Live-Feb2013
Fostering spirituality in children
By Tricia Kassotis, ELC Program I’ve often wondered how to teach my children a true sense of spirituality. How do I nurture their inherent spirit, their intrinsic desire to connect with what is good, healthy and ideal in this world? I’ve often heard it said that spirituality is something that develops over time, and that people view somebody who is spiritual as older, wise, stoically connected with nature, God and the universe. But, when does that connection start? Birth, puberty, after a life-altering event? I think children are naturally spiritual, and as parent I want to foster that inherent spirit into a reliable foundation from which my children can grow and develop. So, where do I start teaching these grand lessons of life? As an early childhood educator, I have a healthy respect for structured learning. Children learn important lessons in school, as well as in formal child care. Successful learning often happens within the comfort of everyday routines, in quality child centre setting, with nurturing educators and teachers. Having the peace of mind that my children’s formal education is being taken care of by formal educators, I want to keep my attention on the lifelong learning that starts in my home. Children take comfort in repetition, routines, and the rituals that occur in their lives. Once we set babies on a schedule, we marvel at how smooth things can go. As children grow we nurture this sense of security by maintaining routines, setting limits on behaviour, and helping them realize and appreciate healthy boundaries. If we plug spirituality into their lives, we can expand routines into traditions, rituals into customs, and repetition into regular spiritual practice. There are some practical ways that parents can nurture spirituality in children. These ways, which may not seem important, and can be overlooked, can become a part of everyday home life, and teach children everything they need to know about healthy spiritual living. Let your children know that family, whatever the physical make up, is the most important thing in life. I’ve always wanted my boys, now 12 and 15, to find as much growth and development in each other as they do from the adults around them. Often when one asks me to help with something, I will ask if they’ve asked their brother. I won’t be here forever, and I want them to learn to go to each other for help. If one can’t help the other, of if they can’t come up with a solution together, my husband and I will gladly step in. Good socialization starts at home. Socially successful children always do better in life. School can teach school. Family should teach family. Ultimately the father teaches the son to be a man, and the mother teaches the daughter what it means to be a woman. Siblings can teach each other how to be friends. Make sure children know there will always be someone to take care of them. Children need security, and shouldn’t have to wonder what will happen to them. Create a list of people who can step in if you’re gone, and make sure your children have a quality relationship with those people. This starts from when you have to run out for milk, to going on a date with your partner, to being away on overnight business trips. Family isn’t always about blood relationships. Children grow and learn from trusted adults around them, and these adult child relationships should be high quality and reliable. When children are young they need adults to take care of them. As they grow adults teach children to take care of themselves. Between these times, it’s important children know someone is there, and always will be. Create a life full of family traditions that children can revisit time and again. I want my children to grow up saying, ” Every Christmas we . . . or every summer we . . . or on my birthday I remember we always . . .” Memories are foundations not only to build from, but to revisit and start from again. If children stray, they’ll need something to come back to. Remind children that the television is not a member of the family. Yes, children should know about popular TV, it’s part of our culture and their socialization, but television and electronics are not companions.
- Use the TV guide to limit TV viewing. Decide what to watch before the TV goes on. When the show is over, turn the TV off. Get your children out of the habit of channel surfing because there is nothing else to do.
- Keep the TV off during meals. It will force your family to talk to each other. Let the answering machine pick up phone calls, so children get the message that they are more important than the telephone.
- Keep the TV off during transitions, i.e., getting ready for school or bed. Help children learn to focus on the task at hand. TV distracts, and delivers constant background noise. There is nothing wrong with just hearing the noise of the house.
- Remember that adult reaction to violent TV teaches subtle lessons. Show outrage at injustice or unfair play on TV. Suggest character alternatives to your child. Young children believe what they see on TV. Help them learn the difference between fantasy and reality. Ask your older child what they think would really happen if two cars chased each other through a busy downtown street.
Instead of TV, have meals together as a family. Where else will children learn proper table manners? Spend Sunday afternoons together as a family. Watch movies with popcorn on Friday nights, or teach your child how to play board games. Board games teach children how to win gracefully, how to lose with pride, and what is fair play. These little things may not seem to matter, but a child’s heart remembers, and the heart is where a child’s spirit grows. Keep your children’s childhood innocent. On any given day my home may seem like an unpopular dictatorship. My husband and I set the rules and guidelines for behaviour, and our children are expected to follow them. This may sound harsh, but it creates a very simplistic atmosphere for my children, and their role in our family becomes quite clear. They are children. We are adults. Their job is to go to school, do their best, and follow the family and school rules. In between they are to play outside, but let us know where they’re going. They should investigate the world, and let us know what they find. They should hang from trees, scream like crazy and laugh at things only known to them. In short, they are to be children. They are not to worry about the family finances, mom and dad’s career or life choices, or what our neighbours do behind closed doors. My children are not my friends. Not now anyway. But, when they are older I hope to share our lifetime of memories and a special friendship with each of them. Teach your children inner discipline. Let children know what you expect, teach them how to reach high expectations, then give them space to rise to the challenge. Set limits and stick to them. The yucky job of parenting is sticking to the “No” you just said. Modeling consistency is hard, but teaching children to respect ‘no’ is a tough lesson they need to learn at home. Better that you teach it instead of some other official body, like the police or the government. Sports activities may seem expensive, but quality sports activities can teach focus and self-discipline. Money spent on sports equipment now is a better investment that money spent on counselors, bail or lawyer’s fees later. Teach your children how to make mistakes. Let children know it’s okay to make mistakes. The important thing is knowing how to make amends. Teach your child how to apologize, not just say, “I’m sorry.” Genuine apologies mean making amends, actively fixing the problem, learning from the mistake, and what not to do again. Teach your children how to make choices. These days, children are busy. Busier than we were as children and often just a busy as we are now! Teach your child to choose events so that attendance to them is meaningful. Make sure children have the time to immerse themselves in what they do. Hurried attendance too many things is meaningless. Self-discipline stems from learning to take the time to master a task. Teach children the law of the farm. Make sure they have time to learn how to persevere. Teach children how to build things that last. Teach them that if they do what they love, success will follow. Show children; don’t tell them. We all know it. Children do as you do, not as you say. Children who enjoy positive peer relationships have parents who model good peer relationships. Teach your child how to treat other people. It is important to teach them how to stand up for themselves, but not intolerance. When we return to a store to rage at the clerk for giving the wrong change, are we teaching justice or intolerance to mistakes? So much of what we do is picked up and stored in our children’s hearts. Encourage your children to dream, and then show them how the little things tie together to make dreams come true. A child who masters the morning routine gets to school early and enjoys more play time with friends. Organized homework constitutes regular study habits that result in a strong work ethic. With a secure foundation laid in children, the big lessons in life will fall into place. Basic principles will build a foundation for formal philosophical learning later. If children know the small things, when the big things come they will learn more from a position of knowledge and strength. This will make sure we leave the world in strong confident hands.
Leslie Manion’s Chapter 4
Submitted by Leslie Manion, Retired Business Communications Professor
When I started at the college 23 years ago, Algonquin was still a bilingual college, computers were barely in existence, and my students were mostly adults. I began teaching technical English in A Building and eventually moved into the School of Business and Distance Ed where I was asked to pioneer the television English course. I taught a regular communication class but had a TV camera recording me which would be televised later. Many years ago, I was at a party and someone tried to figure out where she knew me from. She suddenly blurted out, “I saw you on television. You helped me get a job. I did my résumé the way you said and they hired me. Thank you!” Cool. Because I could get a discount on courses, I took the Travel program and, after I graduated, taught tourism in the School of Hospitality. In 17 years, my department had only done one hiring and, when I didn’t get one of those jobs, I left in a bit of a huff. If I wasn’t good enough to teach full time then, I reasoned, I wasn’t good enough to teach part time. I went into the tourism business working as a travel counselor, communications director, destination rep, and festival coordinator. Those were the austerity years at the college, and many full-time teachers were laid off. Meanwhile, I was obtaining some great practical experience that became invaluable in the classroom. When I finally realized I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up, I decided to return to the School of Business. The department was bound to do a hiring eventually, so I began work on my Masters in anticipation and was ultimately rewarded with a full-time job. I was honored when Dianne Bloor asked me to teach Assessment and Evaluation for TALL and have enjoyed teaching teachers for the last few years. I leave the college with a second certificate having just graduated from the Sommelier program. My various stints as student, teacher in four schools/departments, my professional development, and my involvement on various committees – the College Academic Council, Kaleidoscope, and Live Laugh Learn – have meant I have made friends across the college. I now know that the hardest part of retirement is saying goodbye to wonderful people who have been a major part of my life for so long. I know that I will always be connected to the college despite retirement and the distance between us. Although I am writing this en route to Penticton, BC to house hunt for our new home in the Okanagan (where that Sommelier certificate might come in handy), I hope to keep in touch. On the recommendations of the Yammerites, I have started a WordPress blog – Chapter 4 – http://balloonur.wordpress.com – where I plan on writing about my upcoming trip to Tanzania – as well as other things. You can also find me on Twitter (@balloonur) or e-mail me at balloonur@gmail.com.
Like mother, like daughter
Sacred Heart Catholic High School student Johanna Lazaro eventually wants to open her own business. It could be a food truck, a small hair salon or something else – she is not quite sure yet. But a dual credit course that she is currently taking at Algonquin College while still a student at Sacred Heart and also a co-op placement at a local business are helping her move towards achieving her goal. And motivating her as well is the example of her mother, a role model you could say, who operates her own business. Johanna sees how independent her mother is and how much in control of her life she is. “I like being independent,” Johanna says. “I guess I am like my mom.” Right now Johanna, who is 16 years old and in grade 12, has busy days. She travels to Algonquin College two days a week for her “Small and Medium Enterprise” dual credit course. It’s called a dual credit course as it qualifies both as a high school course and as a college course – sort of two for the effort of one. She takes it along with other high school students. She travels by bus to Algonquin College for the course. Despite the travel, she loves it. “I’m so grateful for this,” she says. “I’m just really happy.” Johanna also likes the independence that she experiences with this course. “I feel more adult-like, more independent doing it,” she says. She notes that not a lot of students at Sacred Heart have taken a dual credit course at Algonquin, probably because of the travelling involved. But she sees the course as helping her in her ultimate goal of establishing her own business. And she sees its value in doing this. This course lets you know what you have to do to open a business, she says. Adding to the experience and knowledge about being in business is her co-op placement this year which is at Norcan Security in Stittsville. There she is getting the opportunity to learn about basic office skills including invoicing and accounting. She is learning both phone and office etiquette, how to keep things organized and how to deal with customers. “I am learning a lot of customer service skills,” she says about her co-op placement. She also says that she is enjoying the experience, praising the general manager for letting her do things on her own. “I feel independent,” she says. Johanna says that she sees the connection between her co-op placement and her course at Algonquin which is dealing with being in business. In her co-op placement, she is able to see in practical terms what she is learning theoretically in her Algonquin course. And while Johanna wants to own a business in the future, she also likes art. She admits to growing up in a household where the creative arts and crafts were very much practiced. She herself was involved in arts and crafts when she was younger and she says that art has always been a part of her life, with the house full of what she terms “trinkets of art.” Her parents, she says, are into various kinds of art from painting to photography to film making. “I was brought up into it,” she says in explaining that she currently does acrylic painting. She did harbour thoughts at one time of being a fashion designer but realizes that the world of fashion is difficult to get into. That’s why she has opted to become a business person instead, while still continuing to appreciate art. And her art may come in handy in the future as one of her goals of being in business for herself is to be able to help out the community. This might take the form of giving food to the homeless if she were to operate a food truck downtown or perhaps giving free art lessons to children. “I just always wanted to give back to the community,” she says. Johanna’s creative talents also extend to music as she plays the guitar, something that she started when she was about ten years old. She does not play to perform but rather just to relieve stress and enjoy herself. One of Johanna’s passions is astrology, palm reading and face reading. A cousin introduced her to astrology a couple of years ago and she now enjoys studying the planets and stars. She also finds that horoscopes are a conversation topic that many seem to enjoy. She does not believe everything that horoscopes and astrology reveal but she finds it interesting, calling it simply a hobby. Johanna has a new interest in that she is getting Yorkie puppy from a breeder whom she has already named “Juno.” She has had dogs before as well as a cat, so she is confident that she will be able to take care of Juno properly and easily. This is Johanna’s first year at Sacred Heart, having attended St. Paul Catholic High School previously before the family moved to Stittsville. “I enjoy it here a lot,” she says about her new Sacred Heart experience. She thought that the transition to a new school in this, her graduating year, would be difficult but she has found that she has been well accepted and that her efforts at school seem to be drawing a lot of positive encouragement. This article reprinted courtesy of the Stittsville News and Metroland East.
Monday Lunch Time Volley Ball Tradition!
Nancy Tremblay from the Vice-President Academic’s office continues to promote and welcome interested Algonquin employees to “Monday, lunch time volley ball” games – an initiative that was initiated by her some seven years ago. Algonquin employees are reminded that they always welcome to join, at any time they find themselves available to attend, because, really…. teams are made on the fly. Also important to remember is that all skill levels are welcome. If you have attended one of these fun sessions you will soon understand that this is clearly a recreational rather than a competitive initiative. You will have free access to the gym change rooms and with no gym membership required to attend. Nancy’s warm and caring personality always comes to the forefront and she ensures all participants are made to feel welcome. If you do not know how to play, no problemo, as the Team has been well trained to embrace you first, and to teach you how to play after. If you attend or have attended any of these lunch time volley ball sessions, you will know what I mean. You will have felt the camaraderie that this great team initiative has developed for College employees who come out to participate and to have fun. Once you’re “in”, you somehow know that it will be very hard to not want to come back….. You can try with all good reasons to not be available, however, you will continue to feel the love and to receive gentle reminders from Nancy about how important it is to just come out and hang out with this great Team, on every Monday lunch hour that you are available to attend! P.S. Nancy and the Monday lunch hour Volley Ball Team hope to see you there soon!