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High school chemistry teacher Scott Byrum found a brilliant way to catch the attention of his students. When it was time to renovate his classroom, he made vinyl letters and numbers and attached them to the tiles of his drop ceiling. When arranged properly, they formed the periodic table of elements. It got just the effect that Byrum was looking for:“My students love it,” Byrum says of his new ceiling. “It makes them feel more connected to my instruction.” The artwork is also an instant conversation starter. “Even faculty members, when they walk in and see it,” want to talk about it, he says.
Byrum no longer worries about his students daydreaming in class. When their minds start to wander, and they look up at the ceiling, well, there’s the periodic table. “Even though they may be daydreaming, they’re daydreaming science,” he says.
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“I read because one
life isn’t enough, and
in the pages of a book
I can be anybody;I read because the
words that build
the story become mine,
to build my life;I read not for happy
endings but for new
beginnings; I’m just
beginning myself, and
I wouldn’t mind a map;I read because I have
friends who don’t, and
young though they are,
they’re beginning to
run out of material;I read because every
journey begins at
the library, and it’s
time for me to start
packing;I read because one
of these days I’m going
to get out of this
town, and I’m going to
go everywhere and meet
everyone, and I want
to be ready.”–Richard Peck, author
Putting books in the hands of students
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Pedagogical Project
“The Joy of Reading”
______________________________________The Sword of PeaceOnce upon a time there was a precious sword. Now, this sword belonged to a great King, as for as long as anyone could remember, the King spent all his time in his palace, enjoying his shows and parties. One day a great dispute broke out between this king and the King of a neighbouring country. It ended with both declaring war.
The sword was greatly excited at the prospect of taking part in its first real battle. It would show everyone how truly brave and special it was, and would become renowned throughout the kingdom. On the way to the front line, the sword imagined itself the winner of many battles. However, when they arrived, the first battle had already taken place, and the sword got to see the results of war. What it saw had nothing in common with what the sword had imagined. No elegant shining knights, triumphant, with their weapons gleaming in the sunlight. Instead, all the sword saw was broken weapons, and hordes of hungry and thirsty men. There was hardly any food left. Everything was covered in dirt and shrouded in a disgusting smell. Many were half dead and scattered on the ground, bleeding from multiple wounds…
At this, the sword realized that it liked neither wars nor battles. It decided it preferred to live in peace and spend its time taking part in tournaments and competitions. So, on the night before what was going to be the big final battle, the sword tried to find a way to prevent it from taking place. After a while, the sword started to vibrate. First it gave out a low buzz, but this gradually got louder, until it became an annoying metallic noise. The swords and armour of the other soldiers asked the king’s sword what it was doing. It told them “I don’t want there to be a battle tomorrow. I don’t like war”.
One answered, “No one likes it. But what can we do?”
“Make yourself vibrate, just like I’m doing”, said the king’s sword. “If we make enough noise, no one will sleep.”
So the weapons started vibrating, and the noise became deafening. It was so loud that it reached the enemy camp, and the weapons there, who were equally sick of the war, joined the protest.
The next morning, when the battle should have begun, not a single soldier was ready to fight. No one had managed to get even a wink of sleep, not even the Kings or the Generals. So they spent the whole day catching up on sleep. During the evening they started to wake up, and decided to put off the battle for the next day.
However, the weapons, led by the King’s sword, spent the night repeating their peace song, and again no soldier could rest. The battle had to be postponed yet again, and this carried on for the next seven days. On the evening of the seventh day, the Kings of the two armies met to see what they could do about the situation. Both were furious from their previous dispute, but after being together for a while they started to discuss their sleepless nights, the surprise on their soldiers’ faces, the confusion of day with night, and all the amusing situations all this had created. It wasn’t long before both were laughing, like friends, at these little stories.
Fortunately, they forgot their old disputes and they put an end to the war, each returning to their own land with the double joy of not having had to fight and having regained a friend. And from then on, from time to time, the Kings would meet up to talk about their experiences as Kings. They now understood that the things which united them were much more numerous than anything that set them apart from each other.
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When people ask me “What do you do” and I answer that I am a librarian, I invariably get one of two reactions.
“Wow! Really! My favourite book is…..”
or
“I don’t read”.
