Respect Cookie and Kids

photo from Scientopia.org

Cookie Monster cracks me up.  He is appropriately egotistical and completely transparent, the perfect portrayal of a young monster (or a child).  Thoughts about what other people want, or what they might be thinking, expecting or hoping do not cross his mind.  Check out Cookie at the library in this clip from Sesame Street.  I laughed out loud and could totally relate to the poor librarian, definitely a good reminder to take deep breaths and be ever patient when I’m working with kids.  
Young children are honest, brutally so.  When I stand up in front of my classroom and look out at my student’s faces their emotions are crystal clear:  excitement, boredom, curiosity, confusion - it’s all there, written across their face.  The challenge for teachers, and librarian is to tap into what excites them and direct it in a way that helps them learn.  Teachers can be guilty of lamenting the attitude of kids in America ‘these days’ and it’s true, sometimes they don’t seem to care about learning, aren’t curious and avoid books like the plague.  It’s frustrating for the adults in their lives who are trying to help them learn and grow.  But when I see Cookie’s big googly eyes I realize he is not trying to annoy, frustrate or aggravate the beleaguered librarian, he just wants a cookie.  Ironically, 30 years later, Cookie got his wish, lots of people wanted to have cookies with their books (and lattes and paninis), imagine what the muppet librarian would say about Starbucks in the library?
Instead of complaining or trying, in vain, to change kids and their attitudes, we need to respect what they want and acknowledge that they are the result of the society that we have created.  My students care about video games, hockey, Justin Bieber, candy, being silly and their families.  The more I can tap into their interests and respect what they like, the more successfully I will be in helping them learn.  That means buying Captain Underpants books, writing essays about hockey and biographies about Justin, playing learning games with candy and connecting with families.
The libraries I’ve been to are way ahead of game.  The Dallas Public Library is a great case in point.  They have Teen Centers set up across the city (sponsored by AT&T).  The Teen Centers have their own logo, web page, and facebook page.  The centers have movie nights (watch Twilight - get giveaways!),  offer free acting classes, host author visits and money management talks, set up trivia contests, provide job and life skills training, homework help, drugs and alcohol discussion groups,  workshops in fencing, GED classes AND I even read about graffiti week when kids were invited to add their positive graffiti to the library wall - whoa!  Cookie Monster would love it and I bet I know just what he would put on his wall.