As we've started unpacking the boxes of books from the container, the students have been quite curious. One thing we received was a set of encyclopedias (from 1975, but better than nothing). The students had never seen anything like it.
I was explaining to Nelson John (the boy with the red-checked backpack straps in the picture): back before everyone googled things on their phone, we had to actually look things up in this huge set of books. His response?
"Oh, the suffering!"
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| Michela working hard on cataloguing the new books |
Sigh. Sometimes I feel old. (Also when I mention my age and a student says, "Oh, that's the same age as my mom!") And true, these kids are all of the just-google-it generation, but they aren't allowed phones at school (and not all have access to them at home, either) and the computer lab isn't open all the time, so these will still be handy here.
I explained to them about how to look things up alphabetically and such. I also explained how my fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Goodman, would punish wayward students by making them copy pages from the encyclopedia. Five pages, seven pages, or even ten pages if you were particularly in need of a set-down. You had to stay in from recess and write until you finished. (And no, I never had to do it).
They were horrified. Especially as I realized that now I could follow his example. I've been making students write definitions from the dictionary, but now with a whole set of encyclopedias at my disposal...this may be a fun year in teaching.
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