7/21/10 Four stuffed animals and one bath book, given awayWhile the downsizing has been plodding along, the real work recently has been the launching of our new elementary school, SOAR. This week we began a month of professional development for our new staff, and it has been truly inspiring.
As research has consistently shown, the single most important factor in a child's success in school is the teacher. Economics? Race? Parents' level of education? School size? None of it matters as much as who the kid's teacher is.
After meeting our faculty, I can only say that the children coming to SOAR are tremendously fortunate.
I'm also loving the fact that we have a disproportionate number of males on staff for an elementary school, which is to say we have more than zero. Actually, SOAR has several men on staff, and, as luck would have it, three of them have children who are right around the same age as Chase. Future friends for the Colorado Critter.To ensure that those tykes will think favorably of my son, I decided to buy them off.
Chase has so many stuffed animals that today I took four of them to school (as well as a bath book that we had two copies of).
My new colleagues Eric, J.C., and Brad divvied up the goods and, as the photos above show, their little ones are already breaking them in. May the toys bring them hours of enjoyment.
Sharing and giving are important characteristics that we all want our children to develop. I'm trying to teach them to Chase at an early age.
We hope you long ago downsized the dog chew toy we gave Chase in April. Aged eyesight is no excuse for misappropriating curiously designed stuffed animal forms, and our only consolation is that, as it went toward Chase's mouth, we could say with certainty that it was acquired new, directly from the store shelf, and not at a yard sale.
ReplyDeleteYes, Dear Readers, what Gemni is admitting here is that he gave his only grandchild a dog toy as a present.
ReplyDeleteBut, frankly, Chase likes it, so we're holding onto it. No ill effects so far!
We appreciate your and colleagues' creativity (pun intended) in assuring job security by providing your own future clients. Love the visual progression (top to bottom) of waning enthusiasm from the four toy recipients (or, perhaps, illustrating the desirable result of exhaustive interaction with stuffed animals).
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