On Growling at Kids and Unintentionally Hilarious Letters

Grrrrrrrrrrrr...

I love making school visits and I've been fortunate to have several recently. At St. John Neumans Regional Catholic School, I met with students K-8 (not at all at once, thank goodness!).

Obviously, I told different stories to different age groups: for the K-2, I focused on the story of how Alexander tamed the wild horse, and of how he "took" the Sogdian Rock in Afghanistan with the "Soldiers with Wings" story.

The young ones squealed with delight when I put on my replica warrior helmet and growled at them.

For the 3th - 5th, I focused on the deliciously gross details of mummification and the strange and funny facts about the ancient world that they won't read in about in most books. For the middle school kids, I talked more about Cleopatra's Moon and the challenge and opportunity of writing historical fiction. Thanks to media specialist-extraordinaire ,Janet Kent, for a wonderful visit!

With some of the students at St. Jude.

Before spring break, I also visited the sixth-graders at St. Jude, thanks to another awesome media specialist, Eleonora Straub. The kids had studied ancient history earlier in the year and their faces lit up every time they made a connection with something I said and their previous lessons.

Recently, I received a thank you note from a nine-year old whom I'd given a special tour at the galleries at the Carlos Museum (along with his mom, Tanya Valentine, and his four-year old brother, Benjamin).

It's so cute, I have to share it with you:

Dear Mrs. Shecter,


Thank you for the special tour of the Carlos Museum. I enjoyed it a lot. Sorry my brother didn't enjoy it as much as I did. If it looked like I was bored, I wasn't, that's just how I look when I'm dehydrated.

Sincerely, Charlie

And he put hieroglyphic symbols on top of every word! That letter makes me smile every time I think about it. I want to use that line about being dehydrated sometime. It's going to come in handy some day, I just know it!

So teachers, media specialists, and parents--invite me to your school. There's nothing I love more than sharing my love of history with your kids.

Connecting with Teens Made my Day

I recently spoke to a high school Latin class of juniors (11th graders). I had a blast. But ya know what really made me happy? Not a single kid fell asleep during my talk (hey, it was an early class, okay?
And we're talking teens).

Yesterday, I received a thank you note from the teacher along with a thick packet of letters and cards from the students. I sometimes receive sweet notes from younger
kids, but I had not expected this from the older ones. It completely made my day (thank you Ms. Burke!). I just had to share some of their comments:

I was worried that I wouldn't like [your Cleopatra book] because it's a children's book, but I ended up really loving it! I kept sharing all of the fun facts that I learned with my friends and parents. Who knew one person could be SO interesting?!

By telling us about the life of Cleopatra, you have renewed my interest in the ancient world...[your approach] actually leaves space for the individual to make his/her own conclusion about how and why things took place. Mrs. Shecter, your job might make you the coolest mom ever.
(My kids would disagree, but still.)

I really enjoyed the detail and depth of your story. I specifically appreciated your enthusiasm...I myself am a history buff and enjoy hearing from other people who have the same passion.

The young man who wrote the above added a PS regarding the replica Spartan helmet I brought in:  The helmet was really cool. I cannot believe you own that. I am jealous.

Again, I love my job

On Inadvertently Embarrassing Teens or Why I Changed my Blog Pic

Author and blogger Marc Aronson at http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/nonfictionmatters writes about presenting to eighth-graders and what a challenge that can be. Fourth, fifth, and sixth-graders. he points out, are still enthusiastic learners and, for the most part, eager to please. Not so for eight-graders.

Eight-graders can be a tough audience.  They have, as Marc pointed out, a different, more skeptical approach to listening to adults. He described it perfectly as a "show me that you are worth my while, otherwise I have enough here, in myself, with my friends, I know more, I don't need you," attitude.
You've got to step up your game with these kids.

Now, I'm generalizing here, but it seems to me this age group is also exquisitely vulnerable to embarrassment. Much of their posturing is for emotional protection.

I learned this not to long ago when I told my middle school aged daughter that I had a school visit coming up.  "You're not going to wear THAT dress, are you?" she asked, referring to my Greek/Roman costume, with that horrified expression teenage girls seem to perfect.

"Well, um..."

"Oh my GAWD, Mom! Please don't! I will never be able to show my face again!"

"Sweetheart, the visit isn't even at your school!"

"Doesn't matter. What if one of my friends SEES you in that? Oh my god..." And so on and so forth.

I assured her that under no circumstances would I ever show up at her school in "that dress" but that younger kids seemed to enjoy the costume.

But then I noticed something else.

I observed a boy at a literature-based/mythology camp I help run at a bookstore. We had a college student in costume pretending to be the Oracle at Delphi. She wasn't necessarily the best actress but most kids rolled with it and had fun. One boy, I noticed though, could barely stand the discomfort of watching her act. He was literally cringing with embarrassment. Did he know her?  Nope, I discovered. Still, when I looked closer, I saw that other kids his age (6th grade), were slightly embarrassed too.

Kids get embarrassed by adults that aren't even "theirs!" I hadn't realized that!

So I figured that if my get-up embarrassed some kids, I had a diminished chance of capturing them with my message. Bye-bye costume.

I may change my mind about it down the road, but for now, it feels right. Besides, I'm getting too dang old for it!