Birthing a book

People compare writing a book to having a baby, and in many ways its the same. You pour a huge amount of yourself into a book, whether it’s an autobiography or an academic treatise on a rare insect from Guatemala.

But for me, the process of publishing my book, From School to Homeschool, has been in some ways uncomfortably unlike birth.

Suki and book
Me with my little newborn baby!

When you have a baby – those of you who are parents will remember – your body is flooded with happy hormones and despite the fact that your body may hurt and you’re getting very little sleep, you feel elated. You know that your baby is the most beautiful, wonderful baby ever birthed. And people stop you on the street to tellĀ  you how beautiful and wonderful your baby is.

Between the heady days of writing a book and sending it out into the world, however, you lose any hormonal help you may have gotten. The editing process drags on and then you have to start marketing something you can’t even hold in your hands yet. You start to think:

“Is my baby really that beautiful, or did I somehow mislead my publisher?”

“Oh, I really should have given my baby brown eyes instead of blue!”

“Did I forget to give my baby a pleasant smile?”

“Why would anybody like a baby of mine, anyway?”

“How could I have thought that I’d be a good mommy to this baby?” (OK, I think I did think that one once or twice over the last 13 years of parenting, as well!)

The first thing that happened as the paper copies rolled off the press was contacting reviewers. My publisher’s publicity person rightly pointed out to me that they get a better response rate when the writer approaches reviewers she knows or has some sort of relationship with, so I started sending out e-mails. I suspect they were more professionally worded than this, but I remember these e-mails going something like this, “Please like my baby, please don’t treat her badly, please notice her friendly smile and not the big wart on her nose!”

Last week, I awoke with a start in the middle of the night. I realized with great certainty that I had forgotten to mention the website of one of the wonderful movers and shakers of the homeschooling world who agreed to review my book!

What is going to happen when she reads the book and sees that her wonderful website and her wonderful books aren’t mentioned? I thought, my heart pounding. I mentally composed an apologetic e-mail — “I can’t believe we got through the entire editing process without my realizing that I’d forgotten your website!” — and somehow got myself back to sleep.

Days later I remembered that midnight terror, and went to check my electronic copy of the book. There the website was, with appropriately encouraging words about the author’s contributions to the craft of homeschooling.

OK, so my baby is slightly less imperfect than I thought.

Of course, there will be people who don’t like my book, and I’m prepared for that. And there are people who for whatever reason don’t like me, and thus won’t like my book. I suppose I’m a little less prepared for that because I know that I’m way too concerned with whether people like me than I should be. And of course I’m completely prepared for the fact that my book isn’t for everyone: When people whose children are grown or gone, or people who never had any in the first place and are not into gifted education, say that they’re going to buy my book, I’m happy to say, “Only if you want to.” (I personally have a “thing” for owning books by people I know, but what started as one shelf of people that I know has overflown to books stashed all over the house, so perhaps that’s a “thing” I need to give up!)

So yes, publishing a book is like birthing a baby. I am terribly fond of my little orange-and-blue progeny and it was such a thrill to see her (why is she a she? I can’t answer that) after all those months of imagining what she’d look like.

But it’s also a period of growth for me, and growth, as any rapidly stretching teen can tell you, is not always comfortable.

Here’s to books, babies, and personal growth. None of the three is always a welcome force at any given time of a given day, but all are necessary for the continuation of intelligent life in our little corner of the universe.

News from the convention, Day 3

Following are my notes on the National Association for the Gifted Convention, day 3. Click here to read day 1 and day 2.

I can’t believe it! I’m typing this on the airplane home and I may in fact be caught up when we touch down. Now, whether I have time to put any links into this text this evening is still unanswered. But you know how to use Google as well as I do.

This morning, I got right on it by turning up with a crowd of other people at 8 a.m. to hear Jim Delisle speak about teaching writing to middle schoolers. It was a very school-focused talk, and I am sure that if I were to do any of these exercises with homeschoolers I’d change them considerably, but his ideas are great and it’s clear why he is considered at the top of his field. I don’t have the title of his book handy at the moment, but I would highly recommend it to teachers – in fact, I did recommend it by e-mail to one of my son’s teachers. He used a variety of methods to get kids to get in touch with what they really care about, and he is able to help them do the seeingly impossible, such as a beautiful essay by a girl who had been failing English. For once, she was not required to write in full sentences, and her little bits of thought held together beautifully.

I hardly took notes during the panel discussion of gifted kids and sensitivity (again, I didn’t write down the panelists’ names, so I only know that Linda Silverman was one of them). The first question that came up is do we know for sure that gifted kids are in fact more sensitive than other kids? Silverman joked that perhaps her 35 years in the field should be dismissed because she hadn’t submitted peer-reviewed papers to the journals, so we could just consider what she said a 35 year long anecdote. Then she went on to detail the huge amount of data amassed by her Gifted Development Center in Colorado and others and said that from what she’s seen, sensitivity appears to be a prerequisite for gifted learners. Those kids who can’t stand the hum of fluorescent lights aren’t just coincidentally the fastest learners in the classroom. She and the others on the panel all had different ways of coming at the problem, but they all agreed that a hyper-aware brain is part of what makes a brain the sort that excels on IQ tests. Two of the panelists spoke movingly of their experiences as therapists working with families. One spoke bravely of his own struggles with being a highly sensitive person and how it has informed his opinion on how such children should be dealt with in schools.

The final keynote was by Jonathan Mooney, who is apparently well-known though he was new to me. He spoke of neurodiversity, which is a relatively new argument that we should think of the diversity of human minds like we think of plant and animal diversity: something to be nurtured and treasured. For a man who has never lived in the South, the woman next to me said, he sure does sound like a black preacher. In fact, we noticed that the cadences of his sentences were exactly like President Obama’s, which were explicitly modeled on black preachers’ speech. But he was a very engaging speaker, and his message was both in lockstep with what many at the conference were saying – gifted kids are different and need to be accepted and nurture – and also critical on the focus on traditional “academic” learning as what makes an educated person. Like Temple Grandin, he admitted that he is never going to be the well-rounded generalist that our schools attempt to produce. But in his case, there was no diagnosis to go on (though clearly these days he’d be diagnosed ADHD if he were in school). He was made to feel stupid and lazy throughout his school years, and the only thing that saved him, he said, was the unwavering faith that his mother had in him. When he was failing in school, she’d tell him that he was worthwhile and smart. Finally, after failing his way into high school, he somehow turned everything around and got into Brown University (not sure how that happened except that Brown is notoriously creative about taking unusual students such as the earliest gifted homeschoolers when no one else in the Ivies would).

All in all, this conference was a fabulous place to learn and connect with others if you are in education and care about your sensitive, asynchronous, neuro-nontypical, “gifted” learners. Nowhere at this conference did I hear dismissive statements about other kids, just a concern that while advocating for any other group of children is seen as noble and fair, advocating for gifted children, in all their rainbow of flavors, is seen as elitist and unnecessary. It is such a relief to everyone there not to have to apologize for their passion for reaching the thinkers in our society, trying to find the ones who are hiding, trying to heal the ones who have been broken, trying to inspire the ones who have been bored into compliance. The message of the conference was not “these kids are more important,” but rather, “all kids are important, so why are we trying either to make these kids into something they’re not or forcing them always to be on the outside in education?”

Thanks to everyone who gave their time to present at the conference and were willing to talk to someone who nodded vigorously when one presenter spoke of “imposter syndrome.” If you spend too much time feeling like you don’t belong, you can end up believing that you will never find a place in this world.

News from the convention, Day 2

Following are my notes about the National Assn. for the Gifted Conference in Denver from this weekend. Click here for Day 1.

My first workshop of the day was about asynchronous development and featured Linda Silverman (her list of accomplishments is long; the latest is a book called Giftedness 101 that is no doubt worth buying if you are just starting to explore giftedness), Jim Delisle (master teacher whom I later heard give a fabulous talk about teaching middle schoolers to write), and Stephanie Tolan (writer about giftedness and also novelist whose books feature gifted children and sometimes homeschoolers). Because of my schedule I couldn’t stay the whole time, but I got to hear Silverman discuss various views of what asynchronous development is and how various thinkers about giftedness have characterized it over the years. The most moving image she gave was from Australia, where they talk about the “tall poppy syndrome.” Silverman pointed out that the imagery is rather disturbing: in a field full of beautiful flowers, some are taller in their thirst for sun. But in order to maintain a field full of sameness and fairness, the tall poppies are literally beheaded. Think about how schools often treat kids who are ahead in light of that image.

The next talk I went to was about twice-exceptional learners. I will have to look up who gave the talk because I forgot to write it down and I am presently typing this on an airplane. [Ed: Beverly Trail and Claire Hughes] For those of you who don’t know this terminology, 2e learners are gifted learners with disabilities [read my blog post about this]. They present an even more difficult case for integration into a general classroom than “regular” gifted kids because it’s so hard to address both their deficits and strengths at one time. The speakers emphasized, as I’ve heard a lot lately, the research shows that kids with disabilities do better if you teach to their strengths and don’t focus too much on their deficits. It’s really easy for these kids to become fixated on their shortcomings because in school that’s all that gets talked about. Because the kids’ deficits often make producing work harder, they shine in situations where they develop their critical thinking and conceptual skills while not having to depend on skills that they struggle with, such as writing or calculation.

Sylvia Rimm gave a talk called “My top 10 for preventing and reversing underachievement.” Just glance at sylviarimm.com to see the breadth of her important career. This talk was a fast-paced trip through what she has learned about kids and parents in her many years in the field. I especially appreciated her comments about united parenting, which is something we always struggle with. In a family full of intense people, it’s really hard for the parents to step aside and support each other. Yet Rimm highlighted this as one of the keys she has seen to producing functional adults on the other side of the journey. Just so she didn’t leave any parent in the room not feeling uncomfortable, she also talked about other common parental foibles, such as overpraising young children so they come crashing down when a sibling appears or when they go to school and don’t get praised constantly. She also talked about how parents can set up and nurture competitive, difficult relationships between siblings by comparing their kids and unwittingly pitting them against each other. She also acknowledged something I have always suspected to be true: two children families are the worst for sibling rivalry and difficult sibling relationships. Those of us with two have to work even harder than the rest in this regard.

There was so much meat in her talk, I’m just going to have to go buy her books! Also, she promised lots of articles available for download at her website.

An absolute standout session I went to was about Young Adult books by Bob Seney. [I couldn’t find any primary website about him but lots of hits on his name and “book list” – he releases a yearly book list that I highly recommend.] Seney is a retired professor who adores YA literature. For years he has given the same presentation at NAGC: knowing that the rest of us parents and teachers don’t have time to read all the new novels that come out in order to guide our kids to the best ones and the ones most suited to gifted readers, he does it for us. To think that I almost walked out of his talk because there was another one I was torn about missing! For your information, his standout YA novel of the year was by Kenneth Oppel, writer of the truly excellent Airborn series. The latest is a retelling of the Frankenstein story, and you can be sure that it will be on our household’s reading list this year. Given how busy I am, I felt so deeply grateful for what he’s doing. By reading and vetting for a specific type of reader, he offers parents and teachers a way through the jungle of new books published each year. (If you are interested in the topic of gifted readers and what they “need,” check out Halsted’s “Some of my Best Friends are Books.”)

The day was finished with a keynote by Robert Sternberg, whose interest is creativity. Now, I’ve been to a few conferences, and I can say that keynote speakers are not always the highlights. Often they are chosen more for their star power than for how well their message works for the conference audience. But NAGC outdid themselves this year with speakers who don’t necessarily have much to do with gifted ed per se, but have great messages for this audience. Sternberg talked about how creativity is a choice, and then he went on to detail the results of having made the choice to lead a creative life. He did this both through examples from his own life and also with famous examples of companies and people who came up against obstacles in the path of creativity and either overcame them or fell flat. Sternberg is a very funny speaker but also offers a lot of food for thought about what a life well lived is. I’m not familiar with his work, but if he has a book for young adults, every teen should read it. “Choosing creativity,” he said, “creates its own obstacles” but is also its own reward. A very fulfilling way to end the day.

Perpetually a day behind, I spent the evening in my hotel room catching up on Friday, watched the end of A Color Purple and had a good cry with Whoopie, then collapsed in bed to prepare for another day of cognitive overstimulation.

News from the convention, Day 1

I am at the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) convention in Denver, CO, and it is NOT the evening of the first day of the convention. Yesterday evening I came back to my hotel room to write and I sat in panic in front of my smartphone: “I have way too much STUFF in my head to write!” Instead, I went through the program and planned the rest of my days here, ate chocolate, and went to bed early.

So here I am at Day 2, ready to write about yesterday.

First a note: Why am I here? Why “gifted”? To answer those questions, please click “About Suki” above to learn about all my various pursuits, my feelings about the incredibly stupid word, “gifted,” and other interesting (or not) trivia.

On the way to the conference I read a wonderful book that anyone with a frustrated teen should check out: Forging Paths by Wes Beach. Here’s the review I wrote that will appear on Amazon.com once I can figure out how to post reviews on my phone…. or more likely when I get home!

In my recently published book, From School to Homeschool, I lamented that the stories of gifted homeschoolers had not really been told yet. That was before I read Forging Paths. Though the “kids” in this book are almost grown when they start on their paths, and what they do isn’t what most people would call “homeschooling,” each one of these unique stories adds to our collected understanding of what is possible when it comes to getting the education we need. Wes Beach’s book centers around the stories of individuals who chose unusual paths, but even in their individuality, they offer us new templates for the way education can happen. Inflexible, one-size-fits-all education is a thing of the past. Books like this one are starting to write the story of the future, in which all kids and adults are able to forge the path that is right for them in seeking the education they need and crave.

NAGC is to your local gifted conference as a meta-study is to a small-scale experiment, or whiskey is to wine, or Proust is to Brian Selznick. Different beasts, all worthy in their own way. (OK, I must admit that the only time I ever drank whiskey I threw up, so I have my opinions in that regard.)

I started my day yesterday with Temple Grandin and thousands of other adoring audience members. If you don’t know her, Google her and learn what she has to say. She’s our first (as far as I know) autistic motivational speaker, and she deserves all the applause she gets.

I got much from her talk, but here’s what I came away with: “Making kids do the same thing: absolutely beyond rubbish!”

Grandin has no patience for sweet-talk — she tells it like she sees it, which is rather differently than the mainstream. But on this point I share her point of view completely. Our schools are completely misguided — not just for the diagnosably different child that she was, but for all children. Why do we make the poor souls learn the same thing at the same time? Who ever thought that was a good educational approach for two children, much less a nation of hundreds of millions?

Frank Wang is “the math guy” — you can apparently see his funny videos on Youtube. I’d never heard of him, but one hour with him sold me on his approach to math. He was a self-described “dumb kid” who found his own way of making it through the world. He explains advanced math concepts in fun ways that any kid would enjoy. Although he no longer runs a for-profit company, he says his games, and more invented by a buddy of his, are available at mathfun.com and kaidy.com. Enjoy!

—-

Layne Kalbfleisch from Kidlab has lots to say about brain research, and much of it would conflict with what you hear in the popular press and in popular books about learning and the brain.

First of all: There are no “right brain” and “left brain” learners. We all use both sides of our brains unless our brains are physically damaged. Interestingly, those people whose IQ test scores put them in “gifted” show more symmetry when they are using their brains for tasks. Even more interestingly, the higher the IQ, the less of the brain gets activated in difficult tasks. Definitely food for thought.

I loved this talk. If you’re a brain research junkie, or if you previously thought you should take everything Malcolm Gladwell writes as fact, check out what she has to say.

After that talk, my own feeble brain went into overload mode (someday they will be able to tell me what my brain looks like when this happens) and I needed a glass of wine and a quiet room to digest.

More later when I get to Day 2. I apologize in advance for typos and weird formatting and lack of hyperlinks. [I’ve now added a few – Ed.] This is my first conference without a laptop. I’m using my smartphone and a cool Bluetooth keyboard that my husband gave me and which I have apparently wrecked one of the keys of and yes, I know that is quite dreadful grammar but as I said….. This Is My Brain on Overload! More later.

This is exhausted me in my hotel room!

image

Excellent opportunity to see a world uncovered

For my coastal California readers, I am posting a short piece about the trip my kids and I took with some friends to the beach yesterday. All this week, we’re having negative tides at very convenient times:

Tue 3:56PM -1.4
Wed 4:44PM -1.7
Thr 5:33PM -1.7
Fri 6:25PM -1.4

A negative tide is when the low tide goes down to its lowest point in its cycle, thus exposing sea life that lives full-time underwater. It seems to me that negative tides generally seem to happen at highly inconvenient times, which is why this week is so fabulous. Not only homeschoolers, but even school families can make it out to the beach to meet the neighbors they seldom see. [See some resources for learning about tides with your kids below the photos.]

Here are some (not so great cellphone) photos I took at Natural Bridges State Beach. It’s truly amazing what you can see. If you go, make sure to slow down because many of these creatures blend in with their surroundings quite well.

Miles of mussels
Miles of mussels crowded along the sandstone cliffs

 

Sea Star
Fat, happy sea stars crammed themselves into crevices

 

mystery
This mystery being was not the only thing we couldn't put a name to.

 

Anemones
The anemones along the wall of the last remaining "natural bridge" were a completely different color!

 

Resources (thanks to Susan Greathouse for these):

Simple video describing tides:

http://studyjams.scholastic.com/studyjams/jams/science/weather-and-climate/tides.htm

Virtual lab on tides:

http://glencoe.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0078786797/student_view0/unit3/chapter11/virtual_lab.html

Tides and gravity interactive lab:

http://aspire.cosmic-ray.org/labs/tides/tides_main.html

More advanced tutorial on tides:

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_tides/welcome.html

 

Now available