cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Educating Ida Ida and I went camping this past weekend. Sort of. We set up camp in the woods back behind our house. Right next to the creek, which is running pretty well this time of year. It is only 3 or 4 minutes walk from the house, but the house is totally out of sight and one might as well be miles away in terms of appearances. She helped set up the tent, drove tent stakes, etc. During the afternoon I built a campfire just to show her how it is done. She's been shown before, but its been about a year so she needed a refresher course. Then she learned about how to keep it going and more importantly how to put it out. Now she knows never to leave a fire unattended, even if you really really want to go do something else. Towards the end of the day we made another fire to cook dinner on. This time I let her make the fire and she did a pretty good job. I had to help her with striking the match, though. We cooked a couple of steaks and she had a good time. After dark she started getting scared. We had gone into the tent to read books by lantern light and she didn't want to stay in the tent. So half way through 'Make Way For Ducklings,' we got back out of the tent and got the fire going again. We roasted marshmellows, which in Ida's case mostly consisted of deliberately setting them on fire and using them as torches. Eventually she got creeped out again by being in the woods at night. I kept telling her that the scariest thing in the woods was actually us. At her request, I even fired my pistol into the ground to scare away any bears or coyotes that might be in the vicinity. Eventually she couldn't hack it any more and was prepared to run madly in the direction of the house, alone if necessary. So at around 9pm we packed up some of our stuff, put everything else in the tent in case of rain, and went back to the house. Next time I think I will take her some place else to camp. Like a wildlife management area where we have to walk at least a mile from the car to our camp site. That way running back to the house will not even remotely be an option. The only way she is going to get over this business of being scared in the woods at night is by sleeping out there repeatedly and preferably doing some night-hiking as well. I might be a bit insensitive here. I'm trying not to be. It has been a very long time since I was remotely scared in the woods or fields at night. I think it was Outward Bound that cured me of that. Night after night of hiking through the darkness in all sorts of strange and wild places. Eventually you just get used to it. I *like* hiking at night now. I probably go on some sort of night time bush-whacking adventure in the wilds behind our house at least once a month for one reason or another. She was pretty happy with herself yesterday when we went over to Trish's aunt & uncle's place for Trish's birthday yesterday. Trish's cousins, who are 10 and 12 (one girl and a set of twins - they and Ida mutually regard each other just as cousins) were very impressed when they overheard that Ida had built campfires. And they were more awed when they heard that she is a decent shot with a .22 rifle and that she has one of her own. Ida is obsessed with the idea of impressing her cousins, since she looks up to them so much. These kids have all sorts of elaborate air-soft pellet guns and are very into the idea of weapons, but have never actually held a real one (which they shouldn't, because they have been playing with the fake ones so long that their first instinct would be to point the gun at another person and pull the trigger). And when they heard that their 5 year old cousin has her own real rifle, they flipped their shit. We actually had a very good conversation, me and those kids and their father. With Ida standing by. Where I pointed out to them that Ida can have and use a real rifle specifically *because* she never had toy guns that she ran around pointing at other kids. She has no context for the idea of a gun as a toy. Even the fake rifle that I made for her when she was 2 has no trigger and it was taken away from her when she pointed it in an unsafe direction. Her sole context for a gun is as a tool that must be handled in a certain way with certain rules followed at all times. Her finger goes over the trigger guard rather than on the trigger as a basic instinct rather than something that she even has to think about. So I showed them how the way that they were holding their airsoft rifles at that very moment would risk killing someone and getting them thrown in prison right at that very moment, if it was a real gun. They have so internalized the ergonomics of a gun as a toy that their basic instincts now would get them or someone else killed. Their father 'got it' right away. He used to hunt and shoot when he was younger. And right away he told them that they aren't going to be allowed to go near a real firearm until they make a habit of handling their toys and airsoft guns as if they were real guns at all times. Another victory for gun safety. I want to deliberately introduce Ida to anything potentially dangerous and teach her how to handle or avoid it. Like fire. I played with matches when I was a little kid. And I am very, very lucky that I never caused a serious fire when I was doing that. But the question to ask is *why* did I play with fire? Because I wanted to know about how it worked. What would it burn, what would it not burn. How to start a fire, how to keep it going, how to put it out. Kids play with fire in order to learn, which is completely legitimate. The mistake that my parents made was in failing to teach me anything about fire aside from ordering me to stay away from it. If someone had sat down with me when I was 6 years old and taught me how to build a fire, how to light a match and all of the basic rules of fire safety that go along with that, then I would have been much less dangerous with a book of matches when I was 7. She's coming along very well, Ida is. Her reading has gotten much better. She's ok at playing cards, good at 'War' and so-so at poker. She knows how to use a knife safely. Knows how to make a fire, handle a rifle, has at least the basics of fishing down (we need to work on that more). She can cook a steak. I mean, for 5 years old she's got a decent skill set. Things we are going to work on this summer: Swimming, making and using fishing tackle, basics of microbiology and first aid. The microbiology is actually very important, in my opinion. You need to have some notion of what germs are in order to understand about keeping a wound sterile, or sanitizing drinking water or doing all sorts of other things that have to do with managing bacteria and yeast. This fall she starts Kindergarten. Goddammit. A full day, 5 days a week. I guess it will be good in terms of working more on reading and she will have more kids to play with. But everything they will teach her is so fucking dumbed down. When I know she can learn so much more advanced and useful stuff. They'll spend an hour having her make fucking construction paper turkeys for Thanksgiving when she could be learning astronomy or watching a ballet. And it's the petty power trips that piss me off. The idea of telling someone that they have to ask permission in order to go to the bathroom. Standing in line and being quiet. All of those inumerable little things that public school is intended to drive into kids' heads to make them good little worker drones. Its not the education that I want for her. I want her to be responsible, capable and independant. 12:31 p.m. - 2009-04-20 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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