GIFSL*: 35. The library is not a Café , but...

It actually happened kinda sorta as an accident.  Last period one afternoon a fortnight, a slightly bolshie Year 9 English class come in for their regular 'wide reading' period.  We're training them, their teacher and I, and fortnight by fortnight you can see them settle into what's expected, and find it (unexpectedly to some?) a pleasure.  Most of them now arrive with a book in hand; for those who don't, I've put out a tempting array, cover-up, on the tables in fiction (this usually ends up, like birdseed, looking like it's caught the attention of at least some of the birds... ha!).

So one of those afternoons, I made a cup of coffee for the teacher, who rather needed it, and a couple of the kids said, what about US, miss? and then I said, well, what if we have a draw and I'll make a cup of hot chocolate for one lucky student...

Couple of things, here.  First, our standard library rule is, for all the obvious reasons, no food or drink in the library (we make exceptions for bottled water on 40deg+ days in summer) - to deter vermin, prevent damage to books etc.  BUT sometimes breaking a rule (one cup of hot chocolate probably won't do major damage) can have useful power and impact.  Second, leverage your advantages. I have boiling water, a foam/china cup, a sachet of hot chocolate from my private stash.  Nothing tricky there, for me.  But to a kid, last period of the day, to find yourself with a cup of hot chocolate?  Lottery win!

Lottery was what we did.  The refinement is that not every student gets an entry slip in the draw for the cup of hot chocolate - their teacher wanders the group (scattered around fiction upstairs and filling up the reading retreat on the mezzanine) with slips, handing them out when a student is reading.  And hey, most of them got an entry form.  So then we did the draw, and I made the hot chocolate, and that student settled back with their book, the mug and the biggest grin....

Now each period they come in, books in hand, and ask about the draw.  For a simple idea, it's working rather nicely.  Today, their teacher brought a box of sachets and more than one kid scored a foam cup of hot chocolate.  And nobody spilled any of them, and all of them come to the library with happy anticipation, and they read as they didn't before, and it's another step for them, and a success for them and for us.  It's good.  It's not happening for every wide reading class in the library, but with this group (and the teacher's other regular group) it's become a 'tradition' and one of the reasons they look forward to coming to the library (hurrah!).  Hot chocolate diplomacy!

I wrote this, as a throwaway line, in an email, describing the library yesterday afternoon, and got asked what I meant by the draw...

Year 9 are curled up on the soft chairs and floor cushions, reading (most of the time) ... and we're about to draw the One Year 9 Student Who Was Reading ALL The Time Gets A Hot Chocolate And Makes All The Others Jealous winner.

.. so now you know.  Floor cushions, you say?  What floor cushions?  I know, I haven't told you about them.  Next week, OK? 

Cheers, Ruth

*GIFSL = Good Ideas for School Libraries