Monday School

I don't think I ever answered Steph's question from a few posts ago about whether the kids really do call me "Madame Allison" (or 'Miss Allison'). For the most part they do! When I started, I followed the other librarian's cue and they called me Madame McCaskill or Ms. McCaskill (actually they say Miss - for some reason there are no single French teachers and no married English teachers if you go by the way they say their names in these schools). This was a trainwreck - they mostly pronounced it "Castle" - not that I blame them, my last name seems to be difficult for a lot of people). When I started at my Thursday school, the kids called the other librarian Miss Kate and I loved that, so I've mostly switched over. Some of them called me Miss Kate for a while, which made it disproportionately exciting when they started to get it right. Some of them still say "Teacher" or "Miss Librarian", which is all fine. 

I thought that this week I would describe the schools I work at - definitely not because I'm desperate for post ideas. Actually I have been meaning to do this, and, like I keep saying, what better time?

My Monday school is a Kindergarten to grade 6. It's the second job I got when I started applying for jobs in the school system, and I've since been surplussed out of the first so it's the school I've been at the longest, since before Covid.

It's a nice, bright space. I didn't love the feel of the school at first, but couldn't quite articulate why. Then my husband brought my lunch that I had forgotten one day and said it felt like a big, sterile bunker - that might be it. 

I have classes that are solely English and classes that are French immersion, and I am forever mixing them up - French classes usually have the kids take one English book and one French, or two French. 

Things I like (and I am giving myself license to quibble on likes and dislikes):

1. The Dewey Decimal carpet the kids sit on when they come in.

2. I have an office with a sink. When I started I sort of thought all libraries would have this, and many do, but some don't. I generally wash my hands after each class - books and kids both have a propensity for stickiness and I have a tendency to compulsive hand hygiene. 

3. The desk set-up is pretty good (I forgot to take a picture). They set up a giant towering printer beside my computer last year that makes me feel like I'm about to get buried, but I'm adjusting. There's a nice long counter so I can check books in, push them to the end of the counter if I'm short on time for sorting, and still have lots of room for checkouts.

Oh, here's a picture with a bunch of books on it.

You can see why the space is welcome. I have twelve classes on Monday, which means twelve bins of books come back.

4. The purple carts, which I also didn't get a good picture of, GET IT TOGETHER MCCASKILL.

5. We have a lot of students who come in to the school barely speaking English. I give them a selection of the books we have in Arabic or Mandarin, or easy books in English, and their English improves so rapidly it's amazing, and when they start being able to say "thank-you" or ask a question intelligibly it's a total rush. 

6. The school is fairly new so the library collection is fairly new and the books haven't been through the mill like they have at some schools. 

Things I like less:

1. The main librarian's procedure is to have the kids come in and sit down, then run a report and say who still has books out, which means they can't take books out until they return the ones they have. I understand the reasoning behind it, but I don't love doing it. It singles out the ones who forgot in a way that feels slightly aggressive. 

2. There are a lot of books that need to be shelved on bottom shelves, which kills my back. At some schools they just organize the picture books by the author's last initial - here we do it by the first three letters, which I prefer in theory, but when you're bent over trying to find the right slot before you pass out from lack of oxygen, it is vexing, and I would venture a guess that the alphabetizing on the bottom shelf is not on par with that on the higher ones. 

3. There is a rule that no one can enter the parking lot between 8:15 and 8:40 because kids might be walking through it to get to the school. I think this is kind of a stupid rule, and it was terrible when I started work at 8:30 because I had to get there twenty minutes early (at the time I was paid hourly and only worked four hours, so I wasn't really willing to do almost half an hour for free - I did many, many years of unpaid work in the school library system and I am not so interested in doing any more) or park on the street, which, if you've ever dropped a kid off at a school, you will understand to be treacherous and un-fun. After nearly getting mowed down by departing parents several times, this year I finally wised up and asked if I could start work at 8:45 instead, so now I can park in the parking lot. 

4. The front door is a looooong walk from the parking lot and then the library is a long-ish walk from the front door of the school, which is fine except when I'm wearing shoes or boots that squeak - allll the way down the hall until I get to the carpet.

But for the most part it's a great place to work. The staff are all lovely, the office administrator has been a godsend through all the library upheaval the past few weeks, the kids love coming to the library and I am happy to be there.

Thank-you so much to everyone who has visited since the start of NaBloPoMo, it's so much fun meeting all of you. I am trying to visit everyone's blog, if I've missed you so far I will be there soon!