Nature vs Nurture...Solved!

I am going to try and follow any negative post with a happy positive post. Halloween is a great holiday. Kids love it, adults are allowed to be wacky for one day a year, it is just a whole lot of fun. And witnessing Holloween through the eu=yes of a child is by far the best. My two kids are both enthralled with the holiday. My daughter, Ruby, is going to be Belle (who is a Princess according to her) and will be wearing a pretty yellow dress with pretty ruffles and pretty shoes and her hair will be done to look pretty as well. There is a theme here- my daughter loves being pretty, and pink, and barbies, and princesses. In short, she is a girlie girl. My son, Kale, is going to be a Power Ranger. Anything that gets to punch things, look powerful, and make lots of noise is a costume he would like. He could care less about putting clothes on or shopping, he only cares about the fun and practical uses something can give him. In short, he is all boy. Now I have discussed the whole nature vs nurture thing in college classes and with friends over the years, and we have never truly solved the dilemma of what is more important to a persons life: nature or the genetics a person is born with or nurture- the environment a person is raised in. My two kids have solved the problem for me. Nature, or genetics, is definitely the more important of the two. We try to raise our kids as to not give in to all of the gender biasses. I tell both my kids to be tough when they fall and have spanked them both for misbehaving. How on earth did one child fall in love with pink and shopping and princesses and the other have no desire for any of that and all he likes to do is play rough and shoot things? Genetics! It is solved. Now I know everyone is effected by their surroundings as well, so in my scientific analysis of nature vs nurture I will give nature 64.7% and nurture 35.3%. You can use these figures in your research if you like. Have a great Friday!






Student quote of the day in US Government: We were studying the constitutionality of burning the American flag when one student said, "No way, you can't burn a flag, it's like burning a bald eagle."

rumblings

I love hockey. It is fun. Hopefully everyone can experience the greatness of the sport!

Boston

Darci and I are signed up to go to Boston! I can't wait. Darci will running in the 113th running of the Boston Marathon on April 19th. We will be there from the 16-20th. I have been to Boston once already, but there is so much to do there that it will be great. I love traveling. Something about seeing new things and different lifestyles that is very interesting. My only dilemma is what to see there? We really only have two days of sight seeing. I have narrowed my list to the following:
Salem Witchcraft Trials
Fenway Park
Little Italy
Plymoth Colony
Harvard
JFK Library
Lexington and Concord
The North Church
Freedom Trail
Cheers
the John Adams house
the USS Constitution
The Battle of Bunker Hill

So many choices and so little time. I'll have to do some research and find out what we will have time for.

Being a father

Being a father is a job that nothing prepares you for.  Over the past few days my 4 year old son has ticked me off 2 times for two accidents he could have avoided.  Example number one occurred at my in laws.  He was walking around outside when I heard him screaming, he came running to the house with a boot missing.  I realized he had stuck his foot into a bucket full of gas!  you heard it right, a bucket full of gas, now who keeps a five gallon bucket of gas lying around?  That is beside the point, who willingly puts their foot in a bucket of gas?  I got angry to say they least.  In a few moments Kale was crying and profusely sorry, I threw his boots outside and when I did, he had put his gas covered pants in with a load of clean laundry!!  I was mad all over again.  Kale cried some more, and I threw him in the shower and that was that.

Example number two occurred right outside my classroom.  I had a few groceries to get, glass olive jars were among them.  After shopping, I stopped at my room to take care of a few things.  Kale got bored and irritated and went to the Jeep by himself.  I took a few more minutes and then went out.  I saw Kale with something in his hands, when I opened the door I could smell what it was.  He had banged two jars of olives together and broken them.  I was furious!  The car smelled, he was soaking wet, needless to say Kale was crying and profusely sorry again.

The scary part of this story for me is this:  I remember my dad getting angry with me, and I feared him, and still do to a point.  However, I also remember my dad telling me he loved me, giving me great advice, and just doing things great dads do.  I just hope I am giving my son the right mix of fear and love.  I didn't realize how great my dad was until I was a dad myself, so I may never know.  I know one thing, I am going to let my dad know.

Perfect night and my old tree

Last week a fellow teacher wrote about the perfect night, sitting in a deer stand.  I have to agree.  On Saturday night I got the chance to go bow hunting for only the second time all year, it was cold, windy, and snowy.  But that did not matter.  The important thing was, I was out in the woods.  Away from the rat race of life.  I think that is something non hunters struggle to understand about hunters.  I am not a cold blooded killer (okay, given the chance I can be) but really I just enjoy being out in nature.  I saw one deer at about 150 yards away eating in our turnip food plot, it spent half an hour there, then left.  I still consider it a successful hunt.  I got to go and sit in a deer stand for 2 hours.  No cell phone, no TV, no talking.  Just me and nature.  Priceless.

The other subject I was reminded of this weekend was on a little sadder note.  I went to check my deer stand in my Grandpa's swamp on Saturday.  My tree is starting to die, even as I write it is hard to keep a dry eye.  I have spent 17 years hunting out of this old tamarac tree.  I am on my 3rd stand in the tree.  I have the old one at about 15 feet up, the second one is a crude box stand at about 17 feet up, and my portable is about 35 feet up, so I know every inch of this tree.  I have spent hundreds of hours thinking, watching, and just enjoying life from that tree.  It feels like a piece of me.  I even get jealous when other people sit in it, not because they might shoot my deer, but because they are in my tree.  Several years ago one of my brothers cut off one of the branches, I could have killed him!  People don't understand my connection to this tree, and probably never will.  I am trying to decide what to make out some of the wood of this tree when it dies.  Maybe a coat rack?  I am not sure, but I will have a piece of it to remind me of all the fond memories of this tree for the rest of my life.  I will probably ask that a chunk of its wood gets buried with me.  Oh yeah, in 17 years I only shot 5 deer from it!  Again, hunting is not about killing, it is about getting away from the rat race that is life.  

Facebook

Here is a link to my Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/kenny.geiser

I find facebook amusing and slightly helpful, nothing more nothing less.  It is the "rubbernecking" of our day.  We talked about this yesterday at our history conference.  Facebook is a huge gossip column with photos.  To some people that is great.  But to me it is quite uninteresting.  I don't really care if you are having a bad day, or if you are so happy to see your hubby, or if your dog pooped on your carpet, or if you got lit up last night.  I like the more private email versions of contact.  Call meold fashioned!  Who would have thought that email was old fashioned?  I did have students tell me last year that email was obselete, maybe they are right.  Time will tell.

Finished my book!!

Well, I stayed up until 4:30 in the morning to finish my book called "The World without end" by Ken Follett.  A great book and sequel to "Pillars of the Earth."  My only problem now is what to read next?  I feel kind of spent after reading "Shogun" and this book, both very large epics and time consuming and mind draining.  Maybe I will just sit back and watch more TV for awhile?Need to go in search of some good movies.