represented by an imaginary graph. in phase i, denoted calm, things were at baseline. ironically, the instructor highlighted that it is at this phase that attention must be augmented. usually, when the class is apparently calm, the teacher decides that things are "okay," and that s/he can use that time to, let's say, grade papers... actually, when things are going good, the instructor has to pay MORE attention, to proactively prevent situations, of course, but more importantly, to positively reinforce the good in kids...

i would like to write about other phases, but i'd like to make another point first. we talk nowadays about this condition called adhd. adhd is "attention deficient hyperactivity disorder." the implication with that diagnosis is that a kid is "deficient" in attention. but where exactly does attention come from? what is attention? is attention a capacity, or is it a skill, a learned behavior? it is a lot of things, ultimately, but i would argue that, if we thing about it as a need, akin to food, then the deficiency of it comes, not from a failing on the part of the child, but from a "withholding" of it, on the part of the child's caretakers. in other words, if a child is adhd (whether the diagnosis is valid or not), take a look at how the parents/teachers/caretakers actually "pay attention" to the child. more often than not, in our "attention deficient" culture, you'll see people AT MOST paying superficial attention to their kids. more often than not, kids are a burden. when kids are asking for others to play with them, there is almost a begrudging of them: "why are you bothering me?" "why are you taking so much of my time?"

... pay attention to children. always. not because it is a form of proactive control, which, paradoxically, it is. pay attention to them because attention is the most fundamental form of love and respect, and we must love and respect the (apparently) least among us, perhaps more than we love and respect ourselves...

***

i'm getting tired... returning to the crisis management thing: at a certain point, a phase denoted "acceleration" (which is actually phase five or so), the child WANTS to engage you. s/he makes provocative statements, and WANTS to get to you: "you're a f**king idiot," "my dad says you seem too young and stupid to be a teacher," "make me do it..." if you react, if you play into the game of engagement, then you ultimately will lose. "acceleration" means that playing into the one-up-manship game of engagement MUST result in one person or the other (or both) exploding. voila! crisis.

it may seem the hardest thing to do, but at this stage, a person has to NOT engage. give the person a direct choice. "sit down or i will call your parole officer." importantly, he added: "i will give you a few seconds to answer." then, in an almost bored way, turn your attention away. return to teaching the class. by no means should you: close space, engage contact, demand an immediate response. engagement, acceleration, WANTS a "push" so that it can "push back." THE MOST FRUSTRATING THING for someone who wants a fight is someone WHO DOESN'T FIGHT BACK...

for a case study in this, read "the chocolate war" and "beyond the chocolate war." classic books, even if they were written for young adults. i aspire to be jerry rainauld.

i think about this with respect to, not only teaching, but taijiquan, hell, life in general. politics. taijiquan works through keeping soft, through resisting the temptation to "harden" and engage directly... misdirection. keeping empty... i wish governments would take this principle to heart. so much suffering is caused by the failure to "disengage" during acceleration phases. can't people see the results? nothing good ever comes from a crisis. nothing good... clearly, there are situations when evil, when crimes against humanity, must be dealt with, and dealt with with swiftness and decisiveness. but in many other situations, it simply seems like countries throwing their weight around, or arguing justifications for actions, etc.

... i may seem controversial, but, for example, i disagree with israel's usage of military strikes on civilian targets. their justification was that hamas purposely used civilians as "human shields." but i ask you: if hamas had fired from civilian targets WITHIN israel, that is, using israelis and jews as "human shields," then would they have still fired rockets, etc. without hesitation? a palestinian civilian is as innocent as a jew... firing on civilians FOR ANY REASON is as absurd as shooting yourself to kill the fly that buzzes around your head...

(i don't exonerate hamas, by the way... i just feel that the israeli response was inadequate and counterproductive in so many ways...)

engagement is so tricky. there is something animal in us that feels its very existence is threatened by a taunt. it's hard to step away from that. but if our aim is PEACE or TRUTH (and it should be, it ALWAYS SHOULD BE), and not the animal need to be RIGHT, then we have to turn away from our near-instinctual need to justify ourselves, and try to see a bigger picture...

...well, nuff said for tonight. i need to rest, get back to other responsibilities...