Honestly...Honesty?

So one of the many hats I wear is school librarian. My kids go to a charter school and as such funds are tight and parents volunteer. I was lucky enough to get the best draw. School Librarian. Well not THE librarian...one of many...but still pretty cool label I think. I've learned lots of things...if you want science books look in the 500s, Art books--700s, biographies? Make your way to the 920s.

A few other things I've learned:

• Pokemon is cool
• Both boys and girls like Pokemon
• When there is only one Pokemon book in the entire library there will be a very long waiting list for it.
• Nancy Drew & Hardy Boys...not so cool.
• There is NO waiting list for either
• A LOT of kids like to read dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs...etc.

Who knew there was even a non-fiction section in the library? I don't think I ever entered the realm as a kid except for school research project but probably 50% of the books kids check out are non-fiction. Of course today's non-fiction books are WAY more cool than the ones 'back in the day'--cool pictures, Internet links, exciting titles the works.

So...to get to my point. (Yes I do have one) Now that school has been in session for 5 months we are accumulating the excuses for why books are overdue...way overdue.

I've had my share of overdue books so really I thought I knew most of the excuses:

• It got eaten by the monster under my bed.
• I put it in my Dad's car before Christmas then he left with his girlfriend.
• It got run over by the garbage truck.
• My dog peed on it. (That one was true...the mom just sent a note and money)

The interesting thing...is to see the kids that don't have excuses.

Me: "You have two books checked out and one is overdue so you can't check out any more."

First Grader: "Oh, I put it in the book return."

Me: Looking in the book return, sure enough there was the title. "Ok then, let's check it back in"

First Grader: Eyes shift and no longer make contact

Me: "Hmm, looks like this is the same title that you checked out but it isn't the same copy"

First Grader: Slinks away...knows she was caught. She had gone to the shelf found the title she had checked out and knowingly dumped it in the return box.

I gotta hand it to the girl, it was a creative solution...but what's up with 6 year olds creating all out cons?

It has made me contemplate the honesty of our society. I'm guessing the kids learn it from the adults...yep...as a society we suck at honesty. We have a Secretary of Treasury that 'forgot' to pay his taxes. That shouldn't matter because now he is the big boss OVER the IRS. No conflict there. We have Governor's of states that take bribes for anything and everything including holding children's hospital funding ransom or appointing senators...no big deal 'It's how politics is done'. We have presidents of corporations that while eliminating 10s of thousands of jobs see that it is no biggie to pay out huge bonuses to the top tier execs. Or CEO's whose companies have just received billions of dollars in bailout money (translation...YOUR MONEY FOR EONS TO COME) that feel that they MUST renovate their office because it is impossible to do business as is and spend 1.2 MILLION dollars to do it. $85,000 alone on a rug. Yep we suck. And our society is paying for it.

A 2002 article from CNN.com shows how teenagers view cheating:

• A national survey by Rutgers' Management Education Center of 4,500 high school students found that 75 percent of them engage in serious cheating.
• More than half have plagiarized work they found on the Internet.
• Perhaps most disturbing, many of them don't see anything wrong with cheating: Some 50 percent of those responding to the survey said they don't think copying questions and answers from a test is even cheating.

I found this great link...that should be required reading for all gov officials, CEO's, and in short all those that may bring about the downfall of OUR society.

HONESTY FOR DUMMIES