Summer vacation – Memphis Flyer

It’s officially summer! My kids are completely elated, and to be honest, so am I. But as an educator, I’m always asked, “What are your kids doing during the summer?” Well, the short answer is they are still learning. While their traditional school may be out, summer learning in my household is in full effect. My kids are 10, twin 12-year-olds, and a 15-year-old (OMG, he’ll start driving this summer!).

Here’s what this curriculum looks like:

• Learn how to read the MATA bus schedule and ride the bus across town. I know that Uber is a thing, but I still believe in public transportation. I feel that people should know how to travel in their city in all formats.

• Put together a shelf. Following directions is a learned skill. And following printed instructions is even more difficult. So each of my kids will be required to purchase a shelf (using their allowance) and put it together by themselves.

• Read an autobiography. You don’t have to experience life’s hard lessons in order to learn from them. One can gain a lot of insight about life from reading about someone else’s experience.

• Paint a wall. Okay, I’m sure there’s some educational aspect to painting a wall, but honestly I just want a few accent walls in the house and the kids have nothing but time.

• Learn the lyrics to important Disney songs. So far, they have failed their “A Whole New World” from Aladdin. Up next is “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas. My kids have near zero music knowledge, unless it comes from video games. And I refuse to have them embarrassing the family name because they don’t know a single song from The Lion King. So, may the odds be ever in their favor.

• Learn how to bake the perfect cookie. This task shouldn’t be too hard since I’ve given them the recipe to the perfect cookie dough base. Especially since the end product is so delicious, they should be extra motivated to get it right. The secret is in the temperature.

• Learn how to make strawberry jam. In order to do this, they need to first pick some fresh strawberries from Jones Orchard. Then follow a simple recipe and voilà! I can’t wait to see if the kids get the consistency right and are able to explain why. Science!

• Grocery shop and prepare meals. During the school year, I did the grocery shopping. As a family, we each took turns to prepare dinners. My husband, my oldest son, and I each had our own day. The twins and the youngest daughter shared a day. But now, they must learn and strengthen their tech muscles and stretch their cooking skills. Each kid is responsible for going on kroger.com and putting their needed items for breakfast, lunch, and dinner into the shopping cart for review. They must also notify me of the lunch and the dinner they will be preparing the following week.

• Learn how to operate Google Calendar. With four kids, each wants to hang out with their friends and go to different events. It can become overwhelming trying to remember everything for everyone. So if they want to engage in anything outside of the four walls of our house, they must send us a Google Calendar invite.

• Learn how to navigate public spaces. I think this may be the only part of summer learning they are looking forward to. One day a week, they get to decide where they would like to hang out. In navigating public spaces, they need to practice respect of the place and the people, noise level control, and basic street-smarts. They’re already excited about practicing this at the MoSH, Crosstown Concourse, Memphis Chess Club, and the library.

• Learn how to play spades. (This is a prerequisite to gaining their Black Card.)

• Learn about music greats such as Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Ray Charles, Prince, Miles Davis, and Sam Cooke to name a few. They will be given a playlist that they are more than welcomed to listen to as they clean their rooms.

Through this summer learning curriculum, the kids utilize their reading, math, science, and social studies skills. They are learning things that they wouldn’t necessarily get in an ordinary classroom. I have always believed that I am my child’s first teacher, and there’s no way that our school systems can teach our children everything. One thing that I have learned in my years as an educator is that children will learn! They are going to learn something, from someone or from somewhere. It’s up to us as parents to ensure their learning is rounded and balanced.

Patricia Lockhart is a native Memphian who loves to read, write, cook, and eat. Her days are filled with laughter with her four kids and charming husband. By day, she’s a school librarian and writer, but by night … she’s asleep. @realworkwife @memphisismyboyfriend

I can say with pride my wife Lisa is a “professional vacationer.” It’s not enough the woman works long hours at her regular job, but say the word “vacation,” and her fingers start flying all over the keyboard, checking out websites, looking for the best available deals at various destinations.

You see, the problem with using a travel agency is they basically suggest to you all the ways you can have leisurely fun. There are no guarantees that once you get there you’ll actually participate in things like para-sailing, hang gliding or horseback riding. They look good in the pictures, but I like to come back home alive. It’s why I take so much stock in the activities Lisa plans for a trip. A lot of places, she’s already been. She knows the lay of the land. But, most importantly, she takes great pains to ensure we’re going to take advantage of vacation pursuits both of us will enjoy.

This has not been the case in most of my life. Even the prospect of embarking on a vacation scared me so profoundly that when the National Lampoon’s Vacation movies came out, I was the only one in the theater who never laughed. The scripted family chaos was too close to home to be funny. We were the black Griswalds! Taking a vacation conjured up visions of some “death march” to get there before hotel check-in time. My usually affable grandpa, rather than stopping at highway rest stops, sternly enforced the “urinate in a can” rule until we got to our location. His kind eyes would morph into those of a steely eyed Transformer as he and the steering wheel melded into one determined machine.

Even after arriving at a chosen vacation spot, we were never guaranteed we would find peace and serenity. I have only my brother Larry as personal witness to the family’s annual two-week treks from Fulton, Missouri, to Las Vegas. The prospect of six people riding shoulder to shoulder in one car going across the desert never appealed to me, so I’d come up with some lame excuse not to go. Besides, everybody going knew there was one place in all of Vegas that couldn’t be avoided. It was some off-the-Strip lounge where my mother, yearly mind you, wanted to see a comedian named “Cookie Jar.” He was touted as a poor man’s Redd Foxx. Larry says his jokes were so off-color and downright obscene people started heading for the exits within the first five minutes of his act. But apparently my mother would laugh so hard tears would come to her eyes. She also raved about him because after his shows he’d come to her table and remember her name. Wow! When you’re playing to an audience of 10 people that’s pretty amazing, alright.

As I became a parent, mapping out summer camp for the children was just as challenging as mulling over the family vacation. While living in Florida, we chose to send the boys off to a four-week Bible camp. It’s not that we were all that religious, but we figured there’d be plenty of healthy physical activities to occupy their minds and bodies. Week one went really well. We visited them just to make sure all was good. They chattered about canoeing and hiking. We couldn’t have been more pleased. But, just before the start of the final week, they came home for a brief respite. At dinner, they were strangely silent, until we started to chow down. Then, as if in some Children of the Corn cult-like trance, they rose to announce: “If you and mom don’t change your ways, you will be part of the heathen savages that will be engulfed in the fiery pit of Hell, where Satan will eternally torture you until your heads fall off and they’ll be eaten by rats!”

No, we didn’t send them back for the final week of camp.

All of which brings me back to Lisa’s marvelous plans for a trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where we will be when you read this article. It’s one of those all-expenses pre-paid trips where you eat and drink to your heart’s content. There are blue skies and lovely Pacific Ocean beaches. However, just before we left, I caught my wife staring off into space. I asked what was wrong. She said, “Ah, nothing. It’s just that I’ve got a lot of work to do to take you on vacation,” and I said, “It’ll be fine. I checked. Cookie Jar is still in Vegas.”