I HAVE THE POWERRRRRR!

little girl: (holding a spongebob squarepants book) what level is this?
me: we don't have levels here. what grade are you in?
little girl: third
me: then you can read that book
girl: (eyes wide with excitement) yay, thanks!

and miss dewey decimal saves the day by allowing kids to read books that are interesting!

reading level riot

before i start my rant let me tell you that i do in fact know some teachers personally, and they are not retarded. i assume these "non-retarded" teachers are not the minority, but evidence has proven the contrary.

so it has come to my attention that someone at the local school is dissatisfied with the library. they work with parents and say that a lot of parents have been complaining that they are unable to find the books that are on their child's "level." complaining to the school, because it is the school that gives the assignments, not us.

now, these reading levels are made up of letters which determine what books the child "can" read. we do not use levels here. when a kid comes up and says "what book would be good for me?" we ask the kid a series of questions and then pick out books for that child. OR , another way to put it is that instead of just pigeonholing a child into a meaningless system, we give each child individual attention and help them find a book which is appropriate and interesting to them. this is how it has been in public libraries since the dawn of children's literature. if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

so this person from the school was complaining that the public library should be organized not by dewey decimal system, or by genre, or author ... oh no! instead the library which serves the ENTIRE community, should be organized by the local school's reading level system. of course! let's cater to just you, local school! forget the community as a whole!

it was even suggested that the school would send help so that we could re-arrange our collection of tens of thousands of books to their liking. then i helpfully suggested that if they want a library that caters to them, maybe they should work on their own school library. surely, it would make sense if the school wants a library that caters to the school's reading level system, why not do this at the school library. see where i'm going here? but alas, the school library doesn't have all the books that ours does. so instead of them working to improve their collection, they figure it will be easier and cheaper to just mess with us. thanks!

you might be asking yourself, "self, what's so bad about reading levels?" well i'll tell you. reading levels are not inherently evil. but here at the library it isn't our job to teach kids how to read or to give them boring reading assignments. our job is to foster a love of reading. so if a kid picks up a book that interests them, we encourage them to read it. maybe it's a graphic novel, maybe it's a magazine, maybe it's a book that's a little too easy for them but they'd enjoy reading it. we don't care! we just want people to read something that they like reading. then later, if they want to read something more difficult, they can read that too.

imagine if adults had reading levels ... i would love to go up to someone and say, "oh i'm sorry sir, you can't read that new dan brown book. the lost symbol is totally below your reading level. here's a copy of the canterbury tales instead." or maybe next time i see a nice old lady picking up a danielle steele novel i should rip it out of her hands and give her madame bovary instead. you catch my drift?

and a few times i have actually encountered kids who wanted to read a more advanced book, but were afraid to since it wasn't on their level. can you imagine? some kid picks up harry potter and then finds out that it's a level above him so he puts it back and picks out something that is less interesting to him. great! what a way to encourage reading!

now, just to further complicate things ... many non-teachers believe that reading levels are a bit of a scam created by the publishing companies. for instance, they sell these "leveled" books in bulk to the schools, and many of the titles are not available for separate purchase by libraries or other individuals. also, many of the titles which are on these reading level lists are actually out of print, and therefore can no longer be purchased.

in the end, i was told i should "meet up" with this school person and "work it out." but i am a bit unclear about what there is to "work out." i think in the meantime, i will just stick to recommending quality age appropriate books to the children. like i'm a librarian or something.

the kid formerly known as my favorite kid

so my favorite kid came in yesterday and as i mentioned he hasn't been coming in much. i had spoken with him last time regarding how important it is that he come to the library to do his homework. i had made him show me his homework, and it turns out he wasn't doing half of it.

so yesterday he comes in all proud, telling me that he gets a check every day for his homework, and that on his progress report it says that he always completes his homework. now, i know favorite kid. i know he does not posses the ability to do his homework on his own without serious prodding. so i am dubious of this progress report. i ask him to show me his homework and i see he has written out his times tables in his notebook, and there is indeed a checkmark. but i pry further.

"can you show me your assignment sheet?" i ask. and he shows me a sheet with a list of things he is supposed to do each day. "where are your spelling words?" i ask. he tells me he didn't do that part. "and where is this part where you are supposed to read an article and write about the who, what, where, when and why?" oh, surprise surprise, he didn't do that part either. he tells me he doesn't have articles at home.

"and where might you go to get articles, favorite kid."
"here," he groans.

then he argues with me that it must be ok that he is not doing all of his homework because his teacher is giving him checks everyday anyway. what the hell kind of teacher is this? so then i tell him that i think his teacher is being lazy.

"who is going to suffer in the end from you not doing your homework, favorite kid?"
"me," he groans.
what do you want to be when you grow up?" i ask.
"a lawyer," he tells me.
"well, lawyers need to do their homework in order to get to college. and they need to take a test. you can't be a lawyer if you don't do your homework."
"or a cop! i want to be a cop!"
"you still need to do your homework. there's a test to be a cop too."

then he tells me that he thinks his teacher is really tired, and goes on to do an impression of him. this impression looks very much like favorite kid's impression of our old teen tutor who was let go due to napping (maybe he was really a narcoleptic veteran! i am so insensitive when it comes to narcoleptic veteranss).

so then i tell favorite kid that i care about him and i want him to succeed. i tell him he needs to come in more and he needs to do his homework. he tells me he will, but seconds later he is goofing off. and then, dear blog readers, something dawned on me. i do not think that favorite kid is my favorite kid anymore. i think i have moved on.

i slack off and inadvertantly stumble into genius

sometimes things come to us from on high. and when i say "on high" i do not mean a high power. i mean The Bureaucracy. we were told last year that we had to do one program a month about health. typically my assistant and i will put "health works" on the calendar and then hope to come up with an idea later. often this idea originates minutes before the program begins (like my healthy snack bingo game! oh how i love turning facts into bingo!) anyway, today we were supposed to do health works but my assistant and i looked at each other and without saying anything we mutually decided we would not be doing health works this afternoon.

instead we decided to do a program one of the kids came up with, called "poem day." now, i have the kids write poems all the time, so i was unsure how poem day would be different. but at the last moment i had a stroke of brilliance and i decided i would get some poem books and talk about them.

so i discussed shel silverstein, jack prelutsky, the graphic novel version of "casey at the bat," and langston hughes. i saved langston hughes for last, figuring i would read "i, too" for some wow factor that would get them inspired to write their own poems.

but first i decided on a whim to talk about what was going on in america during langston hughes life. so then we get into a discussion about the civil rights movement. now, they have their martin luther king and rosa parks facts memorized, but you ask them what the civil rights movement was about and they have no idea. so i told them about segregation and blacks being kept from the polls, and freedom fighters and people being hosed, et cetera et cetera.

after reading the poem, we went through several meaningful lines and i asked the kids what they thought these lines meant. and the kids came up with some pretty thoughtful answers. but it was at this time that my assistant and i realized that the kids have no idea about history and the chronological order which history took place in. several times i had to explain to one girl that the civil rights movement was in the 1960s and that the revolutionary war was in the 1770s. i mean, c'mon now. i'm no history buff. not by a long shot. but i think a child should be able to tell the difference between 1960 and 1770. do i ask too much?

so i made a timeline of the history of the united states, putting in such important dates as the end of slavery, the abolotionist movements, martin luther king jr. being shot, the first 4th of july, the birthdays of me and my assistant, etc etc.

the whole thing was pretty damned awesome. what was most awesome is that they actually listened to me and possibly even retained some of what i said. for a fleeting second i thought about joining the ranks of my enemies and becoming a teacher. but i immediately thought better of it. i could never wake up that early.

so after our lesson kid who hates hoboes asked me, "hey miss dewey decimal, how do you know so much stuff?"
and to this i felt the honest answer was best, "i'll be perfectly honest with you, kid who hates hoboes. i didn't like school much. but i like being smart. so i paid attention enough to learn the things that i thought were important and i went to college and then i got to learn lots of stuff. and now i am the very smart person you see before you."

and the kids oooohed and aaaahed at how i, a normal young slacker type white girl from the suburbs, had transformed into the super crafty smart gal they all know and love.

all my children left behind: a rant about well-rounded education

something just dawned on me ... i was reading up on No Child Left Behind, which i of course have been familiar with for some time now. and suddenly i noticed something i hadn't noticed before:

H.R. 1 will result in the creation of assessments in each state that
measure what children know and learn in reading and math in grades 3-8.

reading and math. not all subjects, mind you, just reading and math. well, no wonder my kids don't know anything about history. no wonder they look at me all clueless when i ask them questions about such things as: the story of thanksgiving, the revolutionary war, susan b. anthony, the declaration of independence, et cetera et cetera. they are only learning about reading and math. and to be quite honest they're barely learning that. but it is now obvious to me that in the mad dash to measure up to the reading and math levels that NCLB has proposed, my kids are missing out on such things as science, basic geography, basic american history, art, music, and physical fitness.

thank you republicans! i will blame YOU next time i have to explain for the gazillionth time that Queens is a part of New York City, or that New York City is a part of New York State, or that New York State is in the Northeastern (top right) part of the United States, which is on the continent of North America. because my kids, typically grades 3-6, don't know any of that stuff.

p.s. the other day i had to explain to a 7th grader that there were SEVEN continents on the earth, and that the map her teacher had given her to fill out was incorrect because it only showed six continents. nice! antarctica ... apparently not important!

a frightening fourth of july tale

ah yes, it's that time again. what time is it, miss dewey decimal? oh, it's time to shudder at the lack of education which my kids are receiving! yay!

before we begin i have decided that whenever a holiday is coming up we will spend the ENTIRE MONTH of that holiday learning what the holiday means. do you know my kids STILL don't know what the mayflower is? grrrrr.

yesterday we made a fourth of july craft. it involved splattering paint on paper so that it looked like fireworks. it was very fun. and before the craft began my assistant made the mistake of asking a 5th grade girl what the meaning of fourth of july is. she looked at us, stunned, as if we asked her to explain the theory of relativity. then, a 7th grade girl came in, so we asked her the same question. and she said, "fourth of july is a time to spend time with your family because they love you?"

so then i gave the girls two books on the fourth of july. these two books were on a 2nd grade reading level. i told them to read the books and then tell me what the fourth of july is about. after about two minutes they both reported that they could now tell me what the fourth of july means.
me: oh yeah? why do we celebrate the fourth of july
5th grader: this guy he was in charge and he told these people something and then the declaration of independence.
me: that makes absolutely no sense. if i were a kid and i came up to you and said, "hey what is the fourth of july? what would you say?"
5th grader: [silence]
7th grader: it's like a time that you spend with your family and go on picnics?
me: that is not what it says in those books. read those books. work together. discuss. then i want you to make a presentation to me about why we celebrate the fourth of july.

so they read and i saw them taking notes and i thought that they were finally getting it. then the 7th grader asked me if she can copy something from the book.

me: i can read the book. if i wanted to read the book, i'd read the book myself. i want you to tell me what the fourth of july means. in your words. it doesn't have to be formal. it doesn't have to be a long report. it could be one sentence explaining why we celebrate this holiday.


she groans and then goes back to writing. then, about ten minutes later they tell me that they are done. so i tell them they should practice what they're going to say and that in a little while we will start the craft and they will tell me about the fourth of july.

me: ok, before we do our craft these two lovely girls are going to tell us about the fourth of july. which one of you wants to go first.
7th grader: the fourth of july is a holiday we celebrate. we celebrate it with family and we have picnics with our family and watch fireworks.
me: that's what you said before. that wasn't in the book. that is not WHY we celebrate fourth of july.
5th grader: fourth of july was not always a holiday. it became a federal holiday in 1870.
me: [pause for more information]
me: is that it? that's true but that doesn't tell us WHY we celebrate the holiday or what it MEANS. why do we celebrate the fourth of july?!
5th grader and 7th grader: [silence]
me: i am really disappointed in you guys. i gave you those books and you obviously didn't read any of it. you can't tell me one thing about the fourth of july?
5th grader and 7th grader: [silence]
me: okay ... can anyone tell me about the fourth of july
4th grader: it's when we celebrate the statue of liberty
me: no ... but that is closer. the statue of liberty is a symbol of america. but why do we celebrate the fourth of july?
3rd grader: is that when the statue of liberty was made?
me: fourth of july really has nothing to do with the statue of liberty.

please note that none of the answers they gave mentioned the words: freedom, free country, independence, etc.

so i go into the story of the fourth of july, and along the way i ask them questions, hoping that at any moment they would be able to jump in with something, anything, they learned in school.

but sadly, they knew nothing. when i asked who ruled the colonies before we became a free country they didn't know. when i told them it was the british and then asked where the british were from, they didn't know. when i asked them what country the colonists came from one young man answered, "the south?" i then had to explain that "the south" is not a country. when i asked what the declaration of independence was the 7th grade girl said she thought it was the speech that lincoln gave. when i asked if anyone had ever heard the phrase "no taxation without representation" i was met by shrugs. and so on and so on. i tell you ... private school ... my unborn children will be going to private school.

but today is a new day! i have created some extremely basic fourth of july trivia questions and we will play trivia and they will learn a modicum of knowledge about american history. here is what i came up with. we'll see how they do.

1. In what year did the Colonists declare their independence from the British?
a. 1776
b. 1886
c. 1996
d. 2006


2. Before America became a free country, who ruled us?


3. What country are British people from (I will not accept Britain as an answer)?


4. The colonists were to become the first Americans. What country did they come from?


5. How many colonies were there?


6. Name one of the 13 colonies.


7. Name a state that was NOT one of the 13 colonies.


8. What was the main thing the colonists did not like about being ruled by the British?
hint: No [blank] without Representation


9. Who was the ruler of England during this time?


10. What was the document called that declared that the colonists would no longer be under the rule of the British?


11. What war was started by the Declaration of Independence?


12. What is it called when a group of people fight against the power that rules them?


13. What was the name of the group that wrote the Declaration of Independence?
a. The Congress of Patriots
b. The Senate
c. The Continental Congress
d. The House of Representatives


14. During the time of the Revolutionary War there were a group of colonists who wanted to remain under the rule of the British (they did NOT want to revolt and form their own country). What were they called?
a. Patriots
b. Loyalists
c. Whigs
d. Tories


15. What was the name for the colonists who wanted toform their own free independent country?
a. Patriots
b. Loyalists
c. Whigs
d. Torries
e. Americans


16. Which of the following countries assisted the colonists in winning the Revolutionary War?
a. Spain
b. Mexico
c. France
d. England


17.Who won the Revolutionary War?


18. Who designed the American Flag?


19. Which of these people were members of the Continental Congress AND signed the Declaration of Independence AND became a US President?
a. Thomas Jefferson
b. Abraham Lincoln
c. Samuel Adams



20. Which of these members of the Continental Congress, who signed the Declaration of Independence, later became a US President?
a. John Adams
b. Benjamin Franklin
c. John Hancock


21. Who was the President of the Continental Congress, but what never the president of the United States?
a. George Washington
b. Samuel Adams
c. John Hancock
d. Paul Revere


22. After The United States of America gained its independence, we received The Statue of Liberty as a gift from what country?
a. England
b. Spain
c. Mexico
d. France


23. Before the Declaration of Independence was signed there were many events in which the colonists rebelled against British rule. Which of the following events is an example of the American colonists rebelling against the British?
a. The Salem Witch Trials
b. Bastille Day
c. The Boston Tea Party
d. Battle of Bunker Hill


24. Which countries celebrate the Fourth of July?

worth your weight in googley eyes

do you know what this is? it's a close-up of the bag of googley eyes that was delivered today! and we got all our crafts for summer reading, which include kits for making: bracelets, suncatchers, 3D fish, kaleidoscopes (can you believe the kid who hates hoboes doesn't know what a kaleidoscope is?), paddleballs, etc. AND we received our butterfly growing kit (caterpillars to be sent at a later date). oooh, it's going to be a fun summer.
today we played a rousing round of "word up," the dictionary racing game invented by yours truly. i noticed that even after our last session of word up, the kids kind of have NO CLUE how to use a dictionary. so today i did a little demonstration using guide words and a sort of alphabet time-line showing how to determine where in the alphabet a given letter would be.
man, i just don't know what these kids learn in school. i mean, nevermind that they have no concept of how to use a dictionary, but alot of them barely know alphabetical order. and i'm talking kids in 3rd and 4th grade. i asked one girl where M would be on my alphabetic time line. "would it be in the beginning, the middle, or the end?" and she just looked at me blankly like i asked her to solve some quantum physics equation. grrrrrr.

clean and serene

back at the 'brary on a saturday. as sad as that is there is a bit of joyfulness in knowing that i will not be working another saturday for 4 weeks! how is this possible? i don't know! and i don't care!
today the kid who hates hoboes came in. he was wearing a lanyard around his neck with a big white plastic skull hanging from it. and then next to the skull i noticed there was a tear-drop shaped leather keychain, with gold letters embossed in it. it read, "clean and serene for 2 years." obviously, the kid who hates hoboes is too young to have had a substance abuse problem and then have overcome said substance abuse problem 2+ years ago. so who is this person who gave him the clean and serene keychain? was it one of his parents? at first i thought it was innappropriate to give a child something like that. but then after i thought about it for a second, i thought maybe the kid who hates hoboes is really proud of this clean and serene person. maybe this person became clean and serene specifically for him.
and then the kid who hates hoboes told me he was really bored. and then i said that i too was bored. and then he told me that he was learning his 6 times tables in school (pause for me to rant about how he should already have learned his 6 times tables by now. he is entering 5th grade next fall!) so i quizzed him a little and found out he really hadn't retained any of his 6 times tables. so i gave him these flashcards i had made for my favorite kid, and told him that if he could learn all the 6s i would give him a prize. so he dutifully sat at a table and memorized the flashcards and a little later i quizzed him and he got them all right. and then i gave him a clown nose. these kids will do anything for cheap prizes.
and that dear blog readers was my saturday.

stupid teacher assignments: part 1

find information on pi day. now, please understand that it took a good 20 minutes for the child to communicate with me that she was referring to pi and not pie. but who wants to celebrate pi anyway?! i'd much rather celebrate pie. especially a good apple pie. or maybe pumpkin, if you're feeling autumnal.

losing my cool

i know i complain a lot about various things. but that is part of my charm, no? anyway, i think you would agree that i hardly ever complain about the children. and even though sometimes i might get frustrated with them (usually because of the pathetic education they are receiving), it is obvious that i love them. right? so i think i can say, without feeling too guilty, that the children drove me absolutely nuts today. seriously, i never say that, but today i really wanted to strangle many of the children.
they all had a half day today because of parent teacher conferences, so they came in at 12 instead of at 3. that is 3 whole extra hours of children. i was not prepared in my weakened ill state for this type of juvenile onslaught. and there is one kid whom i will refer to here on in as annoying child. man does he annoy me.
first, i was adding books to my women's history display and he comes up to me and asks me what it is. i say, "it's women's history month so i have all these different books about women."
"where are the men books?" he asks.
so i repeat. verbatim. "it's women's history month so i have all these different books about women."
"you need more books on men," he says.
so i ask, "were you listening to what i said?"
he says yes and then repeats back what i said, but still asks why i don't have more books on men on display.
my favorite kid happened to be within earshot and he tried to explain the idea of women's history month, but it didn't seem to sink in.
and he pretty much just annoyed me non-stop all day. first he kept asking when the program started (3:30, every day. EVERY DAY THE SAME TIME) and i kept telling him and he kept saying how bored he was and how he wished there was something to do. and then i said, "get away from my desk! you MUST learn to entertain yourself. starting now!"
then finally we had our program at 3:30 (it was actually a great program i made up about nutrition. and then we got to play "snack" bingo. i love bingo!) so as he is leaving he says loudly that women's history month is stupid and that women have never done anything.
so i pull him aside and say that what he said was very offensive to me. and i told him that i would never say something like that about him (at least not to his face) and then i said, "you come in here every day and me and ms. assistant have activities for you, and we help you with your homework. don't you dare insult us. we don't have to do any of this for you." and then ms. assistant chimed in and asked him about his mother and didn't he love his mother, who is also a woman. oh yeah, we totally double teamed him.
then after about an hour or so of fooling around and me telling him that he is "annoying me" and "getting on my last nerve," at 5:45 he asks me to find him a "baby book." i ask him what grade he is in and he tells me he is in third, but that he needs to do a book report and the library is closing in 15 minutes, so he needs a baby book. so i pretty much lose it and tell him that i absolutely will not find him a baby book. instead i give him a grade appropriate book and a lecture about time management.
and then i decided that instead of going to my novel writing class tonight, i would go home and eat lots of takeout and watch tv. because i am still sick and these kids irritated me to no end today. and so, dear blog readers, with that i am off to peruse my takeout menus and find a place for myself on the couch.

women's history month: a frightening tale

i have a sore throat and i don't feel like being witty today. so i will just tell you that today we discussed women's history and i asked the kids to think of famous important women. it went something like this:
me: who are some famous important women?
kids: [sound of crickets chirping]
me: anyone
favorite kid: rosa parks?
me: yes, but can you think of someone that we didn't already discuss for black history month?
other kid: harriet tubman?
me: yes, but again, we discussed her for black history month. can you think of any other famous women?
kids: [silence]
me: okay ... do you know any of the women who fought for the right to vote?
other kid: rosa parks?
me: what did rosa parks do?
other kid: she sat in the front of the bus.
me: yeah, so it's not her. any one? any famous woman? any woman from history?
kids: [far off in the distance you could hear the sound of the educational system crumbling]
me: susan b anthony!
kids: who?
me: oh god.
and it pretty much went like that for the following women: clara barton, sandra day o'connor, amelia earhart, j.k. rowling, florence nightingale, condolezza rice, sally ride, eleanor roosevelt, sacajawea, etc etc.
to his credit, my favorite kid did mention hillary clinton. so that was good. other mentions were beyonce and some chick i never heard of from american idol.

which came first? the book or the movie? THE BOOK, GOD DAMNIT! PICK IT UP AND READ IT!

i support teachers, i really do. they have a tough job. but sometimes they make it difficult for me to support them. are they trying to make enemies with me? for instance, they are always sending kids in the library for these crazy projects and they tell the kids "the librarian will have a book for you on this!" but they never bother to check if a) a book on this was ever actually written or b) whether or not the library owns said book. for instance, we do not own a book on how tools have affected society. we have books on tools, that show pictures of hammers and screw drivers and describe their uses (we also have books on simple machines and pulleys), but nothing that discusses how society has benefited from tools. do you really need a book on that? can't you just look at a building or a car or a computer or a well-hung shelf to understand the importance of tools? did the teacher even think about this assignment before sending kids off to the library?
and don't even get me started on their antiquated mandatory summer reading lists that contain god knows how many books that are out of print. OUT OF PRINT! do a little research people!
but i digress to the rant at hand ... yesterday the kids come in and they are all excited to tell me about the field trip they went on. where did they go, you ask? well, this is new york city so there is a wealth of educational places to take children to, many of which are free or cheap.
let me list a few, just in case you live in a cave or are from out of town: the museum of natural history, the metropolitan museum of art, the children's museum of manhattan, brooklyn children's museum, new york hall of science, any number of botanical gardens, etc etc.
did my kids go to any of these places on their field trip? no. did they go anywhere remotely educational? no. where did they go? where? they went to the freaking movies. now, i love the movies. i see lots o' movies. but are you telling me that you can't find a better activity for children to MISS SCHOOL for than a trip to the movies?!
well, maybe this isn't so bad. what movie did they see? maybe the movie was somehow educational? maybe it related to black history month somehow? not so. they saw the spiderwick chronicles. ok, i thought to myself, that is at least based on a popular series of children's books. i bet the teacher had them all read the book and then they went to the movie.
so i ask my favorite kid, "favorite kid ... did your teacher have your class read the book before seeing the movie?"
"what book?" my favorite kid asks.
groan. sigh. shed a single tear. "the book the spiderwick chronicles."
"oh," he says excitedly, "they made a book about the movie?"
"NO," i shout, jumping away from my desk to where my spiderwick chronicles book display is, "there is a whole series of books that were written a few years ago and then they were so popular that someone made it into a movie."
then i hand him a book and he looks at it in amazement, as if he has not been surrounded by books every day.
then i gave a quick list of movies that he would know that are actually based on books: the wizard of oz, charlie and the chocolate factory, holes, the chronicles of narnia, harry potter, etc.
"did you teacher even mention that the movie was based on a book?"
"no," he says.
"maybe you should take this book out and show it to her," i say with a little too much attitude. "teach her a thing or two."
grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

librarian: sole giver of compliments

so yesterday my favorite kid comes in and he is looking a bit sullen ... then i show him the fab art deco clock i made for him out of a bloomingdales box (i am so crafty. i have also decorated my apartment using snowflakes made out of pages from the phonebook. this is the most useful function my phonebook has performed in years). anyway my favorite kid was very happy to see the clock. then he admitted to me that he had been afraid that i was going to be mad at him. so i explained that what happened the other day is in the past and it is all over and today is a new day and everything is fine.
we begin our time-telling lesson, and although it is slow-going, he is kind of getting it. having the fake clock helps. but every time he understands one concept, he loses comprehension of another concept. it's like, he can only understand pieces of time-telling, and he cannot grasp them all at once. so its very frustrating work.
have i mentioned that as a librarian i have never ever not even once in my life taken an education course. do you know why? because i am not an educator. i am a librarian and it is not my job to teach. i am supposed to guide people and find books for people and expose them to culture and stuff. so when i get very frustrated and lose my patience, it is not my fault because i am in no way qualified to be teaching people stuff. (except maybe teaching people to knit)
anyway, helping favorite kid with his homework is like pulling teeth. i have to give him prompts for everything and he can't concentrate and he has trouble retaining information. but finally, he just looked at this one problem and without me saying anything he blurted out the correct answer.
"that's right!" i say a little too loudly for the library. then he got all smiley and i said that whatever he did right then, whatever process he went through in his mind, that is the exact right process and he should do it every time.
"you know," he says, "you're the only person that compliments me."
"well," i say, slightly taken aback, "i think it's important to compliment people when they do something good."
"yeah," he says, "but no one else ever compliments me. you compliment me all the time."

so now i have created a situation in which i have become favorite kid's personal tutor. which is very difficult work AND it takes away from the time i am supposed to be spending helping other kids. but how can i not? it's like i need to save this kid. he is within my grasp and only i can save him. his family has let hime down, his teachers are too busy to give him the attention he needs. i am standing in a field of rye and everyone around me is falling through the cracks and he is the one that i have grabbed onto to save.

the story of thanksgiving OR why i will never send my children to public school

let me begin by telling you that i do not really believe in thanksgiving. as a vegetarian i don't eat turkey, so i'm always trying to make a meal out of side dishes. then there's the whole hypocrisy of the white man ruthlessly slaughtering indians and then pretending that we're friends. so this isn't a holiday i care about deeply. but i think it is important to understand our holidays and our culture, even if it is only so that we may dismiss and insult said culture later.

today while we were making thanksgiving wreaths, my lovely assistant decided to go around the room and have the kids say what they were thankful for. most were thankful for their families and friends. one boy was thankful for wwf wrestling. then my assistant suggested they should be thankful for me, and all that i do for them. so then they all thanked me. it was pretty cute.

then i thought why not discuss the story of thanksgiving (bad idea!). it went a little something like this:

(warning: this conversation happened with children in 4th-6th grade, and will terrify you)
me: so who knows the story of thanksgiving?
children: oh, i do! i do! it's when you give thanks and you share and you eat lots of food.
me: yes, that is what we do on thanksgiving. but who knows the story of thanksgiving: why we do those things?

children: (silence)

me: no one knows the story of thanksgiving?

children: it's when we won the war, right?

me: no, there was no war (kind of a lie, since we did later kill lots o' indians). don't you guys learn about this in school? about the pilgrims and the indians?

children: oh yeah, the pilgrims! they wear black and white!

me: yes, but what did the pilgrims do?

children: they won the war!

me: no! there was no war!

children: isn't thanksgiving when we honor martin luther king junior?

me: no! (rolling my eyes) that's martin luther king day! this is about the pilgrims!
children: they wore black and white and we have to be thankful.

me: many people wear black and white. the pilgrims came over in a boat from another country. does anyone know what country they came from?

children: (proudly) the united states of america!

me: no! that's where we are now. that's where they came to. where did they come from?
children: africa!
me: no ... and africa is a continent.
children: asia!
me: no ... again, asia is a continent.
children: india! (this was shouted out by a bengali kid so i feel it is more acceptable)
me: no
one lone child: england?
me: yes! england! thank you lone smart child! okay, so the pilgrims left england because they didn't have religious freedom. they came here to be able to practice their religion freely. they came over on a boat. does anyone know what it was called?
children: a ship!
me: yeah, ship is another word for boat. but their boat had a name. anyone know what it was called?
children: (silence)
me: don't you guys pay attention to the thanksgiving word puzzles i give you every week?
children: silence
me: the ship was called the mayflower
children: oh! the mayflower! oh we know that!
me: okay, so the pilgrims were on the mayflower, crossing the ocean, and back in 1620 this took a long time. they were on the mayflower for months. they eventually ran out of food and by the time they got here many of them were sick or starving and some of them even died.
children: and some of them fell overboard!
me: yeah, i guess probably some of them fell overboard, but i've never read anything about that. so anyway ... finally after a long long journey the pilgrims landed ...
lone obnoxious child: oh! oh! i know what happened!
me: okay, tell us.
lone obnoxious child: that's when john f. kennedy landed!
me: what?! no .... john f. kennedy never landed anywhere. this has nothing to do with john f. kennedy. (shake it off) okay, the pilgrims landed here and they didn't know how to farm here because it's so different from england. so they didn't have any food and they would have died but then they got some help. does anyone know who they got help from?
children: louis and clark!
me: no, but that's a good guess (glad that they were at least back in the right time period).
children: the indians!
me: yes they got help from the indians! and the indians showed them how to farm and how to grow food and eventually they had a huge harvest. what season is harvest time?
children: spring!
me: no
children: summer!
me: no
children: winter
me: no
children: fall
me: yes, fall ... the season we're in. you plant things in the spring and they grow when its warm and then you harvest in the fall. so when they finally had a harvest they hd a big dinner with the indians and they all got along and they were thankful that they were able to keep themselves alive.
children: that's all?
then my lovely assistant looked over to me with sad sad eyes and shrugged, telling the kids "well, that was a short version."
short version indeed! it seemed to go on for hours as far as i'm concerned.
me: without the indians the pilgrims would have died. so they were thankful to be alive and have food. and that's the story of thanksgiving.
other obnoxious child: what's the story of thanksgiving?
me: the story i just told.
other obnoxious child: i wasn't listening. can you tell it again?
me: absolutely not.

and i swear to you ... that is pretty much a verbatim account.