24.03.04

My blog friend has come up with a brilliant idea. She is wanting to create a history blog geared towards kids age 10 to 15. She is welcoming contributions from anyone with good writing skills and sound knowledge of history. In particular she wants it to be “an aged down version of an adult history blog. People should be able to write about the things they would with adults, but simplify things and add extra explanations.” She’s trying to come up with a catchy name for it. Any suggestions? (Beth, you’re always so good at these

What a day. I just got off the phone with a very cranky man who seems to believe a reference librarian is the same thing as a computer engineer. He was quite upset when I wasn’t able to “system reboot” his computer over the phone for him. I honestly didn’t know how to help him and he kept getting more and more hostile saying that he needed to speak to someone that knew what they were talking about. I tried to explain to him that there wasn’t anybody here to help him and suggested he try calling someplace like Clientale Logic tomorrow but he wouldn’t here of it. He kept repeating all the error messages he was getting on his screen which could have just as easily been written in Aramaic as far as I was concerned. My apologies didn’t seem to satisfy him and he hung up quite miffed. Ahh me (sigh)

Poetry month is coming up and Jenn is doing a column on it in our staff newsletter. She’s asked us to submit our favorite poem. I’ve choosen a poem by my brother of many talents:

An Open-handed Fist
By Konrad Mitchell Lawson

They wisdom’s hardened fist in logic hail,
but in the rhetorician’s face will fail.
And though my friends are virtuous and kind,
with honest tongues true words are left behind.
Athenian men to war by words are led,
and find their truths when left to count the dead.
And when a faith finds home in spoken word,
the wisest see the deafness that they heard.
Those who justice to their cause would seek
must learn to like the cunning serpent speak.
And more to win, must craft their speeches whole,
and from their audience capture heart and soul,
wield with pride a senatorial wit,
as of the victors countless tales are writ.
Some honored more than truth their spoken art,
as aging bach’lors might chide a lovesick heart,
but when returned the vote is ‘yea’ or ‘nay’
the eloquently spoken win the day.
And left are those sagacious sad old men:
The owls who perished in the fox’s den.
How shall we fight our cause when foxes rule,
for surely ours is right and theirs is cruel?
Should we persuade and lift with open hand,
or beat with fist the indecisive band?
The learn’d will always follow reason’s call,
the rest by fabled foolishness will fall,
unless we too should play the serpent’s game,
and in its mastery fight for reason’s name.

I’m really frustrated with our education system in this town right now. I’ve already heard some horror stories from my friend Jenn who teaches night school at the highschool, most of which has already made me think twice about putting our children in private school. I know I’m no teacher but the assignments that these kids come in with just seem a little ludicrous sometimes. I mean, I can understand what it is that they’re trying to teach them but then I don’t really think what they’re teaching them is much use. What use is it for a senior in highschool, in an advance placement class mind you, to have to research a topic that requires her to find a poem about that topic. In this particular example, this girl was writing about country music so she had to find a poem about country music, not lyrics, but a poem about it. This certainly helps them with thier research skills but does it really, as Jenn says so often “make them think”! Today we had a bunch of middle school kids in who had a project to do on Ancient Rome. The first mother and daughter that came in handed us a piece of paper that said something like this, “Make a drawing of Hadrin’s wall”. Does anyone know who or what the hell Hadrin’s wall is? My first instinct (although I was afraid to say it because I was sure a teacher wouldn’t make this kind of mistake) was that she meant to write Hadrian’s Wall but the mother kept saying “well, that’s what she has written here so I’m sure it must be right”. Then another kid came in working on the same topic, slightly different though because he had chosen to build a replica of an Ancient Roman boat. A fine topic, not much out there, but interesting topic. The only problem is that since the entire class is doing research on Ancient Rome right now, all of our good books are already check out. If teachers are going to do projects like this, why don’t they come down here and see what materials we have available so they’re not just sending thier kids here blind and unprepared for the fact that we may not have enough or the right kind of material for them. Beth has tried to get teachers to do this for years but they apparently say they’re too busy to come down to the library. I am very frustrated. Grrrr!

Interesting.

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