Day 30+1 (What? I'm obsessive compulsive, as if I'm going to be able to just stop now.)
I was working in the school library this morning. It was extra busy because the library was closed Thursday and yesterday, so it was a steady stream of classes. There were also classes I don't usually see, so I didn't automatically know everybody's name to check out their books.
The library technician I work with is great, but she lacks a certain freewheeling wackiness, and I kind of see it as my job to generate a supplement. The problem, I've realized, is that if kids aren't used to humour being present in a certain location, they lose the knack for it. A good number of the teachers do joke around with their classes sometimes, but the library has clearly been a solemn, formal place.
There's nothing more embarrassing than making a play on words with some kid's name, or saying something witty about their book choice, and having it go over like a lead balloon. And this school has kids named Scout, Flip and (I kid you not) Indiana Jones, so sometimes it's really hard to resist. I did have some fun with a girl whose last name was Freake -- clearly she'd had to learn some defensive humour walking around with a handle like that.
When I started going in, if a boy was a good friend of Angus's, sometimes I'd pretend to forget his name. Did they laugh? Did they call me a wise-ass? They did not. They stared at me earnestly and said "It's me, Noah, Mrs. Adams. I was just at your house for supper last night."
After two and a half years of this, the fog is starting to lift for some of them. When the library tech explains a rule and I chime in saying "because if you don't do that we tattoo the rest of the book on your arm" or "we've seen this go horribly wrong before", they smile (some of them even chuckle). When they forget to tell me they're renewing a book and not checking it out for the first time and the computer makes that horrible clunking sound and I glare at them theatrically (because they know how I hate it when the computer clunks at me), they laugh instead of bursting into tears or slinking away to hide behind the teacher.
And then today? While I was frantically trying to check everybody's books out as quickly as possible to make room for the other seventeen classes? A couple of them when I asked their names said "Guess!" Which I did, no matter how much longer it took. It was clearly my own damned fault.
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| photo credit creative commons license |
The library technician I work with is great, but she lacks a certain freewheeling wackiness, and I kind of see it as my job to generate a supplement. The problem, I've realized, is that if kids aren't used to humour being present in a certain location, they lose the knack for it. A good number of the teachers do joke around with their classes sometimes, but the library has clearly been a solemn, formal place.
There's nothing more embarrassing than making a play on words with some kid's name, or saying something witty about their book choice, and having it go over like a lead balloon. And this school has kids named Scout, Flip and (I kid you not) Indiana Jones, so sometimes it's really hard to resist. I did have some fun with a girl whose last name was Freake -- clearly she'd had to learn some defensive humour walking around with a handle like that.
When I started going in, if a boy was a good friend of Angus's, sometimes I'd pretend to forget his name. Did they laugh? Did they call me a wise-ass? They did not. They stared at me earnestly and said "It's me, Noah, Mrs. Adams. I was just at your house for supper last night."
After two and a half years of this, the fog is starting to lift for some of them. When the library tech explains a rule and I chime in saying "because if you don't do that we tattoo the rest of the book on your arm" or "we've seen this go horribly wrong before", they smile (some of them even chuckle). When they forget to tell me they're renewing a book and not checking it out for the first time and the computer makes that horrible clunking sound and I glare at them theatrically (because they know how I hate it when the computer clunks at me), they laugh instead of bursting into tears or slinking away to hide behind the teacher.
And then today? While I was frantically trying to check everybody's books out as quickly as possible to make room for the other seventeen classes? A couple of them when I asked their names said "Guess!" Which I did, no matter how much longer it took. It was clearly my own damned fault.
Comments
When I asked if there was someone named A-B-C-D, he said, very patiently, "no, mummmy her name is Absidee".
Zarah