Re: Man, Oh Man! Oh boy.

[BKWSSF <BKWSSF@AOL.COM>]

Hi Folks--
While you folks working in the upper echelons of peopledom, including high
school,  universities, and the rest of the real world, scratch your heads and
say, "What's the matter with those ridiculously oversensitive people--don't
they realize "man" means all of us?" you obviously have not tried reading a
sentence (or series of 10 sentences) about "man"--especially ones that
incorporate the pronoun "he"--to a group of 25 8-year-olds, where the girls
say, "Man? Hey. What about girls?" and the boys say (beating their chests like
pleased mandrills), "Yeah. Man. That's us. Not you dumb girls!" It's another
life down here on the elementary level where Man means men, even when you
explain that it's just a term and doesn't really mean what it seems to mean.

Horses may leave barns as they will. When it's so simple to make half of the
population feel included by using a simple, short, and sweet little word like
"people," what the hay? Ken, your idea of using "we" is such a graceful
solution.

Yesterday, as a class of kindergartners was getting settled on the story rug
in my library, we asked them to "unsquish" to their right. One bright and
adorable little boy said, "Yeah, but we have to be careful when we unsquish to
the right because girls' rights are different from boys' rights." "Really?
How's that?" we asked. "Well, mom mom says that girls' lefts and rights are
different from boys', that's all." (Maybe his mom was talking about women's
rights? Who knows.) It was hilarious, but we grownups managed to keep straight
faces as we had the kids all hold up their right hands and then their lefts.
"Hmmm. They seem to be the same to me," we said oh so diplomatically.

One time, a little boy threw up in the library. (Don't you LOVE days like
that.) I quickly moved the class to the other side of the room and whisked the
sick kid to the nurse. As I rejoined the group, I overheard a group of kids
discussing the incident. One boy said, "Did you see that? He threw up and it
was all white. Chinese people throw up white, not like not-Chinese people!"
The others nodded their heads sagely. Somehow this made sense to them, too. I
said, "Well, it's an interesting thought, but really, everybody throws up just
the same. He just had milk for snack, that's all. That's why it was white."
"Ohhhh," they said, another kid myth debunked before it got entrenched in
their brains.

The point? Children think weird and wonderful thoughts. Getting back to the
"man" thing, when we say "man," kids do not say, "Hmm. That tern, while it
sounds like it's about boys, is actually grammatically correct and
stylistically appropriate, so it's just fine!" Nope. Won't fly. And for us
librarians, being too busy working to pay attention to such silly stuff has
nothing to do with it. We want our kids to have positive experiences in our
libraries, and come out of there thinking that old Mr. Melvil Dewey liked
everyone, not just the "men," though he wasn't supposed to be so fond of
women, now that I think back.

Today I told a Dewey story to my 3rd graders and we used our Dewey Cards (with
all ten 000s listed, and no gender references at all. Hah!) The story begins,
"You go home and your parents tell you the family is moving to Alaska. You are
stunned and surprised and hottail it over to the library to find out more
about your state-to-be. WHERE do you look?" Scanning their cards (laminated,
printed 5X8 index cards, printed by me), the kids raise hands & one replies,
"900-999; History, Geography, and Travel." No gender--the whole story is in
the second person. SO much more inclusive, dontcha think?

It's not that the issue is trivial. It's that it's so easy to remedy   it.
Besides, it's been so much fun debating it!

Judy Freeman--Librarian
Van Holten School
Bridgewater, NJ
<BKWSSF@aol.com>

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