From: James Elliott <j_c_elliott>
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 13:19:44 -0400

Oh, Nancy, you hit on one of my own pet peeves! I remember as a child struggling to finish my ton of homework before dinner so I could at least have some TV time (back then we only had three channels).

Now I see my own children struggling with overloaded backpacks that must weigh at least 40 pounds, a TON of homework, and I have to refrain myself from going to their teacher(s) and yelling: "Have you no concept of what a CHILDHOOD is supposed to be? How can children be children if they spend all their free time doing Math exercises just to pass some dumb standardized test so that you and the school look good on paper and get more funds? For heaven's sake, go back and read "Tom Sawyer" again!"

But I don't, and my children are both A-B students. And this is why I oppose year-round schools, by the way. Give them an inch, they'll take it all.

James Elliott Gadsden County Public Library System 341 E. Jefferson Street Quincy, FL. 32351-2531

(850) 627-7106

There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.
? Andrew CARNEGIE

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
? Groucho MARX

>From: "Nancy Silverrod" <nsilverrod at sfpl.org>

>The things that made a reading environment for me as a child were the
>following:
>
>>
>10. A much less structured childhood than kids have today--where there
>was time for reading and time for the kind of imaginative play that
>books inspired.
>
>
Received on Tue 11 Oct 2005 12:19:44 PM CDT