Yearly archive for 2013

Anyone can change the world but few do so. At Synapse School, our Six Seconds lab school, it is our mission to create those who do, the change makers of our world. This guiding principle strikes at the heart of everything we do there and with the work of Six Seconds. I would like to share with you six basic tenets I think all change makers, young or old, need to have in order to make a real difference in this world. They aren’t ground-breaking or difficult, yet they are rare.

Key Concept #1:  Only change yourself.

While it is tantalizing to want to fix boyfriends, husbands, children, brothers, and sisters—let me assure you from research, from personal knowledge, and experience, you cannot.

I ran away from school! Not recently – when I was six. 🙂

I was in first grade and the teacher told me that she was going to keep me after school. It was the first time in my school career I was going to face a detention.

It wouldn’t have been so awful had it not been for Shirley. I looked upon her as an older woman of great experience. I hung on to her every word. After all, she was in fourth grade.

Rats

One day before the start of school, she had taken me aside and given me some very sage advice.

I had dinner with Goldie Hawn recently. It’s true! 🙂

Goldie was in town for a dinner to raise funds for The Hawn Foundation, the organization she set up ten years ago dedicated to providing children with the social and emotional skills they need to live smarter, happier, healthier lives.

In particular, she was promoting their signature MindUP Curriculum–lessons that foster self-awareness, focused attention, and emotion-regulation as well as the necessary social and emotional learning necessary for academic success.

The event was held at the Park Tavern Restaurant in historic North Beach on Washington Park Square in San Francisco.

Interested in what your daughter thinks about her boyfriend? Wonder how your son feels about his math teacher? What question do you want to ask your children but are not sure about how to go about it?

I love charms and about two years ago, Josh Freedman and I thought it would be fun to have a bag of them that could be used to discover what family members were thinking? Or perhaps, something the kids could play with at the airport and create stories? So we created the Emoticons – a bag of approximately twenty charms, including such items as:

• Butterfly
• Tape measure

Last week I read an article in the Wall Street Journal that headlined, ‘Why French Parents Are Superior’ written by author of ‘Bringing Up Bebe,’ American Pamela Druckerman.

Funnily enough, almost exactly a year ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article headlined, ‘Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior’ written by Amy Chua, author of the explosive ‘Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.’

(Something tells me the WSJ is trying to save money on employing headline writers and recycling previously successful headlines they know will rile the American public into an indignant frenzy. :-))

I heard a tale recently that appalled and fascinated me at the same time.

The tale was told to me as a funny story, a hilarious situation. But I was more circumspect.

A girl, about eight or nine, had been out with her sister, parents and grandparents. While she was out, she’d visited a public bathroom. As she went to wash her hands, she found a significant amount of money – apparently around  $70 – left on the sink by the tap.

The child picked the money up and took it back to her parents who were surprised and delighted at her find. She got to keep the money.

Well, the answer, it would seem, is it depends on the color.

I grew up with the concept that the more pure the diamond–the more clarity and clearness without flaws–the more rare it is, and therefore, the more expensive.

And, a little research on the Internet seems to confirm those old thoughts.

Sure enough, yellow color in a diamond is considered a negative, an impurity. Something about too much nitrogen.

And brown diamonds are firmly lodged at the bottom of the desirability list.

Dear Six Seconds Community,

I have some exciting and enticing news to share with all of you.

Anabel has been selected as the 2012 recipient of the California Association for the Gifted (CAG) Distinguished Service Award from the Bay Area Region.  This award is given to one member in the GATE community for outstanding contributions to the interests of gifted/talented children.

Selections are based on the following criteria:
* Demonstrated excellence that benefits gifted/talented students
* Proven commitment to gifted children

I was seventeen years old and had been an only child for that entire time. I had reveled in having no rival for my parent’s love and attention. But then in the spring of 1957, my mother reported she felt nauseated.

She’d recently taken a bad fall and only went to the doctor because my dad and I urged her to make an appointment to check for a cracked rib.

Twenty four hours later my world was topsy-turvy. Mom wasn’t sick.

She was pregnant.

Thousands of thoughts steamed through my head. I would lose my parents’ focus and attention. I would lose their love. I would be displaced by a cherubic angel.