Are you a rock star?
Don’t you love being an elementary school librarian? or an elementary teacher? or the principal?
Everywhere you go, children cry out your name, rush to hug you, drag their parents to meet you, and are genuinely happy to see you.
In fact, when my teens were much younger, they demanded we stop dining out in the same community where I work so that they could have uninterrupted meals without children staring at them and waving.
The ways my hubby’s students greet him are extremely different. When he was coaching, he’d have screaming girls run up saying, “Coach! Coach!” While he teaches at the alternative school, his students are serious, skirt around, and whisper greetings trying to draw as little attention as possible. When his students graduate, they revert to elementary status and their enthusiasm returns.
There’s just something about walking into a classroom and a riot of voices call out greetings. When I walked in the art room the other day, I whispered to my visitor, “Don’t they just love the library?”
While students were dismissing this week I asked my principal, “Do we have a disproportionate number of students who are reading their books in line for the busses and while they are riding the bus home?” Reading attitudes. Reading is fun. Learning in the library is exciting. Your librarian cares about your whole person. The messages seem to get through.
A couple of years ago I helped create a video to promote reading that was to be given to incoming kindergarteners at orientation. Didn’t think much about it until I passed a line in the hall and one of the children pointed at me and squealed, “She was in the movie!” Instant fame.
Comment by Beth — January 18, 2007 @ 9:09 pm