The Three Questions
by Jon J Muth

In my 1st grade Sheltered Immersion Program they are learning to speak in English, it takes a long time to get to the place where the text of a book can be understood.
So this is a book that might fit an early space in my year in another time and place, but waited until the "now" of yesterday. I ordered it last year and using it the two years is such a difference, that alone argues for one of the books core thoughts, that we do, in fact, live in the now. And in that we bring to it all that we are.

Yesterday I read to a fairly calm group, we are over weighted with activity this year, impatience at times, distraction, boys 2 to 1 so that the room (as every one has had in a 26 or 27 year career, depends on if you count the subbing year) each year has had a unique character.
(I'm disguising this a bit)
One child in my room is struggling with a father abusing his mother right now. Police being called, lots of hitting of the Mom. What I see plainly is a boy that cares deeply for his mom, that sees the model of a dad he wants to follow. But is torn by the messages. He just wants things to be okay. Without the hitting. A father who behaves with poor choices, gang behavior, verbal and physical taunting. A bully but also a coward. Doesn't work, little sense of his family but no motivation to allow them to go either. And there isn't much joy in saying that. My student is torn down the core and the entire experience is difficult everyday.The father is unable, no unwilling to be a man. it's a mess. Because recently things escalated I noted the child as more distracted than ever, he's really never managed to get work done much, more out of his space, more demanding. To say this child is my full time work understates....just the same it's a pretty normal thing I do daily. I try to place the child in a learning world, a supportive one where we can, at least part of the time reflect on the things we do as choices and define "who we want to be."

So I read to the students, "The Three Questions" I commonly call this book "The Three Wishes" which carries I think a certain symbolism for me.
No, these are questions asked by a boy that would like to do "the right thing" but is not always certain how to know for sure what this is. He is searching for certainties in an uncertain world. Much of life is conveyed here to the children as the concrete "do this" takes on in this story the relativity of who we are in a moment. In this way it is an empowerment piece not about telling a child all rights and wrongs, but trusting a child to use that which they have learned and seen in compassionate ways and in ways fitting their moments.

From Publishers Weekly by way of Amazon
Muth (Come On, Rain!) recasts a short story by Tolstoy into picture-book format, substituting a boy and his animal friends for the czar and his human companions. Yearning to be a good person, Nikolai asks, "When is the best time to do things? Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do?" Sonya the heron, Gogol the monkey and Pushkin the dog offer their opinions, but their answers do not satisfy Nikolai. He visits Leo, an old turtle who lives in the mountains. While there, he helps Leo with his garden and rescues an injured panda and her cub, and in so doing, finds the answers he seeks. As Leo explains, "There is only one important time, and that time is now. The most important one is always the one you are with. And the most important thing is to do good for the one who is standing at your side." Moral without being moralistic, the tale sends a simple and direct message unfreighted by pomp or pedantry. Muth's art is as carefully distilled as his prose. A series of misty, evocative watercolors in muted tones suggests the figures and their changing relationships to the landscape. Judicious flashes of color quicken the compositions, as in the red of Nikolai's kite (the kite, released at the end, takes on symbolic value). An afterword describes Tolstoy and his work. Ages 6-up.

The child has interesting friends, a bird, monkey and dog that he first asks three questions. We aren't told how the child arrives at the questions that he feels will guide him ( of course translating a Tolstoy story) but they are pretty fascinating, "When is the best time to do things? Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do?"

My class tried to anticipate what three questions might be guides to doing the right things. Not too far off these. But different. More like how can I control myself.

The boy asks his friends his questions and the interesting thing is the answers they provide fit who they are. This is important information. My class did offer that as a reflection. This makes it hard for the child in the story because as we all know in life the thoughts of our friends inform us, have value, in some cases we would prefer to simply follow and yet, it may not be what we need. It may not speak to our heart. Or our spaces. It may not know us at all.

And so the wise old turtle is asked. This is presented through an "experience." the experience of a visit. While visiting turtle the here and now predominates over the questioning. Real things happen, the boy has to show who he is, he has to act on something that is rather dramatic and potentially dangerous. He has to take who he is into an active state which he does without really thinking too much. It's a call to bring his "self" to the spot. I won't spoil that part except to say that healing, weather, running, woods, pandas and digging are all involved in a good way.

After this the child asks the questions again and the wise turtle directs him to examine this relating to what he has done that very day. Through this the child is gently asked to consider the importance of the now, doing this with all you have. A child connected outloud reminding the class my favorite word is "this." Indeed it always has been. It is only in "this" that I can "be."
Then the important one that question surfaced, the one you are with, the one you act for, the one that is not you. In the story the boy learns that is not so hard a question. It is who you are there with, I might translate that as "serve." I might translate that "you."
The ideas lovely, best time, right now. Right thing to do, this thing you are doing, all of this changing, changing in the story, changing in circumstances, changing for the friends.

In this way we read a story supporting a child trying to do a very difficult thing, live in the moments of life feeling assured and ready. It doesn't seem possible to cover this context of change, this sophistication with a don't hit rule alone. I wanted to bring to the children living breathing meanings.

The book was beautifully illustrated with watercolors and bound with a lovely quality paper. It brings in this way a kind of specialness, beauty to the experience. It was a contemplative experience. A time the children thought a bit. In a little while they moved happily into their next moments. No need to ask of them that they bring all of themselves into the moments. At six they are fully charged by the painting of their houses, or the wind on their cheek or the worry over the hamsters water bottle . It is to this truth I was smiling as I watched them think as a group about cleaning up and going home.
Readying a group of children for all the "this' a life will bring.
With a fine book to carry in the winds of changing circumstances.

When my son was very young he fell in love with watching two videos, The Snowman and Our Friend Martin. Both were daily repertoire pieces. I thought the Martin Luther King Jr. video was over his head. Luca spoke very, very late. At four. So I called him over and asked him to "talk" to me about Martin, his friend. This is one of my favorite Martin Luther king Jr. poems in the world. I'm sorry, I know it is my son, but the poem, classic. The video is one where with young kids you need to explain flashbacks and be ready to explain and talk. A bit much for 1st, but support it is good. In fact a nice work to help understand hard concepts. First the video, Our Friend Martin (1998)
Starring: Edward Asner, Angela Bassett Director: Rob Smiley

Now the poem by Luca Puglisi....(at 4)

When you start writing about a children's book with your own super cliche title and on your old computer that has no spell check there is a lot of pressure. People aren't so forgiving in blog worlds about your two finger typing. As my daughter said this AM, "Go get a class, 70% of the world learns this." (Oh for the old days when I was the smart one). Add to that an author you revere and it's daunting to get anything written. But bravely I'm shouldering on because I try to bring literature, usually kids primary literature, to this format to emphasize how without it much of what you can do in a classroom is narrowed. Of course also to talk to motivating and contextualizing what you do, so you can get children all kinds of places. It'll vastly help the writing, to be in a theme and context.

Plus I'm home today, hit with a rapid serious cold moving into my chest with a fury...oh no. Thank goodness I can curl up in my bed, at home, avoid a little my 80 plus Mom who is a bit like a terrier on steroids, and type. Which of course brings me around to this great childrens's book just read to my class.

Home, it certainly is where we go to renew and find security.

It is also the current assigned "theme" in 1st grade instruction rolling out of a rather annoying reading basal. (Home Sweet Home-theme 5 Houghton Mifflin)
I do like this theme, I just have a lot of mandating going along with it. They give a story Moving Day by Robert Kalan and Yossi Abolafia
that feels a bit of a knock off about a hermit crab looking for a new shell (it teaches opposites mainly). Not to be too hard on it, it just isn't as expert as the one they did not use.

A HOUSE FOR HERMIT CRAB
by Eric. Carle
This story however is a bit different. Carle seems to revel, and rightfully so, in taking an important idea for a child, for us, and doing some story telling with a "catch."

I like so very much what Eric Carle does here.

I bought for my class hermit crabs, three of them, Ike, Tina named so because, well, hermit crabs have personalities and this is who they are. She's a physical twin to Tina Turner.

Their cage is the Thunderdome for the wire mesh to climb. Love's coincidentally been on my mind, can you tell? And the other Hermit is Herman. He's shy. But studly. They fight over the back left cage corner. Herman always wins. He changed shells his first night at my house before he got to school. Did you know you need a bigger cage than I got, 4 inches at least of substrate and that they moult, meaning dig down out of the borrowed shell for like a month buried in sand and literally shed their body shell and then eat it returning then to the borrowed sea shells? No one knows that going into crab care. Now you do.
I have to buy these things after pay day.
(The life of a teacher is having no money ever believe me, and not getting much but school related things when you do.)
Anyway to return to this book, hermit crabs have quite a few children's books made about them, but what I like about this book is the way Eric Carle muses really about our human homes.

This Hermit goes out in his new shell acquiring an anemone, starfish, this and that in a patterned way and a most polite way as he fixes up his home. Wandering around making it his own.
Have you ever rented successively?
I've had to at the high prices of homes here and with the demands of poor health, bills and life, keeps you down. You can never keep a home in the shape you move in, and they ding you for it going out. Right now I can't paint or finish, but I have put in my spices, I have planted flowers for the butterflies and hummingbirds. I've nicked this and hung that making it reflect who I am. Homes take on our color schemes, our values. They hold shelves of books or surf boards. The floors may be pristine or look like the bottom of the barn floor. It depends. I went in a house recently with a front room full of bikes and sports equipment very central to the activity of the people who lived there and thus very beautiful to me. Loving my friend, I loved the home.

And so this hermit crab decorates in a YEAR with the months named. January, February, March, you get the idea. The 1st graders I teach squealed with delight over this and RECOGNIZED their birth month as I read what was added to the home in that month. This is core for me/them instructionally. I realized the children did not KNOW at ALL their birthdays in October when in lessons with my husband they could not tell him their birthdays. I got embarrassed and actually told to do something by someone who could get a little polish, but it was rather odd.
Also they couldn't read months. More red face. Now they can. They are 6, but they are in great poverty, and the birthday date holding onto is different apparently. Not to say that I don't see celebration, what I didn't see was knowing the date and a concept of calendar and dating. This is something I want to share out about. Understand this is NOT consistent with kids down the road in affluence. It mattered to him and it matters to me.

A birthday is a thing unique to a child, it is theirs. It is something parents usually bind to the story of the child coming to them. Only one child knew that birth story. But we found out. Parents shrugged and had a very, very hard time at first relating this to them, to me. It was as if no one ever asked or cared. It is something that usually holds the child in relationship to home and who they are. I found that so , frankly, odd. As if you have a child and just move on. I know i'll never forget my children's moments of arrival. As long as the synapses fire.

So we taught it kind of to them, or we tried. With songs, writing, repetition. No small task. So when this book I just read contained the months, they knew which was " theirs " and more interestingly could understand that we share the months and days with others, tons of people might be born on their day too. Fascinating to me studying children and studying the impositional nature of school and always watching what I do with care.
Because clearly this was imposing my values.

So the book has each month passing with this hermit crab asking something in the tide pool to join his home per month, for a very good reason, politely, so that it improves his home life SOMEHOW (my favorite the lantern fish for light).
Then , of course, he outgrows it.

What is interesting there is my kids have to move. A lot.
In poverty, in cities, hoods, you often move. Into a garage, into a room, into a car, into a housing complex, maybe into a house, maybe with a lot of other people to afford it My son's best friend just lost his room to a new baby and now sleeps on a couch. You get by.
Sometimes in one night you move in eviction. Or right now we see lots of families being foreclosed. You see this way more where I am.
All the children in my room by age 6, all recall having to move. Knew it strongly as an idea. I moved as a child too, 5 times by nine and then as my father divorced my mom I lost the place I called home ( way hurt through this) and landed in the adult world where we have moved 14 times. A lot. For the kids this elicits things to say and writing opportunities. Of course.

We stopped and did that writing. Where have you lived? What do you miss, what do you like now. Kids, just like me, have strong feelings associated with ALL of that.
Carle is giving us a vehicle to make a connection.

Then the story moves the hermit into a new home and to ease the burden of the move, ease the mixed FEELINGS of this, he has the next occupant arrive with a joy of finding this new old shell. That's consistent with hermits. They like to move in when another moves out, by definition the shells are temporary. This was helpful as I was working on THAT IDEA for the children. The external homes are temporary but the feeling of home goes with us, the family does to. The hermit story addresses that as well. If you now we read The Little House you have done a real service to your room. You connected to the idea of history.

So home. We make it when we live inside of structures. It is a place we need to find security.It changes. I would argue with many others it's a human right, certainly necessary for a child to do well. Bound into this book on a hermit crab Eric Carle , picture-writer, has given a way to think about a year as a cycle. He has given a way to practice month names, learn vocabulary of tide pool animals. He has explored the life of a hermit crab and their habits. He has spoken to children about their own connections to months, to homes, to permanence and change. He has evoked this animal life to allow him to paint a picture in the mind of a child that change is natural, that moving is fraught with a mixture of feelings, regrets, anticipation, that life is a journey. In fact he has also alluded to the need to move on and to seek your bliss.

Pretty good thing I got the hermit crabs, they really take us a lot of places. "What's love got to do with it?" Tina bellows out. The answer is everything. It is at the heart of the home.

I'm borrowing my kids blog to put here because I'm exhausted and also writing a longer piece on why i think husbands should not say.."you must be on drugs"...which was followed quickly by "Or have a good imagination"
If you have been reading my last posts you'll see why. Of course it might be this is more interesting "to me." But i think it is very cool.

On the first night at our house Herman decided to change shells. Coincidentally the kids are reading IN THEIR BASAL READER a trade story about a hermit crab looking for a new home. It is too bad I went to bed because I missed most of the action but I did notice he was in love with one of my shells from childhood.....
The pet store guy said they were boring but it's amazing so far..

Today in the untangling of a Primary in New Hampshire I was teaching 1st grade in my new assigned theme "Home Sweet Home."
While not singing Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne ?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my dear,

for auld lang syne,

we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

We did sing a new tune from our CD by Justin Roberts called Meltdown choosing "My Brother Did It." Half my first graders could not understand that the brother was being pinned for eating the cake in the song, they just thought he did it. In my room this year what the other person is doing wrong is "big news" but we have a resolution...well several here they are:

1. Be friendlier, try not to boss others, try to give a little quiet helping hand. Give other people a chance to show they can do things too. Try to " give the benefit of the doubt."

Okay it's a long resolution and I kind of led it but it is time to teach the caring and understanding skills in now "explicit ways."

2. Teachers need you, sometimes to try first, and not forget that doing things by yourself it might give the teacher a second to get something else and cool ready for us.

3. Let's all learn by heart all our math add and subtract facts "really fast."

4. Let's learn the 200 sight words by the end of February.

5. Let's practice reading good books and get out library books that are exciting and interesting every week.

6. Shake hands to settle arguments, give a hug, pat a back, walk off an angry feeling, stop and say hi, give someone a minute, talk about things you like, tell someone if you need help, listen for the sounds of trouble, watch and look to see if anything needs yor attention, take turns, share.

7. PE everyday!

8. Singing and art everyday!

Well that's how it went. We got to thinking and these seemed pretty good. 1st graders pledge with real enthusiasm.

So then, as they say, so then it was time for reading. Theme 5 is Home Sweet Home, oh I said that, and there we were with our big new book. They thanked me, they thought I bought them the book, and I took credit (why not at least for a day), and the first story is the story of a hermit crab. The second is a photographic essay on a hermit crab. And so we talked about Hermit crabs. So the day rolled on and we got to our new Science lesson.

I'm piloting the two series up for Adoption, which is exciting in the extreme. The MacMillian Science I like and it starts with things that "identify Scientists" which my children really listened to and thought about.
Scientists OBSERVE (we knew that one), they order things, they collect data, they measure....a whole list. One said, Scientists QUESTION and try to figure out answers through a process. A hand shot up. "Sharkboy," his web name. He's a very, very bright boy.
"Yes," I said.
"Mrs. Puglisi do scientists ask questions?"
"Yes", I replied but it was a set up.

So then he said....." Why are we reading about Hermit Crabs and reading stories about them, when we don't have one to observe and look at so we really know about them?"

And now I would like to introduce (our new hoisted petard..mine), This is Herman our new Hermit Crab...


In a few days I'll get a friend after just reading they need a friend....









This joins our birds, fish, aquarium frogs, all the cool things like our new bug collection, the butterfly environment, the shell collection our slice of a tree, the pine cones, rock collections, the dead duck(long story), the feathers, the shark jaws, the snake skin, the turtle, the dragonfly that is dead, the pipefish I found dried on the beach, the pufferfish, the.....well...lots of cool things.
The baby fish of course are coming over after I rescue the tank that's struggling after a power outage.

Today in the newspaper (LA Times) in Parade Magazine (that I personally associate with star news and articles on arthritis, the really smart AskMarilyn who always seems as smug as a bug and bad ads on weight loss plus the occasional doctor news that is half right), today January 6th ran a story that was also on it's cover about Benazir Bhutto. No, not on her death. It ran as if she were alive, with the headline "I Am What the Terrorists Most Fear" and inside, "A Wrong Must Be Righted." No where do they mention she was killed ( except on their web-site) and in fact I thought my mom had found a month old article. I kept looking to see how I got this in my hand. It is so un-contextualized and judging from their website comments a few others found it strange too.

They say on the web-site they already went "to press" by way of explaining such a gaffe. But of course, that's a very long time and a mighty strange way to explain it all.

I just tried for an hour to post a little something about my feelings there. It's tasteless and I think if this were another kind of situation they would not run it quite like this. Absolutely to me this is insensitive and about something I find perhaps a bit more. Opportunistic even. The content does need to be written, certainly the interview important, but it speaks to the need really in what we do, to do it thoughtfully and compassionately. It reads to me as if it someone thought this was sensational enough to get read like this. But I'm not sure.
Really weirding me out.
After going through site registering and a bunch of nonsense I then could not post due to a word limit ( 1350) that must be really short, as I was short. After fixing that it asked me to register again and then I just got tired. Still I want to air my feelings. So I thought...I will here.

I read this within the LA Times, they should ask a few questions themselves about this. It was ridiculous to carry in this form.

So here is the link to the article in Parade... 'A Wrong Must Be Righted'

It's maybe a little less strange on the internet within the context there, but in the paper with this cover that reads as if she were alive, the tone throughout with no explanation, that is just kind of cold. Or something. Something makes me feel this strongly.
And so....here was what I tried to send them that they would not accept.

To Parade Magazine....

It is one thing to go to print with an interview that was given shortly before an assassination that is, essentially, a call out to the world with insights on the thinking of the leader that was killed.
Thay is a duty to be taken in all seriousness.
Altho your Parade seems an unlikely place for that kind of work, okay you did decide to interview a world leader.
Some of your content today in this article clearly contained this, something the world should hear from the mouth of a soon to be murdered woman leader.

However, this article and the cover headline seems just really odd. I read, then reality checked the date three times and had to come here on this site it was so disturbingly strange, check out other comments and then go through the labor of registering to comment. It feels so wrong. In deference to those that are mourning, and due to the seriousness of this, why on earth run a cover and article not contextualized somehow. With some sentence indicating she's died.

Newspapers do go to press with deadlines but as far as I ever knew they do strive for "timeliness, appropriateness." If you were to tell me you go forward with no way to change content even when the person dies or a major new story hits like this with that many days,say if some serious issue hits with this kind of time, I would not believe you. Say what?

Let's say using this logic over a week before the Twin Towers were blown to bits (10 days) you did a cover article on dining and life there in the Towers...and then Sept. 11 happens, but you carry not a word of that as if reality was altered. You mean we would read that happy dining and business cheer piece over a week later? No. You know you'd be out of business I think.

Someone "decided" to run this that now carries a huge responsibility to apologize
(especially too from the papers that allowed it in their pages) at the least for the insensitivity in the way you packaged this. It's so very bizarre.


And you should have pulled it.