Opening Day of trout season in Vermont is as fickle as any other notion of spring in our glorious state. Eliot was correct; April is indeed the cruelest month! On this year’s opening Saturday, after nearly 15 years of hiatus from the vagaries of the day, I was with three friends dragging two canoes across knee deep snow down a logging road to a pond. Dragging in was at least down hill; for the way out we chose to drag across level, snow-covered swampland portaging by sections of the outlet brook. Drag, sink to above boots, drag, drag, drag, sink. And so it went. Bookends to our day, a day which yielded only two fish to one guy. Nice brookies, but still; we all worked pretty hard!

Even so, at the end of the day, cold, a bit wet, no fish for supper, and snow in my boots, I realized I’d had fun. Lots of laughs. Exercising the muscle memory of tying tackle, casting line, packing the canoe. The familiarity of rituals and friendships. Opening Day means all that, even with the snow. Next time out there’ll be less snow and more fish, but the same friends.

One month. Thirty-one days. Mom died March 5. Since then, Dad has given me her art supplies, paints, brushes, knives, and palettes. Since then, I’ve completed one new painting using some of her things. Since then, I’ve collected a number of her books and read one. Since then, a few times I’ve forgotten that she has died, especially while working at my easel, thinking I need her feedback before moving on with the piece. Since then, Dad and I have met for dinner and chess each week; although “dinner” is a bit fancy for what is most typically burgers and fries at Als. Since then, I’ve read and re-read the cards from friends and colleagues. Since then, I still get to work each day at 7:30, attend meetings, complete projects, joke with team members. Since then, I realize I left too much unsaid and undone and have resolved not to let that continue. Since then, I’m more tired but at the same time calmer. Since then, the snow has melted, the robins have returned, and the crocuses have bloomed. One month.

Plungers and perspective. Late yesterday I was approached by a group of four 11 year olds and their Social Understanding coach. The guys are members of the Stern Center’s Social Understanding and Communication program (the second largest such program in the nation) and participate in weekly small group activities designed to help develop, among other things, greater capacity for “perspective taking.” Perspective taking is an essential social tool that not everyone acquires without explicit, contextual instruction, modeling, and coaching.

In any case, these guys came to report that one side of the double sink in their group area was plugged, standing water, food particles, and so forth. Lacking a facilities person, and with my years of experience as a school principal, I not only know how to use a plunger but I know where we keep one for emergencies like this. Thus armed, I attacked the problem to the delight of the group members whom their coach was trying to keep focused and engaged with their intended activity, not four feet from my slurping, slopping efforts. Sound effects aside, there is not much more entertaining to a group of 11 year old boys than to watch a grown man all dressed up in shirt and tie, wield a plunger only to have one massive geyser erupt from the adjacent sink directly into his face.

Of course they laughed. Their coach was hysterical. Even I was laughing as I spun away a millisecond too late and shook my face like a golden retriever. The kids were beside themselves. Even in the midst of this impromptu entertainment, the coach kept enough of their attention to turn this into a teachable moment about perspective taking. “We’re all laughing right now. Something disgusting happened to Sink Boss Ed, but we’re laughing. How do we know it’s OK to laugh? How would we know if it isn’t OK to laugh?” They all got the point that since I was laughing as quickly and as much as they, it was OK to laugh with me, but if I’d been angry or crying, they should not laugh. One never knows when real life offers plungers and perspective, but we should be ready just in case!

Last week I had two encounters with success and celebration neither of which I’d anticipated, and sometimes, that’s the best kind. First we’d invited students to design a Valentine card which our marketing team would adapt as this year’s greeting from the Stern Center president. She loves such holidays, and has a long established tradition of personalizing them. In any case, a young man responded with a design that captured everyone’s heart as it were. When he and his parents learned that his design would be our official 2011 Valentine’s card, they were delighted. He was simply joyful that he’d “won” something. His parents felt something much deeper, a joy derived from their son’s success in the sort of venture that had escaped him in his first 14 years of struggling through life’s too frequent and too daunting challenges. We made several copies for them to use as their Valentines to family and dear friends.

Two days later, I was at our State House on Stern Center business when from across the Chamber, I thought I recognized two former colleagues from many, many years ago. As it turns out they were there as principal and curriculum coordinator for an elementary school being recognized for achieving the best scores in the state’s recent state/regional school assessments. The little school, nestled in one of Vermont’s picturesque villages experiences many challenges one readily associates with such contexts: limited financial resources, high levels of ‘free and reduced lunch” families, limited social and community services… Despite those challenges, the people of this school found success at such a level that they were being recognized not only in their own cafe-nasi-torium, but also by the state media, and this particular day by the state legislators full of “whereas-es” and “let it be knowns.” Both of my former colleagues (and probably a few more of their current ones) have been connected to that same school for at least 15 years, building relationships, developing programs, managing resources all the time focused on what’s best for the kids.

It works that way sometimes. You create a cherished Valentine. Your test scores are the best this year. In both cases, you smile, laugh, and maybe even cry just a little as you celebrate success!

OK, so the Stern Center has developed a research-based and research-proven program for early childhood providers/educators and parents that we know dramatically improves children’s readiness to read. Not only do all preschoolers coming from this program perform better, but more importantly those children in the lowest 20%, those at-risk for reading failure, rise above the at-risk level! This program, BUILDING BLOCKS FOR LITERACY® http://buildingblocksforliteracy.org really works!

BUILDING BLOCKS FOR LITERACY® works! It’s FREE and online. It’s play-based, developmentally appropriate approach is available to everyone working with pre-schoolers. In five sections of brief, engaging lessons care providers and parents can learn what to do and why to do it. Participants enter the program, stay as long or as briefly as they wish, return whenever they want, take as long as needed to complete the program, and all the while try out the best practices with their children. BUILDING BLOCKS FOR LITERACY® provides an online community where users can share their experiences, hold conversations, and post video examples for feedback and dialogue.

If you are an early childhood provider/educator, or a parent, guardian, or grandparent of pre-school children you should check out http://buildingblocksforliteracy.org
If you’re a local, state or other public policy maker, you too should check it out. This program better prepares children to be successful readers. Better readers means better learners. Better learners means less cost for special and remedial education.

More successful readers. Reduced costs to school systems. Everybody wins! http://buildingblocksforliteracy.org Check it out!


(We also offer fee-based BUILDING BLOCKS FOR LITERACY certification for CEU’s towards re/licensing etc. as well as a 3-credit undergraduate course for those wishing to go further with these studies.)

My mother has been in rehab for two weeks after 3 in hospital for a systemic infection which continues, fortunately at a much reduced level, but which has also left her essentially immobilized and in considerable discomfort. Not fun anytime, but especially when you’re 80. So I’ve been visiting on alternate days trying to provide a connection to the outside world, encourage her hard work in PT, and just let her know we love her. However, even with those good intentions I have noticed myself becoming a bit frustrated that the PT hasn’t progressed any faster. “Come on, Mom. It’s going to be hard work, and it will be painful, but you need to work through that in order to get back on your feet.” That sort of thing; Ed, the personal trainer.

Until two days ago when I pulled muscles in my back after shoveling wet snow too vigorously for too long. That night I couldn’t take my socks off without sitting down, pulling on foot onto the opposite knee and gently tugging, first the toe, then the heel. For two days it has taken me 15 extra minutes to get dressed in the morning. I get in and out of my car by slowly sitting backward, perpendicular to the seat, then more slowly dragging myself into driving position. I won’t let myself sneeze while driving because the pain brings tears to my eyes and would definitely distract me from the road.

So, I’m at least partially considering that this back pain is meant to be instructive. Cut Mom a bit more slack. Allow time for the PT process to work. Pain is a legitimate voice from one’s body. OK, I get it. Lesson received. Now, I need help putting on my suit coat…

It’s been a while. Life simply got in the way and refused me the time and inclination to write. However, it’s a new year, and I just had an encounter that begs recording, at least in the parameters of my life and what increasingly matters.

Earlier this morning I made passing eye contact with a woman in our waiting room. Some barely perceptible click occurred and I glanced back to discover her doing the same thing. No nods, no smiles of recognition, but the click was a bit louder. I allowed that to linger for several seconds waiting for the “Aha!” that never came, so I simply completed my tasks and returned to my office. Thirty minutes later new business brought me back through the waiting room and this time we both began with, “Aren’t you…..”

We first knew each other in 1976 when I was a first year English teacher and she was a sophomore. A few years later I became an elementary school principal; she got married and had children who attended the school. Since it’s Vermont, after a 10-year circuitous trip in and out of being a principal, I returned as a high school principal, and one of her children was a freshman. So, after 35 years we spent 35 minutes playing “Do you remember…?” and “Where is…”

This was such a rich encounter. It illustrates not only the jewel of connections and how we touch each others lives, but also reinforces the notion from Marian Wright Edleman in her little book The Measure of Our Success, “…that many fruits of your labor will not become manifest for many, many years.”