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Culmination


At Eve’s school, they have Culmination ceremonies instead of mid-terms or finals. The purpose of these gatherings is to demonstrate their proficiency with the material they have been studying to their peers, teachers, and families. The school very much has a “stand and deliver” philosophy that encourages the girls to truly achieve mastery of each subject and understand it in a way that they can then teach it. The point is to ensure that they aren’t simply cramming their heads full of facts that will promptly be forgotten once they lay their pencils down.

Last night, we went to the second such ceremony and, just as I was the first time, I was struck speechless. The theme last night was “Literary Salon.” The girls have been studying fairy tales, both modern and ancient, and their impact on culture and were tasked to create their own books, complete with illustrations. In addition, they have been talking about personal identity and were asked to create what Eve’s teacher calls a “river” poem, honoring many of the tributaries that flow into them to make each girl a whole. Finally, they have been studying music (guitar, keyboards, singing, and music theory) individually and as a group. The girls performed in groups, recited their poems individually, and read their stories aloud to the family and friends gathered in the room. Not only were they asked to memorize poems and music, they were asked to find their voices and their courage to speak publicly and showcase their talents and creativity.
The grand finale came as each and every girl in the class sat down with her guitar and they played and sang “Lean On Me.”

“Sometimes in our lives
We all have pain
We all have sorrow.
But if we are wise
We know that there’s
Always tomorrow.

Lean on me
When you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend.
I’ll help you carry on.
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on.
Please swallow your pride
If I have things
You need to borrow.
For no one can fill
Those of your needs
That you don’t let show.

Lean on me
When you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend.
I’ll help you carry on.
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on.

If there’s a load
You have to bear
That you can’t carry
I’m right up the road
I’ll share your load
If you just call me.
So just call on me, sister
When you need a hand.
We all need somebody to lean on.
I just might have a problem
That you’d understand.
We all need somebody to lean on.”

I was absolutely (to the intense mortification of Bubba and Lola) brought to tears. These girls, each of them so different, were really singing this song to each other. There are girls who come from broken homes, lesbian homes, girls being raised by extended family, African American girls, girls from Cambodia and those of Latina descent. There are girls on scholarship, a girl whose father was recently killed in Afghanistan, girls with learning disabilities and one who is repeating fifth grade. There is a girl adopted from China, another who has never met her birth father, and others who wish they hadn’t. There are girls who are proficient in mathematics and others who are great with music or art. There is a girl with a debilitating anxiety disorder and one whose mother recently battled breast cancer. These girls know all of these things and more about each other and yet they banded together when everyone was cleaning up last night after Culmination to ask their teacher to let them perform an impromptu song for us all. They have spent evenings together camping on the beach in the cold, wet Pacific Northwest, cooking meals together and pitching tents and holding each others’ hands and heads as they got seasick on a boat. Despite their differences, they are united in their accomplishments as young women of passion and humor, ideas and love for life that literally brought me to my knees. This is not a group that is concerned with gossip or fashion, boys or competition for the spotlight. This is a group of young women who are well on their way to finding out who they are as individuals and recognizing their strengths as a group. And I, for one, am honored to be a spectator of it all.
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Empowering and Understanding


Lola decided to play lacrosse this Spring instead of softball. She has a good friend who wanted to play and there is much more movement and action in lacrosse – simply more her style. Practices are twice a week for an hour and a half and they play two games every Saturday. It’s definitely a commitment. Especially in the Pacific NW in a La Nina year. They’ve been at it since February and I think I can count on the fingers of one hand (okay, one practice) the times it has been sunny for practice. After the first week, I took to bringing an old paper bag with me when I picked her up so she could put her muddy cleats in the bag before getting into my car. By last week, I was putting a beach towel down in her seat so that her mud-splattered backside wouldn’t ruin the upholstery. And when I say “backside” I don’t mean bottom. I mean that it looks like she stood facing a wall while someone took a paintbrush dipped in mud and flung it at her body, splatter-paint-style.

She is in Heaven.

In hail, strong winds, pouring rain and, yes, even snowfall, her solid 4’3″ frame hurtles across the field, spraying wet clumps of grass behind her as she chases the ball. Without fail, halfway through practice she slows down slightly to unzip her sweatshirt, peel it off, and fling it to the sidelines because she’s sweating from the effort. A grin adorns her face for each and every one of the 90 minutes she is on that field.

Last week as I sat in the car with the heater warming my toes and my heated seat on to its full potential, I wondered whether the coaches would call practice off. The baseball and softball players had long since gone home and the black clouds had that particular electricity to them that warned of a thunderstorm. I half-wished they would call it off so I could get home and start dinner early. But in that same moment, another thought pushed that one away. The boys weren’t going home. Their lacrosse practice was still on – I could see them in the farthest field, crashing their helmets and shoulder pads into each other with abandon, the way boys in middle school do because they know they’re too young and strong to get hurt. Yes, it was wet. Yes, it was cold. But these girls weren’t in danger of suffering anything they couldn’t handle. Of the four teams of girls, only one has a female coach, and none of the coaches, regardless of gender, was about to call off practice. Whatever their reasons, I decided I didn’t care. Knowing that Lola was out there having the time of her life and receiving the message that she was strong and capable enough to practice in inclement weather was terrific.

Eve is playing basketball with her classmates this season as well. She is not much of a ‘team-sport’ kid, but when her school fielded a 5th grade team and she realized she could play with girls she knows who are her own age, she got excited. This age brings with it self-criticism and a shyness borne of comparison like no other. Among her peers is one girl who is smaller in size than Eve, several who are slightly taller or bigger, and two who could pass for 7th graders. Two have played basketball before, but the rest of them are newbies. The coach treats them all the same. She mixes up the scrimmage teams, runs drills where she stops each of them at some time to make a particular correction or explain something further, and plays with them. At the beginning of practice, held in a local community center that is usually full of older boys playing the rough, NBA-style ball, she makes sure to shoo everyone out of the gym and shut the doors before beginning practice. She gets it. But while she makes that concession for them, she is tough with them in other ways. They are not allowed to sit down for the entire practice. They can rest and take water breaks as necessary, but everyone on the team works their butt off. She makes sure they know what their bodies are capable of and shows them time and time again. Eve is so proud of her ability to do things she never thought she could. She convinced herself long ago that she is more a “creative-type” than an athlete and, while she enjoys messing around on her bike and shooting baskets in the backyard, she was fairly resigned to the fact that playing a sport on a team wasn’t for her. She’s discovering just how wrong she was about that.

In very different ways, my girls are both learning that pushing themselves in a safe environment is a powerful feeling. I am terribly grateful for coaches and organizations that provide them the opportunity to spread their wings within these comfortable boundaries. It makes me that much more committed to ensuring that girls everywhere find places like these in their lives in order to empower themselves and better understand their own abilities.

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New Year’s Shout Out


I decided to start 2011 out by sharing a couple of my favorite things with everyone. In an effort to become more aware of the positives in the world, I hope to make this a weekly feature of the blog. I’ll endeavor to discover organizations or stories that are uplifting and shine light on the ways we help each other to grow and come together and put them out here for others to see.

The first one that I’ve recently become aware of, thanks to a new writer friend is here. I’ve written before about wishing that the United States could shift its view of “wellness” from an economic model to a more holistic, soul-satisfying one. This project seeks to do just that. While it isn’t exactly going to revolutionize our way of living/spending/being in financial crisis after crisis anytime soon, I love that the focus is on Gross National Happiness. I get that we can’t eat, live in, or drive happiness, but I do embrace the notion that when we put all of our eggs in one (money) basket, and that basket is emptied, our feelings of self-worth plummet and fear skyrockets. Learning how to be happy independent of this thing we call financial wealth has so many other benefits that we may want to give it a go.
The second item I want to highlight is a publication and associated website called New Moon Girls. It began as a magazine targeted to pre-adolescent and early adolescent girls, free of all advertisements and focused on helping them navigate the increasingly media-saturated world as hormonal beings. The magazine is largely written by the girls themselves, featuring their stories, both fictional and non-fiction, poetry, artwork, columns where the girls solicit advice from their peers, and articles by older teens and women sharing their stories. The website is a safe, adult-moderated place for the girls to express themselves, play games, and chat with each other online (not in real-time, thus the ‘moderated’ aspect) about everything from food to siblings to politics. The girls share their ideas about environmental issues, activism, bullying, recipes for their favorite snacks, crafts they like, and write book reviews for each other. They are encouraged to speak candidly about everything and look for positive, inspirational stories to share. I love the magazine so much that I bought my girls a subscription as well as sending one to the local public school library and two of their friends. The subscription includes access to the website and all that it includes.

Please share your inspirational, positive stories in the comments section. I’d love some new things to talk about and spread around.

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A Visit from JoAnn Deak


I attended a Parent Information Series at Eve’s school last night and the speaker was
Dr. JoAnn Deak. She is a psychologist who has done some amazing studies on the brains of adolescent girls and has written extensively on her findings. I discovered one of them a few years ago on my own, but was turned on to her most recent book by the headmaster at Eve’s school, never knowing that JoAnn is actually on the advisory board at the school.

Monday, she spent the entire day with the teachers at the school, talking to them about how to recognize, validate, and work with the unique structure of the adolescent female brain. She then spent two and a half hours in the evening presenting her findings to parents and fielding questions of all types.

Some of the highlights:

The lubrication of nerve cells and brain cells is largely made up of water. When children are not drinking water or other fluids throughout the day on a regular basis, they are literally not thinking as well as they could be. It has been shown that even with 1-2 oz. of water every hour, children’s brains perform far better than if they only drink during lunch breaks.

Between the ages of 10 and 20, the emotion center (the amygdala) of a child’s brain is literally swollen. The information they receive through their senses travels first to the amygdala and then through the logic/thought processing portion of their brains.

The brains of girls are designed to choose flight over fight, theoretically because of their role in caretaking of the young of the species. It is our job to help build their self-esteem by encouraging them to take risks despite their fears in order to prove to themselves that they are capable. They no longer need to run from saber-toothed tigers to protect their young. They can choose to take on difficult tasks without risk of dying.

While testosterone is the prevalent hormone in male adolescent brains, oxytocin (the tend and befriend hormone) is most prevalent in girls. Want to spur them to action? Threaten something they care about. They are more likely to protect a pet or a loved one than stand up for themselves.

Self-esteem is affected by actions. The more girls do, the more capable they feel, and the better they feel about themselves. Girls tend to do more with their fathers and talk more with their mothers. Fathers have the single biggest affect on an adolescent girl’s self esteem when compared to anyone else in her life. Make one snarky comment about her weight and you’re setting her up for an eating disorder. ONLY ONE REMARK. Spend more time with her just hanging out or building something and she will feel capable and loved.

Girls have two language centers in their brains and boys only have one.

If a girl is not making eye contact with you, she is not processing what you are saying.

If a boy is making eye contact with you, he is not processing what you are saying. He is probably obsessing about that mole on the side of your nose.

Information intake and information processing cannot take place simultaneously in the brain. Talk for a bit and then ask your child a question about the content (even if you have to pretend to lose your train of thought and say, “where was I?”). This switches the activity from the intake to the processing portion and they are more likely to retain and assimilate the information.

For more, check out Dr. Deak’s books. She is a lively speaker and a brilliant researcher.

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