Maaaaaar-ian, Madam Libraaaaar-ian.

I've decided to spend Thursday mornings volunteering at R's elementary school. My mother-in-law is going to come over to watch E for me those mornings and after I drop A off at preschool I will spend a couple of hours helping the school with various tasks. Today I went in to help out the librarian, Lisa, who I happen to know pretty well (her two daughters go to my neighbor's daycare). She is very funny and very real - and not AT ALL like Marian from The Music Man so my title is a perhaps ill-chosen but I couldn't resist. I was glad I can help her out a bit. She has lost ALL her assistant library positions due to budget cuts so when it comes to work in the library she is "It" and has to beg for volunteer help whenever she can get/find it. I find it very frustrating that cuts have come to this level of basic school/academic building blocks and I really wish I had more time to give. She told me today about a project she used to do over the course of the school year with the 2nd graders. They would learn about basic library research and report-writing by studying different countries throughout the year and add a researched entry for each country into a book that they would be able to take home at the end of the year. She said that it was incredible to look at the books at the end of the year and see the transformation that occured in each child's book from the first country to the last as they learned and improved in their writing and research skills. Since she has lost all the helpers who used to make that kind of project possible the 2nd grade classes will no longer benefit from that level of teaching/guidance from their librarian. It is ridiculous! We live in a town that has a high level of commitment to education (heck, we live within a 10-mile or less radius in which there are 4 colleges and a major university). It is one of the main reasons we stayed here and bought our house in this town - the schools here have a pretty decent reputation and Rick himself is a product of the local schools. However, I have a feeling that they have seen better days before the stupidity of "No Child Left Behind" which should more aptly be called "No Child Gets Ahead" for all the assinine red-tape, regulations, requirements, and general adminstrative bullshit for which the school is held accountable but is not given adequate funding to properly implement or maintain! I could go on and on... I have a friend who has a Bush Countdown on her website. I think I need to get myself one of those...maybe it will make me feel better. Or maybe not.

It just boggles my mind that they expect one person to run an entire elementary school library! And I'm sure there are many other people who could use some help what with all the budgetary woes - I just need to ask and I'm sure I'll find them easily. I do know that the art teacher was looking for a few volunteers and I hope to check in with her next week to see what I can do to help.

So, anyway, I spent two hours reshelving many, many books for dear Lisa. She was extremely appreciative of my efforts and I promised her I'd be back again next week to help her some more. I actually enjoyed my time there this morning -- there was something calming and medatative about putting books back in their correct places and following Old Man Dewey in his orderly alphabetical and numerical system. I think I've mentioned before my thing for anything organzational so you could say that this was right up my alley - not to mention the fact that I got to do it without a solar system of wee ones orbiting my space with their requests, commands, questions and constant dialogue. It was so peaceful! And it was great to chat a bit with Lisa and to listen to her hysterical dialogue with the preschoolers during the library story time. She read them this book:

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It is such a funny book - made even funnier by the comments of the preschoolers and by Lisa's great sense of the absurd when sharing this book with them.

In other news my toe is feeling a lot better. I definitely still need to wear a supportive shoe to minimize the pain but I can walk almost normally now as long as I'm wearing my sandals. I know I still have a ways to go in the healing process but it's nice not to be in constant pain. And perhaps I won't be needing to add those funky, obnoxious socks to my wardrobe.

Or maybe I will anyway, just for fun.