It's almost the end of August and I'm feeling twitchy because a few big things are looming on the horizon. For one, the beginning of a new school year is approaching and I'm nervous about it. This year the geniuses in charge of scheduling have decided to place another librarian and I in three different libraries! I told them it was pure madness, which it is. Fragmenting the program like this will make it a managerial nightmare. There's also the issue of collection development, learning student names (always a challenge for me) and trying to keep the automated systems up to date. Every year the company we use (Companion) updates and changes the rules for setting up the system and I spend an inordinate amount of time on the phone with them trying to figure it all out. It is not intuitive. Anyhow, when I protested, one of the principals told me I should try to approach it with a more positive attitude. Of course being a former gym teacher, she has no idea of what it takes to run a library. Okay, I'm a little pissed off. When the kids still aren't able to take out books after a month, maybe they'll give their brilliant plan a second thought.
My eldest son, Derek, is also leaving for Salt Lake City this Thursday to attend a violin making school - The Violin Making School of America. Right now the job situation out here is abysmal. He lost his job several months ago and hasn't been able to find anything else. Living on unemployment isn't exactly what he had in mind. It's like being in limbo. He also doesn't relish the idea of working at a desk in a cubicle. He wants to do something with his hands. Several people have suggested different graduate programs, but most of them lead to a job behind a desk. Blah.
I've discovered that many people have a kind of snooty attitude toward people who work with their hands, as if they suffer from some sort of mental impairment. I can only think that our public schools are partly to blame for this. In New York at least, most students are suppose to be on an academic track, as if all students are college material. Consequently, many of the high schools have done away with their tech programs (formally known as "shop"). Too bad, really, because as we know, many kids aren't college bound and those auto body, woodworking and robotic programs gave the nonacademic students some practical skills they could put to use in the real world as well as a place where they could shine. As my youngest has said many times before, there are different ways of being smart. Some people are good at tackling academics and others have a different sort of gift that schools seem to turn a blind eye to and that almost always means a gift for using one's hands.
Of course this is not to say that somebody can't be both good with his hands as well as academically bright. And why is it that schools hold athletes and musicians in higher regard than mechanics and woodworkers? We want good craftsmen, people who know what they're doing when they work on our car or build our furniture, but we do little to nurture those talents in our public schools.
Anyhow, all I know is that I will miss Derek but we'll be cheering him on wherever the road leads him. We have to put aside our yearning to help and let our kids find their own way in the world.
