DADWAGON

An interesting educational tidbit from the Times on a charter school in Massachusetts that is teaching philosophy to second graders:

A few times each month, second graders at a charter school in Springfield, Mass., take time from math and reading to engage in philosophical debate. There is no mention of Hegel or Descartes, no study of syllogism or solipsism. Instead, Prof. Thomas E. Wartenberg and his undergraduate students from nearby Mount Holyoke College use classic children’s books to raise philosophical questions, which the young students then dissect with the vigor of the ancient Greeks.

“A lot of people try to make philosophy into an elitist discipline,” says Professor Wartenberg, who has been visiting the school, the Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School of Excellence, since 2007. “But everyone is interested in basic philosophical ideas; they’re the most basic questions we have about the world.”

As you might imagine, elucidating the perversions of the categorical imperative might not hold the attention of a youngster all that well, so the teachers (who are actually professors and college students From Mount Holyoke—this is an educational experiment) stick to kids’ books:

One afternoon this winter, the students in Christina Runquist’s classroom read Shel Silverstein’s “Giving Tree,” about a tree that surrenders its shade, fruit, branches and finally its trunk to a boy it has befriended. The college students led the discussion that followed — on environmental ethics, or “how we should treat natural objects,” as Professor Wartenberg puts it — with a series of questions, starting with whether the boy was wrong to take so much from the tree.

“We don’t actually try to convince them that trees deserve respect,” he says, “but ask them, ‘What do you think?’ We’re trying to get them engaged in the practice of doing philosophy, versus trying to teach them, say, what Descartes thought about something.”

Indeed. Nothing really here to criticize, or even to comment on too much. I like the notion of childhood conversation being highly philosophical in nature, and I tend to believe it, too. Children question things; they have a heightened sense of the scarcity of resources (sharing) and the impact that has on themselves and the world around them; and they innately seem to comprehend questions of fairness and justice (he got more than me; let her play with that because she’s smaller, etc). Teaching them ethics makes sense, particularly because I think it’s something kids pick up on their own. The classroom only helps them contextualize what they are soaking in from the world around them.

All that and Sesame Street. It’s good to be a kid.

Life in the #4 neighborhood in New York is very complicated. One day you’re hitting on the girl with the yoga mat in the local cafe, the next your 2-year-old son is trying to impress Michelle Williams’s daughter. So it goes, writes Albert Stern (“a writer, lives in Brooklyn”) in the Times‘ “Modern Love” column:

Ordinarily my son comports himself as if he’s the reincarnation of Sammy Davis Jr., but with Matilda Ledger, the trophy playmate of our neighborhood, he sat still as a Golem.

I admit I was aware of the stakes. After all, it’s easy to imagine that if Matilda and your child hit it off, you and your family might find yourselves having a play date with Matilda and her mother. Even for a non-enthusiast of play dates — and I would never put myself in that category — that might actually be interesting.

But Eliot wouldn’t budge, and soon Matilda became more interested in her bagel, ignoring him. Michelle Williams had long since refocused, absorbed in text messaging. I went back to my bagel and newspaper. I noticed, however, that Eliot was staring intently at Matilda as she ate. After a minute or so, he broke the silence.

“Nanas!” he exclaimed.

Clearly, this kid is impressing no one, least of all Matilda and her celebrity mother.

And in my opinion, that’s sort of sad. Because here in BoHi, as nobody calls it, we just don’t have that many celebrities around. There’s Michelle Williams, who I’ve been told lives in this gorgeous green building, and there’s… um… Oh! That is, Sandra Oh, who reportedly lives two or three blocks from me. I’ve never seen her, and if I had I would’ve made damn sure my Sasha impressed the fuck out of her. None of this “Nanas!” bullshit—Sasha would’ve broken out her best tricks, which include… um… looking really, really cute.

But this hasn’t happened, and probably never will. Instead, dads like Albert Stern will be presenting their ill-bred crotchfruit to the fabulously rich and famous of the neighborhood, and probably terrifying them into moving away. Which will depress property values—my property values! Which sucks.

So, Mr. Stern (and anyone else reading), next time you see your kid getting outclassed by a girl who will probably win an Oscar in two decades, just tell Michelle Williams your son is actually a dog, a Brooklyn hairless trained to imitate a toddler. Before long, our streets will be teeming with celebrities, and I can sell my place for millions, and move somewhere quieter and less pretentious, like Gowanus.

DadWagon readers: Let me wax poetic for a moment and share one of my favorites by James Dickey, “The Heaven of Animals,” as I think these few lines aptly describe the tenor of our parenting blog this week:

To match them, the landscape flowers,
Outdoing, desperately
Outdoing what is required:
The richest wood,
The deepest field.

For some of these,
It could not be the place
It is, without blood.
These hunt, as they have done,
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,

More deadly than they can believe.

Loyal readers, the authors of this blog (and we’re all friends, mind you) spent the good part of this past week sniping, gnawing, butting, and pawing like crazed beasts of the ether.

Let’s start with my favorite subject: me. Over five short days, I accused Nathan of having a fetish for male lactation; I called Christopher a childcare hypocrite; and as for Matt, oh poor, sweet Matt, (did you know his mother calls him the Frooginator? Not making this up), well I won’t repeat my various slanders, as they are both too grotesque and too amusing (to me at least). For those interested enough to read these posts, you will note the incidents of collateral damage here as well. To both my girlfriend and Michael Jackson–my apologies.

But, I must protest, I was not alone in my vitriol. Was there something in the water? Has the volcano eruption in Iceland driven us all mad? How else to explain Christopher–polite, restrained, properly punctuated–Christopher’s descent into the depths of collegial criticism? And while I may have deserved it (I’m such a stinker), I too was not spared the wrath of Christopher, complete with exclamation points!

Nathan, to be sure, contributed mightily to the tension and discord, pissing on Matt (as he noted on Facebook), and, in a frightening turn that clearly requires marijuana therapeutic action, his father. I recommend a perusal of Philip Larkin’s “This Be The Verse” to help excise the venom.

Matt somehow remained neutral, a veritable blogospheric Switzerland, obsessed with French and Japanese baby clothes, and concerned that the good manners of his fellow New Yorkers have gone under-acknowledged. Perhaps once he helps his daughter locate her mother, he’ll actually read the posts and be equally irate.

Yes, it was a fine week here at the Wagon, despite–or perhaps due–to the discord. I’d like to assure our readers that next week we will behave much more charitably towards each other… but that would be a lie.

Have a nice weekend.

Okay, Theodore, it’s on.

My Dadwagon colleague is telling me that he doesn’t buy my anti-sitter stance, and (because I am a weenie liberal) I figure that if I just EXPLAIN myself, peevishly, all will be settled.

a) I fully acknowledge that I speak from a position of luck and advantages: principally, four healthy grandparents nearby, any of whom can be called in in an emergency. If we didn’t have them, or a close friend who could step in, obviously we’d have to make other arrangements. That said, a lot of those “other arrangements” would involve sitting at home with the kid ourselves, and I’d accept that. It’s lovely to go out to dinner or something now and then, but for these couple of years, it’s fundamentally an indulgence and a privilege, not something my wife and I feel entitled to. And I really get annoyed at people who talk about new-parent couples “finding some time for yourselves”–I really do think THAT’S where elitism comes in. Nobody tells a single parent holding down double shifts at a hardscrabble job to “take a mental-health day.” And he or she needs one way more than I do. We do without a sitter partly because we don’t really need–as opposed to want–to go out after work. (The distinction between “want to” and “need to” is addressed here.)

b) Of course daycare is different from calling someone in! Daycare is a group setting, so misbehavior (on the caregiver’s part) is unlikely to pass muster–the place is by its nature self-policing. Even if it weren’t, an administrator is there all the time. Other parents are dropping in and out, too.  There is state licensing involved. Everyone has legal recourse if something goes awry. Whereas some teenage kid or local singleton operates under none of these constraints.

c) Plus that person is in your house, alone. If it’s a close friend or relative, fine. But if it’s someone you’ve never met before? Name you took off a flyer somewhere? Heard recommended at school, at work, at church? That is FAR from the same thing, and if you ask me, a little sketchy.