So last Friday I spent all day at the library in the downstairs seminar room (glass walls, next to the computer area) with a group of teacher librarians for a mini-conference.
We had all brought food for recess and lunch; after recess, there was still quite a spread on the table, cake and biscuits and sandwiches and cheese and... we grazed, and talked of cabbages and kings. Hosting this meeting, I had made sure we had peppermints on the table, because what is a seminar/conference without peppermints???
In the period before lunch, 10E8 English came to the library with their teacher for their regular fortnightly period. Being Otherwise Engaged, I didn't spend the time with them as I usually would have done.
The boys (they're all boys in that class) are a bunch of larrikins and characters. They were naturally curious about these unexpected goings-on right next to the computers they were working on. And food.... (hmm, maybe a lot of their interest centred on the food...). Being the opportunistic thinkers that they are, a couple bent their minds to exploiting this situation.
So I'm sitting facing the library, and a couple wave hello. I smile back, and refocus on the discussion.
A couple of the boys are typing something on the computer. They turn the screen so I can read it, big smiles on their faces:
HI MISS
I grin acknowledgement, and refocus.
More typing. The screen is turned back towards me:
WATCHA DOIN?
Couldn't help myself, I laughed aloud. They grinned back. I excused myself from the meeting, picking up the bowl of Seminar Peppermints as I went, and went out for a minute or two to let those larrikins know just how obnoxious they are...and to remind them, as I offered them a peppermint (they took two, naturally) that it isn't OK to eat in the library. They agreed, as they chewed, and I returned to the meeting. (They can do Contradiction just fine). Thanks, miss!
I haven't had the heart to tell them that the last of the food was hoovered by the public stomachs of the same teacher's Year 7 class at the end of the day.
The happy life of teacher librarians: HI MISS
Cheers
Ruth
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2 comments:
Loved this story!
As one of the New Librarians at this mini conference I didn't realise at first what was going on until Ruth left the room with the peppermints since I had my back to the windows. Now I understand what all the big smiles from the Librarians on the opposite side of the table were all about...
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