knitting librarian

I took the kids over to visit Great-Grandma last night. We’d forgotten to take Zoe’s bunny ears with us to Mom’s on Sunday morning, but I did manage to remember them last night. I think we’ll have to take her for some pictures in her easter dress and sporting the bunny ears.

We put her hair up in a little Alfalfa sprout pigtail yesterday and she looked so darn cute! AJ also had a great day. The Easter bunny brought them the Busy Bee Band set (drum, maraca, bells, tambourine and xylophone). The kids had a blast with it yesterday. We spoke with both Dad and Deanna and they’re doing well too.

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Teens’ Knowledge of History, Literature Is Very Poor – 3/3/2008 2:05:00 PM - School Library Journal

This posting made me go and download the 24-page report Still at Risk: What Students Don’t Know, Even Now to read.

One of the comments that struck me was “almost 20% of 1200 respondents to a national telephone survey do not know who our enemy was in World War II”—primarily because of a particularly embarassing situation that happened to me when I was a senior in high school. (Humiliation alert!)

We spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day in the Florida Keys. I wanted to work on my tan and stayed at the pool while the rest of my family had a late afternoon nap. I was the only person left poolside. Not long after, a man showed up and was chit-chatting with me. He struck up the conversation by asking if I was on my honeymoon. (I told him no, I was still in high school and implied I was jailbait.)

He went on to complain about our education system—legitimately, as you’ll soon see! He said something along the lines of, “Who won World War II?” and having never taken a history class that went beyond reconstruction but not wanting to look like the cultural illiterate I was, I responded, “Did anyone really win?” (Answer a question with a question, classic avoidance!) Instead of realizing I was a dumb blonde, he jumped all over that, “Exactly!” (I honestly don’t remember much else about that conversation other than thinking he was an easy con.)

The other thing education-related thing I remember from that trip was that I was to memorize Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy for my English class. I’d forgotten my book and needed to go buy one while we were on our vacation. We picked up a copy of Hamlet and a Key Lime pie in the same shopping trip.

When I went to college, as electives I took both a 20th century US and 20th century world history class. At the end of the world history course, I went up to the professor and thanked him and told him that I’d never had a class that went past reconstruction and I appreciated his class. He laughed at me. Even so, those were two of my favorite general education courses and probably influenced my choice to minor in history in college. I had to be sure I wasn’t caught like that again. I also bought E. D. Hirsch’s Dictionary of Cultural Literacy to help ensure that I became a more aware adult than I was teenager.

I hope fewer students graduate from my old high school not knowing the answer to that stranger’s question than did twenty years ago! At the very least, I hope I’ve given them the skills to find the answer if they don’t know it!

with surprisingly little problems from the kids. We started with AJ last week on looking at the clock and telling him that bedtime is 7pm, go check the time. He reported the time to us diligently each time we had him check. Once it said 7-0-0 or something after that, he knew it was time to head up to bed. It made the transition last night pretty easy even though it was still light out. He was in bed by 7:15 tonight and I was on my way out the door to my knitting group! I don’t know how long this will last, but I’m hoping that since we started it early we won’t have too many problems.

Saturday night we took dinner and a computer to a friend’s house. On the way home (late!) at 8:15, we had NPR on—not sure exactly what, but it sounded like Irish pipe music of some sort. AJ asked about it, we said, yes isn’t it nice? He agreed it was, and in the less than 10 minutes home, he fell asleep!

I suspect on Friday when I take him to see Seussical! (our school musical) he’ll fall asleep on the way home too. I just hope he manages to stay awake during the show.

On the needles: a top-down raglan sleeved cardi for Miss Zoe. It’s going pretty quickly. I’ve had a few stitch issues but I think I’ve figured out how to resolve them. I need to take a picture!

Let’s play Family Feud!

YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO USE MY ANSWERS GOOD LUCK

1. Name something you use in the shower.
shampoo

2. Name something a football player wears as his uniform.
helmet

3. Name something people hate to find on their windshield.
ticket

4. Name something a man might buy before a date?
flowers

5. What’s another word for blemish?
pimple

6. Something you’d cook in the microwave?
popcorn

7. Name a piece of furniture people need help moving?
refrigerator

8. Name a reason a younger man might like an older woman.
sophisticated

9. Name something a dog does that embarrasses its owner.
jumps up

10. Name a kind of test you cannot study for.
pregnancy test

11. Name something a boy scout gets a badge for?
camping
12. Name a phrase with the word ‘Home’ in it?
home sweet home
13. Name a sport where players lose teeth?
rugby

14. Name something a teacher can do to ruin a student’s day?
pop quiz

15. What is a way you can tell someone has been crying?
red eyes

16. Name something found under a car?
oil spot
17. Name a bird you wouldn’t want to eat?
pigeon

18. Name something that gets folded?
paper

19. Name a reason not to be asked on a second date.
lame

20. Name something that gets smaller the more you use it?
soap