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In 2004, I wrote a picture book manuscript called Everyone is the Only One. (I remember precisely where I was when the idea hit: the guest room in a friend’s house.)
It is about a boy named Ansel who feels uncomfortable for being the only dwarf at his new elementary school. Once his classmates learn this, they remind him one by one that each of them is also the only one in some way…only one with braces, only one allergic to peanuts, only only child, and so on.
I submitted to editors. No takers.
A couple of years later, I learned that the idea actually did get published, and in the year I sent it around…just not by me. Jane Naliboff’s The Only One Club follows a similar premise, except the central character’s distinction is that she is Jewish.
Parents and educators: I encourage you to encourage your kids to look at their circle of intimates and determine the ways in which each of them is also the only one. It’s a wonderful and worthy challenge that will get kids thinking about how we are different and how that is good.“Instead of always telling our children that we are all equal and the same, we should tell them that we are all different. Saying we’re the same naturally makes them look for differences. Conversely, saying we’re all different (in appearance, cultures, etc.) makes them instinctively look for ways we’re alike.”
—Erica L. Scott, Binghamton, NY, 2009 letter to Newsweek
On Guam, I learned of a program that ran for several years. I don't know what they called but I'd call it Book Club Plus.
The idea was this: every month, the International Reading Association chose a book club book that included a meal of some kind. The meal would not have be a big part of the book, just enough to be noticeable.
The monthly get-together would take place at the Hard Rock Cafe. The kids would not only discuss the book but share a meal—the meal from the book they'd just read, specially prepared by the restaurant.
Linking reading and eating is but one way such a book club could go. The club could vary the Plus event every month. It could be read a book about baseball, then play baseball before discussing. Or read a book about someone who gets sick, then volunteer reading to kids at a hospital before discussing. The possibilities are as vast as book choices themselves.
On 5/2/11, I had the pleasure of speaking at Johnson Junior High in Las Vegas. Even though I've seen year-round outdoor lockers at desert schools before, I still can't get my head around them.
Something I had not seen before was this kind of screen setup:
Nor had I seen this, a main office counter bedecked with names of colleges:
Every time a student comes to the office, s/he is reminded of college and exposed to an ample choice of colleges. I realize that some young people probably don't notice the little signs, or don't notice them after the first time, but it still seems like a good way to perpetually reinforce the importance of higher education. And it's so easily done.
Pleasant Ridge Elementary in Overland Park, Kansas, has a clever system in place to reward positive behavior. The values the school emphasizes are displayed here:
A teacher who observe a student demonstrating any of these traits can randomly commend that student by awarding points, and when students accumulate a certain amount, they can trade them in for goodies (kept in a special room that is all decked out with stars, streamers, and the like):
I especially liked how every teacher in the school is depicted on his/her own trading card, which the kids are given copies of.
And the traders—the kids themselves—are also put on trading cards!
To be honest, I don’t remember exactly how the cards relate to the points system, but no matter—teacher trading cards, while labor intensive for sure, is a wildly stimulating idea that other schools can adapt and make their own in any number of ways.
