Today was Susan's first day of the new school year. It's her second year at this school but her first year serving full-time as the 7-12 school librarian/media center specialist (last year her duties included teaching two sections of seventh-grade English, too). It's also her first year teaching with a master's degree under her belt, by the way!
Her big goal last year was to encourage students' use of the library (which had been discouraged in the years prior to Susan's landing this job), something she did by soliciting the donation of large, comfy furniture for a reading area; rearranging and redecorating the existing furniture and space (do you recall these pics?); coming up with new displays, bulletin boards, and programs for students and faculty; increasing the library's holdings (especially recent young adult literature); and just generally being friendly to the patrons coming to use the library.
This year she's adding other appealing features (modus operandi: make the library a place people want to come to and then trick them into reading/checking out books once they're there): a puzzle table for passers-through to work on a few pieces at a time; a Scrabble board on the wall for an ongoing contest, one player at a time; book-related trivia questions; a "come use the library" presentation that she will take to individual classrooms next week; etc. Isn't she a good school librarian?!
Our daughters' school year begins next Monday (and they will all attend the same elementary school this year), but their school held an open house this evening for students to meet their teachers, find their desks and lockers, drop off their school supplies, etc. Hillary will be in first grade and is seated right beside our across-the-street neighbor, Madeline (Chuck and Reba's daughter)--time will tell whether that's a wise choice. Her teacher gave her a "grab bag" of goodies: a pencil, eraser, bookmark, and some candy. Abigail will be in third grade (with the same teacher who taught Suzanna last year) and found waiting on her desk a sign that said, "Dip into some third-grade fun" with some candy attached that is a hard candy stick that one dips into the accompanying flavored candy powder. Suzanna will be in fourth grade and found on her desk a sign that said, "Wel-'gum'" with a stick of chewing gum taped to it. Even if they're not ready for school, at the very least they'll all be sugared up!
But they are ready. That was evident in their excitement to attend the open house, in their pride in their new school supplies as they placed them inside their desks and lockers, and in their joy as they greeted friends in the hallways and hugged teachers who remarked on how much the girls have grown over the summer. Our daughters are looking forward to seeing old friends, making new ones, getting to know a new school (in Hillary's case), walking to school every day with Daddy (their school is adjacent to the university), and learning. At what age American students decide school is no longer fun I'm not sure, but whatever it is, our kids haven't reached it yet.
P.S. After the open house, Susan and I took the girls to campus where one of the first-week-o'-the-semester fun activities was set up in the galleria of the Student Center: a photographer who would take one's photo posed on a giant chair (making anyone seated on it look like an infant, an effect completed by the use of oversized bottle and rattle props) and another who would take one's photo against a blank wall and then insert it into a snow globe. We got one "big chair" photo of the three girls together and had them pose together again for a snow globe, but that photographer printed out three copies and made a snow globe for each of them. Best part: it was all free!
Maybe their thrill for learning won't end...I still love school and I'm in my 16th year and counting!
ReplyDelete~Tiffany