Re: ELEM: Death

[Gayle Hodur <ghodur@REDSHIFT.COM>]

Thanks for all your replies about the death of our principal. I was in
quite a spot. The death was being announced for the first time to the
students on my one day there and I had library visits scheduled with quite
a few classes that day. This library is very old, I just inherited it last
year. Though I added as many books as we could afford at that time (mostly
science), we had only one book on death--The 10th Good Thing About Barney.
We are a 3,4,5 school with a lot of students who speak Spanish. Barney
wasn't appropriate for everyone, but I milked it for all it was worth. I
also got by in other classes by reminding students of how much our
principal liked to read and then reading something I knew she would have
liked very much--a mystery, for instance (she loved mysteries) or some
funny poems (she really liked to laugh). This really worked amazingly well
under the circumstances, since for many of these students it was the FIRST
time they had met the librarian or been exposed to library. It also
lightened the mood for them to be reminded of the fun things she had
enjoyed rather than dwelling on the death itself. All the teachers I worked
with that day seemed very happy with the approach, and one teacher told me
he got a whole writing assignment out of it after I left. (I go to the
classrooms because right now there is a classroom in the library.) Hope I
don't have to spend another day like that in a while!

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Gayle Hodur
ghodur@redshift.com