Big Brother

This is the second school year my office has been at the Tucker building here in Marion. That's roughly 400 days. Two days ago I noticed for the first time that right outside the classroom door that leads into my office, there is a camera mounted near the ceiling. This camera feeds information back to monitors that are placed in the main office and monitored by either secretaries or a security guard. I had been aware of cameras that monitored the parking lot, but until two days ago, I was not aware of the hallway cameras. In addition to housing three preschool programs for Marion Community Schools, the Tucker building is also the site for alternative education for middle school students, so I understand the need for the cameras. I just didn't realize they were there.

I'm a little paranoid now about my past activities in the hallway. In the past, what if I looked both ways down the hall, looked behind me, and then while thinking noone was looking, adjusted a piece of clothing, or scratched my nose, or did something that would be embarrasing for another to witness? This got me thinking - what if there were hidden cameras everywhere, catching our every move when we think noone is watching? The point of this post isn't to talk about how even when noone sees what we are doing, God always sees, or anything even along those lines. It's more about the silly or embarrasing things we do each day that we would never EVER do if anyone else was around. Let me give you an example. At lunch yesterday I picked up Anna from preschool, took her home and fixed us both lunch. I wonder if she is getting sick of peanut butter and jelly, string cheese, and chips like I am since that is what we eat together every today. Anyway, the bag of chips was getting very low, so the majority of the chips on my plate were crumbs. I love these kind of chips - they're the cheddar and sour cream ones (don't know the brand, doesn't matter.) I finished the rest of my lunch except for some remaining crumbs on my plate. Not to let even one drop of food go to waste, I leaned down over my plate, and using my tongue as a utensil, cleaned my plate up so you could see all of the flowers that were under the food (my mom always used to use that phrase as a motivator, not sure why, because there were only a couple of flowers in the center of our plates growing up.) Would I have even dared to clean up the crumbs in that matter if any other person (other than my 4 year old who wasn't paying attention) would have been there? Of course not.

I gave a speech in speech class my freshman year of college about a procedure I do sometimes in the bathroom. I won't elaborate any further, but this is another thing that I would NEVER do in front of anyone else.

Anytime "Careless Whispers" by George Michael (or is it WHAM!) comes on, I have to sing along at the top of my lungs. "I'M NEVER GONNA DANCE AGAIN. GUILTY FEET HAVE GOT NO RHYTHM. THOUGH IT'S EASY TO PRETEND, I KNOW YOU'RE NOT A FOOL."

I've stalked A LOT of blogs that I would be embarrased if the author knew how often I checked the site. Get a life, Deb.

Cleaning out my belly button with a q-tip is something noone should have to witness.

Singing along with my children's kid cd's...when they aren't in the car anymore. "Old McDonald had a farm, eieio." It's even worse when I start trying to harmonize with them.

In reality, no matter how dignified any one of us looks in public, we all do crazy humiliating things that let us just be us with ourselves. What's even better is if you have a family you can do them in front of (oops, ended on a preposition, sorry Mom.) I'm glad I do.

Magic Tree House

When I was a kid, I loved to read. I remember as an elementary aged kid going to the Marion Public Library, downstairs in the basement, to the children's section to pick out 10 books. My favorite series (what is the plural for series, anyways) were the Beverly Cleary books (Beezus and Ramona and Henry Huggins and Ribsy) and the Carolyn Haywood books (Betsy and Star, these were a little older where the moms never worked and the dads brought home the bacon and the kids were well mannered all of the time) and the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle Books and Encyclopedia Brown and Choose Your Own Adventure and The Bobbsey Twins and I could go on and on and on. I would plop down on our old brown couch that sat in the living room and not get back up until I had read a book cover to cover. So now that Elizabeth is to the age where she is getting into chapter books, I want her to share the same love of reading. She has taken to the Junie B. Jones books like I did the above series (there we go again, what is that plural?) but I want her to enjoy the books I did, too. She has gotten into the Ramona books, but another series that she has enjoyed is the Magic Tree House series. This is a newer series, one I am completely unfamiliar with, but my mom got her a couple of books for Christmas last year, so she has started her collection. Together right after Christmas we read Midnight on the Moon. It was pretty good I guess. Then this summer Elizabeth read one about Polar Bears. It seemed to hold her attention. Then during our last camping trip, she started on one called Space. One night she got about two chapters into the book before she fell asleep with the book on her chest. When I went into the camper for the night and turned off her light, I started leafing through the book to see what it was about. I was quite excited about all of the scientific knowledge she would be gaining - even while she wasn't in school. Imagine my surprise when I began reading the following and I am directly quoting the book here: (now, it has been over 10 years since college where everything has to be documented APA style, so know that all of these direct quotes come from the Magic Tree House book Space, written by Will and Mary Pope Osborne)

Wait, first I have to tell you on the front of the book it states that this book is "a non-fiction companion to Midnight on the Moon."

Okay, back to the book. Chapter 2's title is "The Universe." The first heading is "The Birth of the Universe." Under this heading is the following: "Today, most astronomers think the universe began with a huge explosion. They call the explosion the Big Bang. They think that it happened about 15 billion years ago. Two things happened at the moment of the Big Bang. First, the stuff that would become everything in the universe came into being. Second, the universe began expanding" more jibberish follows, then "At the moment of the explosion, the whole universe was smaller than the head of a pin. Within a second, it was billions of times bigger than Earth. For billions of years after the Big Bang, everything in the universe was just very, very hot gas." After more explanation, the end of this section is summarized as follows:

Birth of the Universe
Big Bang
Universe gets bigger and bigger
Gas balls form
Gas balls become stars

Well, I'm glad that is all cleared up for my 7 year old now. Just a little different explanation of the birth of the universe than what she has learned from the first few chapters of Genesis.

The next morning Elizabeth and I had a little conversation about her book. Thankfully, the biblical teaching has made its mark on her, because when I asked her about what she had read, she said, "Isn't that silly? I mean, how could an explosion like that position the sun just the right distance from Earth so it isn't too hot or too cold. And God created everything on the Earth."

My problem with the Magic Tree House book isn't that it explained the Big Bang theory. And the rest of the book seems pretty accurate based on what we know through science. My problem with this book was that it quickly moved from "this is what most astronomers think" to assuming that it was right, and then basing the rest of the chapter on it. I want my children to know about what other people think and that others have a different opinion on the origin of the universe. I just didn't expect a children's book to be so one sided about it.