Friday Focus

If we want kids to talk to us, we should listen when they do.... How much they open up depends a lot on how well we listen up (from Dr. Thomas Lickona, Raising Good Children: From Birth Through the Teenage Years).

Alternatives to Flash Cards

Several families have commented that their child has trouble mastering basic math facts—but they get bored with "flash cards." Is there anything else they can do to provide help that avoids flash cards?

Many kids make it to junior high without knowing basic math facts. They can’t instantly recall the product of 9 x 8. They don't look at 7 + 5 and think 12. This can make math much more difficult for them. These activities can help:

• Hot Potato. Call out a problem (such as 8 x 8) when you pitch a ball, beanbag, or potato to your child. See if he can say the answer before he catches it. Let him quiz you, too!
• One minute tests. Twice a week write out (or computer generate) 50 problems. Time your child to see how many he can answer in a minute, Consider giving a reward if he beats his last score.
• Multiplication Cards. Remove the face cards from a card deck. Each player turns over one card. The player who says the product of the cards first wins them. Go through the entire stack.
• Beat the calculator. Write problems on slips of paper. Put them face down. After you flip one over, see if your child can say the answer before you solve it with a calculator.

For more helpful ideas check out:

www.kidzone.ws/math/quiz.html
www.aplusmath.com
www.multiplication.com

White Elephant Sale

San Francisco Adventist School will host a "White Elephant Sale" on Sunday, September 24, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. The event will take place at our school. We are in need of your donated items that are clean and in good condition.

Proceeds from this event will be used to help replace our fence at school. For more information, please contact Ms. Beale at 415-345-9162.

Memory is a Tricky Thing

When I typed the dateline for this "FAX of Life," it struck me. September 11, 2006, is an anniversary date. It had not been my plan to write anything like what will follow now. But just writing the date pulled up a flood of memories.

Yes, I remember where I was when I first heard that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. No, I don't remember which tower was hit first or fell first. Yes, I remember the sense of disbelief mixed with fear that the United States had been attacked on its own soil. No, I don't remember any of the conversations of the next day or two in any detail, for I think I was in a state akin to shock.

9/11 is not the sort of anniversary we "celebrate." We just remember what happened then. We feel some of the same emotions we felt that day. They are not so jumbled now for some of us, but they are even more confused for others. Spouses, partners, children and parents of people who died not only in New York but in Washington, D.C., and in a field in Pennsylvania have had to move ahead with their lives as best they could. Some haven't done very well.

September 11 will be for my children's generation what December 7 was for my parents' generation. The date will "live in infamy." It will most often be spoken rather softly and with unavoidable sadness. But memory is tricky.

I have confessed that some of the details are garbled in my mind already. For others, things are even worse. They look back and use hateful rhetoric about the day being America's own fault. The result of global arrogance and failed policies. God's curse on America. The expression of "legitimate grievances" by people with "worthy motives." There is nothing worthy or defensible about terrorism, murder, ethnic hatred, bigoted biases, and fanatical intolerance--especially when done in the name of religion.

The opposite extreme to sympathy for terrorism is a blind nationalism that employs the rhetoric and actions of hatred for all things Eastern or Arabic or Islamic... or different for that matter... It makes churches and preachers into flag-wavers and activists rather than agents of change for the Kingdom of God. No nation or form of government or denomination is "God's favorite" on this globe. God is not Caucasian. He doesn't have an American passport. He is not Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, or Adventist. He grieves for every wound suffered and is angered by our inability to live in community with each other.

Memory is tricky. Far greater than the perils of faded or warped memories over time is the total loss of memory. As with amnesiacs or Alzheimer's patients, the loss of memory disconnects one from her identity. As we remember 9/11 this week, please pray--for our nation's leaders, for our allies, for our enemies.

The world has changed. And we must have divine wisdom to find our way.

--Rubel Shelly