An impromptu lesson

[imagine_that]

Seven-year-olds are amusing.

This boy that I've never met at school came up to me today and told me that he wanted to show me a picture in a book. He opens the book to a big battle scene and wanted to know where the British were. I tried to explain to him that this was a picture book about the Civil War, and there were no British soldiers in the picture. So then he wanted to know where the Americans were, and I explained that they were all Americans. Boy did that blow his mind!

We gathered quite a crowd as I explained about the Civil War, and we Americans were fighting each other. They wanted to know who won. They kept turning to pages of the bok and asking questions. How did this man get hurt? Is he going to die? Why did people die in the war? Did animals get hurt? Why did people shoot horses? And on and on.

I also got to explain how a gun works, because the illustrations confused them, and they wanted to know why fire was coming out of the gun. One little girl was convinced that the man in the picture wasn't dying, just resting and that they would be bringin him to a hospital. I let her believe that.

Also, my long nails seemed to be a continuing source of amusement for the various classes that came in.

Comments

[frommy.livejournal.com]

Maybe you should be a teacher. I'll bet you would be good at it.

[hippie1025.livejournal.com]

I thought about that for a while, and even checked out some grad schools. I decided that I don't really want to be the one to assign (not to mention grade ) homework. Helping as the librarian sounds better. But I might be making a mistake by choosing public over school libraries.

Mayhem

[qualinestron.livejournal.com]

You should have told him it was a picture of Congress last week :) Fight misinformation with misinformation, I always say.