Skip to main content

Kindergarten

We went to the kindergarten orientation the other night, and I found myself unsettled afterward. I should start by saying we aren't yet 100% sure we'll go to the neighborhood school; they only offer half day for kindergarten (somewhat problematic for working parents).

At any rate, I wasn't unsettled by the school itself. By the end of the evening we felt pretty good about it. Admittedly having them talk about snacks and backbacks before the content of a typical day didn't match my priorities. (OK, I know different parents have different concerns, but mine are really about what is he going to be doing day to day, what is going to be learning). And my uneasiness was not about sending him off to school, since he's been in day care full time for 4 years. And it's not the thought of putting a little guy on the bus alone (well ok, maybe that a little).

On some reflection, I realized was unsettled me was all the forms we brought home. Starting school means it is time for him to be tracked and stacked and other impersonal stuff, like "do you really live in this town?" Yeah, I know he's been in the system since the day he was born (hey the kid even has a passport) but something about a stack of forms really did it for me.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Anthropology and advertising?

I read an interesting article on trend forecasting today. I've always found this fascinating (and wonder how much anybody checks later to see if the forecasters were right). The only thing that bothered me about this one, and this is not new, is the claim that what they do is like cultural anthropology. This is not a diss on advertising, marketing, trend forecasting, or any of the other fields that claim to be like anthropology--these folks to interesting work. I am just annoyed at the claim itself. Granted, we anthropologists are not always good at advertising ourselves...in that we offer a holistic approach, and theoretical insight based on our training. So anybody who observes people is now an anthropologist. Or is it just that Americans are so used to sound bites that they don't understand the nuanced differences in anything? Sigh.

To Label or Not to Label?

Blogger now not only allows me to tag my posts (that's label in google talk for some reason), but I can display for all my readers the labels and how often I have used them. For now I have added that widget (see right side of the screen). At first, I thought I would go back to all my old posts and tag them (maybe I still will). Then it seemed daunting. Then I worried about being somewhat consistent in my tagging, so that a reader could clearly see that I write a lot about anthropology, or social media. But then I looked at my posts and realized I actually write about a lot of different things. So if I start labeling, do I end up with just a long list of tags? Or do I then feel a need to constrain what I write about to a defined set of categories? I realize blogs with a theme are powerful...and I think I have some themes running through here...interspersed with random thoughts or items that catch my interest. What to do? Does it matter? Is there meaning in tags (beyond the me

Yammer and distractions

We had a very interesting teleconference with some folks from Yammer on Friday. It was a great opportunity to learn about best practices and for our security minded folks to ask questions in that arena. There were probably 10 or 12 people on the call, mostly non-colocated, and several were live yammering the call. While I didn't add posts describing the content of the call, I did join into the discussions. It was an interesting experience for me. It was nice to have the side conversations, but I have to admit it was also distracting. Is it any less rude or distracted than emailing in a face to face meeting? I suppose since it was based in teh content of the meeting it may bedifferent...I know others found value in reading the yams later. I should perhaps fess up to trying to do some other work as well, but I know it distracted me and I am trying (not always successfully) to cut down on the mutlitasking to be more focused. My most important reminder to try not to be distracted is Ju