nature vs nurture?

Nature vs. Nurture?

A long thought about question. Is it where you were raised or how you were raised? Most of the parenting sites I get emails from think it is a balance of both. I agree with that, but for the sake of the blog I will view only Nature. I was born in San Antonio, TX and moved to Wilmington North Carolina when I was about 2 years old. I lived there until about two months after my 18^th birthday. The first 10 years of my life in Wilmington, we lived in a one story, 3-bedroom house, which was about 20 minutes from the any accessible shoreline. I explored creeks and streams, dared a patch of quick sand once, picked up pinecones for money, had a huge yard with it’s own mini forest, and once owned a lemonade stand. It sounds simple and it was. My mother got a promotion with a heavy pay increase. We moved to a three story, 4-bedroom house, which was walking distance to the ocean. This house was also on a man-made island and 20 minutes from any major stores (i.e. Wal-Mart). My “nature” changed significantly. Our yard was only big enough for one dog, we no longer had pinecones (which made my dad happy), and creeks and streams were traded for an entire ocean. My family and I took up bike riding and tried surfing. Though my location and life style changed a bit the culture around me did not. Fried food, being tan, big trucks/suv, accents, fishing, boobs, and Jesus were still large and everywhere. Then I moved from there to here. “Island life” in NC is far different than “Island life” in Hawaii. I was affected hugely by a culture shock. I latched on to country music, starting making my own sweet tea, ate fried chicken and cheeseburgers anytime I could, I was the tannest I had ever been, and overall I missed home. I was connected to the south, to North Carolina. I missed the “world” I was use to.  It is a part of me that will never leave me.

Can we create the same sense of connection in preschool? Can we teach children the local “nature” for them to feel rooted? Are preschool children old enough to grasp the deep message? Does it take a culture shock to realize how connected you were to a place   

Did I pass the test?

As a child with ADHD growing up with testing was difficult. My was an educator and new the effects ADHD had on a classroom. The day they said "We think your daughter has ADHD and we can treat her...." My mother chose medication for me. I could talk about how the medicine effected me and social experiment I was for the doctors, ect. But, what I always feared were test! In North Carolina, the test start counting in the Third Grade. If you do not pass the big bad test at 8 years old you can not move on to the next grade. There was a grading scale of 1-4. 1 was not passing and 2 was barely passing, 3 was average and 4 was above average. My family and I made sure I had the medication, full nights rest, good breakfast, "brainfood" snack. I was coached about taking my time, reading over every question, reading every answer, skipping and coming back to questions I didn't know, the whole nine yards!   Take the test and wait a month. BITING NAILS!! Results came in and most time it was:
Math - 3 Reading - 3 Writing -2.  Then a bunch of statistic were complied and I came out average/ boarder line below. Like Lang, I had to go home and show my mom the State of North Carolina Testing Board thought I was average/ boarder line below average. My mom would always give a pep talk about uniquiness and tesing can be hard....
          Just like lang's teacher said, how many people has this happened to? Can graphite and circle's really tell the ability of one's intelligenence? I read a quote in the last few months about being a genius, " Everybody is a genius.  But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.”  ~Albert Einstein " I remind myself of this quote often when dealing with children and assessments.  Telling myself each child has their strength and weakness in all areas.  As a child the testes stressed me out and made me worry about what will happen to my future. I can imagine the stress and anticpation a child going to public school is going through, though I think by now it is just second nature to sit down and take a test for them. Will they ever stop? probably not! How can we change them for the future children not to feel defeated?