Just Casing the Joint

Find the children's room!

I'm sure the architect thought that it would be easy to tell the children's room from the rest of the library from the enormous decals on the glass that separates the children's room from the rest of the downstairs. Well, take it from me, it doesn't work.

It seems as if every day someone wanders down into the children's room, having no idea where they are. "Oh, is this the children's room?" is the response to my "This is the children's room. May I help you?" The children's room is a clean, spacious area with interesting features that I'm always pointing out to the unwary who blunder into my arena. But it looks just the same as the rest of the library.

Today I've had two people who just wandered in and claimed they didn't need any help, walked around, and then walked out again. They both said they were "Just looking." All within about ten minutes of each other. Between interactions with people looking for books, I wonder about what they thought they were doing. What does "Just looking" mean?

• "I just wandered a bit too far and now I'm trying to save face by pretending I just want a look 'round."
• "I was looking for another part of the library, which doesn't seem to be down here, but I'm not going to ask you about it so I don't look stupid."
• "I was supposed to meet a friend here but I'm not sure where."
• "I'm scoping out fire exits in case of an emergency."
• "I'm scoping out possible 'drops' for hiding drugs/money/stolen articles/national secrets for someone else to pick up."
• "I'm the advance for a library terrorism ring trying to find out how many of us will be needed to keep the victims from escaping when we come in guns blazing. You sure have a lot of doors down here."

It doesn't pay to let the mind wander on a quiet (thus far) Sunday.

PTDHS

We used colored card stock for the sliders and very thin duct tape on the ends.

 

 

 

I am suffering from Post Tongue Depressor Harmonica Syndrome after today's Homeschooler's program. This was an easy craft to do, made needlessly complicated by adding live music played by my brother-in-law, Bear, on the library's Yamaha and all the rhythm instruments we use in storytime. Everyone was successful at making their harmonica - many danced, using the rhythm scarves and the streamers I had put out.
But I am exhausted.
It's barely 2 o'clock and I don't know how I made it this far. I can't even work up enough energy to complain about it. So, here's Bear playing something he played here today. I think.

The Crayon Connection

Hardly any kids came to our afterschool program this past week.  That's not so surprising as we just started them and it may take a while to catch on.  The ones who came, however, drew a bit with a pencil but could not be encouraged to color in with crayon.  I started thinking about this.  Maybe at a certain age they would prefer to work with markers, which deliver a more saturated color.  Then up in the forefront of my mind popped the image of coloring programs on the computer. No problems keeping within the lines, color even and vibrant - not to mention fast.  Kids might not be finding the same joy in drawing and coloring that we did because it's not living up to what they've seen can be done (not that they're actually doing it - actually "coloring") on a computer.  They're just clicking on a space.

True, it requires use of fine motor skills to use a mouse, as anyone like me who has had to learn to do this later in life knows, but I keep thinking they need to be using their hands more.  I have even been asked by a kid, full of energy otherwise, to cut something out for him because cutting was making his hand hurt.   Watching kids of school age who are unable to do simple tasks with pencils, scissors, and tape dispensers worries me.  This story kept edging its way into the mix.  This man lost his ability to read from a stroke, but was able to work around his loss by tracing the letters he was looking at with his finger and then later with his tongue on the roof of his mouth.  Yes, it was slower - but he had not lost that part of the skill.  There is a clear link between the motor skills used to write with the ability to decode the printed word inside the brain.  This was only reiterated to me when I read this blogpost.

Computers are an integral part of our present and future, but we are already past the point where mouse use is a vital skill in computers.  We are now using just our fingertips (those of us - not me yet - who have the phones and tablet computers that do this).  Computers can now obey commands we vocalize.  We are running right past Star Trek science in some categories - even the more recent Star Trek versions.  We don't need to teach skills that are already on their way out.  And if I can learn to use computers at my age (I started after age 30 when you actually needed a huge manual and classes to figure out how to print a letter), these kids don't need to be saturated with those skills. 

Kids will learn to read better if they can connect the movements of their hands with the shapes of the letters. They need to be coloring, which teaches them to control their hands (and used to be deeply satisfying), as a pre-literacy skill.  They need to be writing and drawing with a tool in their hands to learn letters and to learn creativity.  We aren't just killing literacy with computers, but we are killing creativity.

Now, I spend way too much time on computers and I, too, get cramping in my hand trying to write a letter to someone.  I have also seen a great deal of creativity online, but most of this from people who already possess the skills from decades of writing and coloring - people who are already artists.  They aren't creating textures this beautiful with a mouse:

Virtual gown and avatar skin with hand-painted textures.

Let the children use the computers - but for limited amounts of time.  [And, while you're at it, make me get away from mine.  I am only too aware that this is not going to be an easy task.]  Make sure they get access to lots of paper, crayons, scissors, and quiet time.  Maybe you can share that time doing some writing or drawing of your own.  Try it.  It's a skill worth cultivating.  It has more value than you'd think.

Because

I'm a nice person - why can't I sit in here at one of the tables way over there and use my computer, have a conversation, sit and read?

I'm sure you are a nice person and not a pedo or anything, but this is the Children's Room and it is for children and their caregivers. 

But there's no one here right now -

This is one small part of this library.  It takes up maybe one sixth of the public space.  The Teen Center is even smaller.  And all the rest of that belongs to adults.  Why don't you explore?

I've already walked all the way down here, you know.

And we are so proud of you.  Now show us how you can walk all the way back to the front (which you'll have to do to leave anyway), hop on the elevator, and walk down to the rotunda where there are tables and chairs and you can spread out.  Also, you won't be intimidating the children.  It is unwitting, I know, but just the presence of "strange" adults will frighten some children away from a certain area - such as those nice tables over by the windows where the manipulatives and crayons are.  And those couches by the puppet theatre?  Those are for parents to watch their children put on a puppet play or play at the duplo table. 

Most children are trained to be quiet around adults when they are doing adult things (not all, so I've noticed, but you get the idea).  If you are talking to a friend and aren't obviously a parent or grandparent with a child also playing, you are an impediment to play and, therefore, learning.  And even if they don't mind, won't their boisterous play interfere with your work or conversation?  If that is the case, I will ask you to leave rather than ask them to be quiet for your sake because this is their area.

By the way, the library is not a place to come and have a conversation.  If your main intent is to talk, either use one of the small conference rooms that are available on a first-come-first-serve basis ... or go somewhere else.  Yes, there are some ladies at the couches chatting away, but you know what?  They have children playing right there.  If they are letting the children get away with screaming bloody murder, I will have a separate chat with them.  The point is that they remembered to bring their children with them.  Next time why don't you?

[Now, the hard part is to put this in the tone of voice but reduce the verbiage to, "This is the Children's Room."  Practices Great Big Smile.]

Rules, Shmules

Maybe my problem is my background, although I can't say that was my sister's problem and she was ostensibly from the same family (even if our parents were the same people, considering the years between my sister and me, they were also different ... if you catch my drift).  We'll never know what her problem was. Mom said if my sister had been born later she would have been diagnosed with ADD.  My sister seemed to enjoy breaking rules just because they were there, if my memory of her college experience is anything to go on.  Why a smoking, drinking, swearing, dancing, card-playing person would go to a small Baptist college is a question for another day.

So, I go on and off my background being my problem.  It may only have been my fear of conflict (which I swear I remember going on between my parents and my sister as far back as my term in the womb) that caused me to make sure I was doing everything right when she was being yelled at.  While my parents were against the usual Ten Commandment type stuff, they certainly didn't pay much attention to the Volstead Act.  My dad and his friends from Mechanics Institute (now RIT) made something they called Plum Brandy from sugar, yeast, prunes and raisins or they "acquired" drums of grain alcohol and with the help of a hydrometer and some juniper juice made their own gin - for their own consumption ... and that of 50 to 100 of their closest friends.

My background is second generation American from a mixed background: my father's family was from northern Germany and my mother's from southern Germany (this gets a huge laugh among Germans for some reason).   My parents lectured work ethic ("Work makes life sweet," came down to us from the grandparents ... but perhaps they meant it made the rest of life sweet by comparison) but lived it as well.  My dad didn't know what a sick day was, unless it was the headaches he got on weekends from when he wasn't at work.  He had little patience for people who had excuses about why they were late, sick, their kids sick, etc.  Vacation was the last two weeks in July that the IBM plants shut down.  Even when my dad was no longer employed directly by IBM, he worked for vendors and kept the same schedule all his working life. 

My sister worked for our father and advised me to never follow suit.  Dad expected his own kids to work harder and apparently get paid less.  And then the other workers got annoyed with her because she made too many parts and might raise the expectations of the company as to how many parts could be assembled in an hour.  Harassment from fellow workers was nothing compared to what horrors (as I recall, the word "disappointed" featured largely in these) she would face at home.  I did not follow her advice, but by the time I was old enough to do factory work, Dad was managing a much smaller factory and I worked directly under him.  Because of that, people could see that I was ridden as hard if not harder than they were.  The floor supervisor had to argue with Dad to get me a raise - and that only worked the second summer. 

I, therefore, have little patience with people who can't get to work on time - a slightly watered-down version of my dad's.  If I have a fever, I stay home, regardless of how slight it is.  I will take time off for operations and recovery, and I will take a vacation any old time.  I like rules, though, rules give shape to life.  Perhaps in my sister's case rules were there to be reshaped into something more modern and free-form.  I can't ask her because she broke another rule by dying before our parents did. 

However, yesterday I was reading a response on Quora to a question about why airline boarding is such a nightmare and one responder mentioned how much more orderly Germans are about it because of their obsession with rules.  [Actually, I think I agree with the response about carry-on bags as the problem. Why anyone is in a hurry to sit in the cramped seating is beyond me.  It would be a mercy to wait until the last moment, but you never see anyone holding back until the plane is full to get on.]  If someone tells you you can't board until your section is announced, you don't queue up and get in everyone's way.  I tend to slavishly follow speed limits (a problem they don't have in Germany where they can work out their speedlust on the Autobahn - can you say Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung?  Which is almost as much fun a word as Rrrrrreibungsbeiwert.) and other traffic laws.  I've read up on wave theory to better handle traffic situations (here's a big hint: remember that "rule" about leaving one car length per ten mph between you and the car in front? Big help!).  Now these things are second nature to me.  I don't gripe about speed limits and claim that "without rules people would behave in a reasonable manner" (after getting a speeding ticket for going 40 mph in a 25 mph zone).

If I were told there was a half hour limit on computer use time, by golly I'd make a point of sticking to it!  (You knew it would get to something really petty, didn't you?)  And if I had children I would teach them to do the same.  "You get a half an hour to play.  After that you have to pick out some books, listen to the books that come with CDs, put on a puppet show at the puppet theatre, play with the blocks, color, or just chill."  I see some parents who do that.  They may even suggest books be picked out first.   Then there are others who think no one actually waiting to get on the computers is an excuse to sit there all day.  It's my job to juggle with the leeway we grant.  But if you let people stay on forever occasionally despite the clear rule, they learn that the rule doesn't mean squatola-mcsteinhammer.  And this makes me frustrated enough to want to quit.  As long as you're not causing a nuisance, you can stay in the library for hours and hours - but I don't see why you should get the idea that not all rules apply to you.

It's situations like this that make me want to retire yesterday.  And wear dirndls.

Thus Shalt Thou Do

The Many and Sundry Commandments in Reference to Those, 

the Computers of the Children's Room

If thou owest five shekels or more, thou shalt not have access to the Computers of the Children's Room nor those of the Adult Computer Lab.
Thou shalt not bear false witness by showing the Librarian in the Children's Room the library card of someone else.
If thou art below the age of 12, thou shalt have thy parent with thee when thou art on the Computers of the Children's Room.
If thou art above the age of 12, thou shalt hie thyself to the Adult Computer Lab where the limit is 2 hours.
If thou art the age of 12, thou mightest possibly remain at the Computers of the Children's Room unaccompanied, but pusheth it thou not.
Regardless of thy age, thou shalt only remain on the Computers of the Children's Room for 30 minutes, even if there be no one else in waiting for it.
If thou art finishing a report for school thou mayest stay on the Computers of the Children's Room longer than 30 minutes, so makest sure thou art working on thy report and not desporting thyself on a videogame for 30 minutes be the limit.
If thou art a parent, thou mayest make use of the laptop computers for work or school and only for one hour.
Thou shalt not allow thy children to run wild in the library whilst thou peruseth the Book of Faces or ThouTube.
If thou art applying for a job, considereth that this may take more time than thou hadst planned on and hie thee to the Adult Computer Lab where the limit is 2 hours and leaveth thy children with a neighbor or thy mother or thy mother's mother.
Thou shalt not view material inappropriate for the Children's Room.  Thinkest thou about it.
Thou shalt not view Book of Faces, for it is an abomination, and if thou art under 13 years of age, thy Book of Faces account be against the website's Terms of Service and thou hast born false witness to obtain same.
Thou shalt not view videos on ThouTube, because it sucketh bandwidth something awful and ruineth the interwebs experience for all.
Thou shalt not allow a preschooler on a Computer of the Children's Room and wander off to find books nor stoppeth to chat with thy neighbor whom thou hast not seen in ages.  For the preschooler, contrary to what thou mightest imagine, doth not use technology intuitively and doth bang the keyboard and yanketh on the mousecord and peereth curiously at the little red light therein.  Also, the preschooler diggeth into his nose with his finger and then smeareth the mucus upon the monitor.
When thou art finished with the Computers of the Children's Room, thou shalt return thy station to good order and return the sign to the monitor, but thou shalt not turn off the monitor nor the CPU, which confuseth the next person.

Heck Hath No Fury ...

I am absolutely furious with 1. myself and 2. the state for (2) making me provide a copy of our marriage license and most recent tax returns and (1) forgetting to mail them.

Despite my initial reaction of being insulted, I redacted financial info, printed the documents off immediately and then completely forgot to send them.  So I get a reminder that if they aren't received, health insurance benefits will be terminated for my husband, which raises my blood pressure.  I threw things, I screamed, and it isn't enough.  It's never enough.  It's just a good thing I don't believe in firearms.

Of course, I also have some niggling doubt that this will save the state any money because as far as I know (and I could be wrong), it's the county and I who pay for the insurance for the family yet someone hired by the state has to be paid to scan, shred, and maintain these tens of thousands of records (someone, no doubt, who isn't getting a raise and has to do the job of several others who left).  Will I have to submit this every year just to reassure them we're still married and alive?

 Darn all the cheese-paring tea-partiers to heck!  

I realize that the economy is troubled and things are tight, but I don't remember the last time our employees had a cost of living raise and we don't earn a whole lot to begin with. Our pay has altered mostly by tax adjustments.  I imagine the state employees are going through the same thing: no raises, no new hires, so everyone is having to do more work for less - and then this rollicking insult trickles down to us.

It does not reassure me that some "freeloaders" are going to be eliminated from the insurance heap.  It tells me that people who need health insurance are going to be without it.  This is not kids going without popsicles or adults going without the latest plasma screen.  It's about people not having health care.

It's also about Trust.  And that's where the insult comes in.  Do I claim my cats as dependents?  Would I add someone to my health plan who wasn't my child or my husband?  Wouldn't my HR people notice?  This is a small outfit and people would notice if I did anything like that - if, in fact, I would ever be so inclined.   Well, you know what?  It's lack of trust like this that makes someone as scrupulously honest as I am want to diddle the system for all it's worth.  This has created bad feeling - and anyone can tell you that's no way to run an organization.

But it's just typical, isn't it?