My First School Visit of the Year – Miller Perry Elementary!

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Saturday, November 21, 2009

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Newspaper Lady

My First School Visit of the Year – Miller Perry Elementary!

Published Monday, September 14 2009 - (0) Comments

One of the best things about my job is that I can revisit my memories of being a teacher in the classroom by going on visits to NIE Teacher's classes. I used to teach in a special education school, back when I was fresh out of college, so I can semi-relate to what teachers are going through. Let me tell you, they have it tough. I know they get summer breaks, and awesome holiday breaks during the school year (I'm shaking with vacation-envy!), but those breaks are both needed and deserved. So, I want to be able to do anything I can to help making their lives a little easier. So, enter me and my newspapers!

On 09/09/09, I went to Miller Perry Elementary School in the afternoon and spent some lovely time with about half of their fourth grade students. They are so delightful! They had great questions and listened to what I had to say about what is in a newspaper. I tried my best to get all students interacting with me at some point, and worked with them one on one. We talked about the front page, what editorials are, why advertisements/ers are so important, and of course, the comics. All kids perk up when they hear the word "comics." Then we did a scavenger hunt where they had to look through the newspaper and find things like a recipe, a word that describes them, or a certain headline. They learned how to find page numbers and how the newspaper index works. It was my first visit of the school year and it was great!!

The kids had some great questions, too. You NEVER know what you're going to get when the floor is wide open for anything. Some of the questions were "do you do the Dollywood Contest?" or "how much does it cost to make the newspaper?" or "how much does someone at a newspaper get paid?" or my favorite "how much do YOU get paid?" SMILE!!!

It is also wonderfully easy to interact with students. While some people are terrified to speak with and in front of kids, I find it refreshing and enjoyable because they will, mostly, just accept you. And I don't take that for granted either. I am there to share with them answers about how the newspaper works and show them just how normal and regular people who work at a newspaper are. Occasionally I'll get the "Do you know John Doe? He worked there before I was born." Again, SMILE! Kids want to hear what you have to say, so I will respect that. They also take things very literally. I don't like to use that word a lot or loosely – the word "literally" is very, really, literally overused. Anyway, as I was leaving the building I was escorted by a student to take me to get my picture taken with some of the students. It was the end of the day and there was soon to be a hustle about the place. I said him, "Oh, I know I have to hurry. You get out of school in about two minutes, right?" He looked at me and earnestly replied, "No, more like five." I just SMILE!

All in all it was a great first visit. You never know how smoothly things like that will go at the start of a new year, but I think it is a great foreshadowing of how the rest of the school year will go. And I am looking forward to it! Since I'm more comfortable in my job than I have ever been, it is getting easier to go to school and talk with schools, even at the beginning of the year!

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