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Paper Boats and a Book


Fourth Grade proved to be a bit of a challenge for me due to the fact that I attended three different schools that year.

Our family had moved to Steven's Point, WI the year prior...third grade was spent there. Right after the new school year started I went to McKinley School in Steven's Point for about 1 month of 4th Grade then we moved back to the Chicagoland Area. I found myself at Washington School in River Forest, IL. We were renting a house as we looked for a permanent residence. Three months later we moved across town and I once again found myself in a new school...Roosevelt School this time.

As I look back I can remember a small bit from McKinley, a little bit more from Washington, and a great deal more from Roosevelt. Each one, though, had its memories and each one had something to offer me as a student.

I can recall learning cursive writing in McKinley. We had worked on it the year prior but when I started 4th Grade they seemed to be more serious about it. Then we moved.

Washington School offered my first experience in cooperative learning. It was set up in the "open classroom" model where several grade levels were all on one floor, and there were no walls. I can remember working with many kids. The seeds of friendships were planted...then we moved.

Roosevelt School offered a place I finally called home. Seeds of friendship were planted and they grew, many are still fruitful to this day. Roosevelt School had one section of 4th Grade, so the kids knew each other well. My start was rough, in many ways, yet over time I assimilated into the world of my peers.

One thing that stands out as an academic memory from Roosevelt is being truly introduced to reading. I can remember that we had library time once a week and the librarian read to us and showed us things. Before then I wasn't much of a reader; maybe I didn't have the time what with all the moving around. In any case, reading for me consisted of what the teacher had me do during school hours.

Then one day the librarian read a story that I wasn't particularly interested in. I was finding it difficult to find books that intrigued me...basically I stopped looking on my own. After the story the librarian showed us how to make a paper boat and turn it into a t-shirt while telling a story about the captain of the 'boat" and how he was "lost at sea". This hands on story-telling got me...I was enthralled in the lesson.

When it became time to check-out books I mustered up the courage to ask the librarian if she could help me find something to read. She looked at me and said, "I've been waiting for you to ask me. I have just the book for you."

I was surprised that she had taken time out of her life to select a book for me before I even asked. I followed her across the library to a section that would soon become my second "school-home". The author of the thin book she pulled from the shelf was Donald J. Sobol. The book was, "Encyclopedia Brown." I had never heard of the series but didn't think I wanted to read an entire book. Little did I know that it was a compilation of short stories in mystery form...a detective type book. What captured me most was that the answer to each mystery was in the back. I loved trying to figure out the mystery; to figure out how the "villain" had messed up.

I returned to that very spot in the library time and again. I read all of the Encyclopedia Brown books in the library two or three times each. I escaped into the world of Idaville, Leroy Brown, Bug's Meany, Sally Kimball, Sweeney's Auto Body Shop, Chief Brown and the gasoline can that the towns' kids plopped down their 25 cents to hire Encyclopedia Brown to get them out of yet another jam.

To this day, one of my favorite things to do with my students, or any kids I work with, is to show them the paper boat/t-shirt folding and tell the captain story. And much to my delight, when the district adopted the Reading Street curriculum a few years, back the 4th Grade Reader had an Encyclopedia Brown selection in it! The week we read this story is one of my most favorite and nostalgic weeks of every year.

It's amazing to see how much my students enjoy the stories created by Donald J. Sobol...even to this day; some 30+ years after my discovery.

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