The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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November 19, 2009

Mike Pound: Next generation poised to do better

I like the fact that fourth-grade kids are smarter than I am.

It seems to me that if everyone is doing his job correctly, the kids coming up should always be smarter than the kids checking out. I’m not trying to rush things here. I mean, I have no intention of checking out anytime soon, but my days of coming up have long passed. It’s time for the next generation and the one after that to get ready to take things over. And from what I can tell, the next generation is poised to do a better job of taking over than my generation is doing.

Again, that’s the way it should be.

The folks in my parents’ generation tried to make sure that my generation had a better chance to succeed than they did. They paid their taxes, fought wars, supported schools and tried to send as many of us as they could to college, all in the hope that we would be better prepared to run things than they were. Not better necessarily, but better prepared. They wanted things to be better for us than they were for them.

So on Wednesday morning, when Dave Woods — the Globe’s new-media editor — and I walked into Diane Southard’s fourth-grade classroom at Stapleton Elementary School and saw that all the kids in the class had computer screens at their desks, I smiled. It was shortly before 8 a.m., and the kids were working on math problems. The problems were on the computer screens, and the kids were wrangling with them on sheets of paper. Hey, even in the 21st century, kids still have to show their work.

I think it’s a good thing that a school district like Joplin’s is in a position to provide computers for all the kids in a fourth-grade class. I don’t know if the district provides computers at every desk in every school, but I hope so.

Dave and I went to Stapleton to talk to the students about the newspaper business. Diane’s class is getting ready to put out a newsletter, and she asked Dave and me to talk to the kids about interviewing and whatever else we wanted to talk about. So we did. Diane said the kids would probably have some questions. And they did. Good questions.

One girl asked me if I had a favorite news story. I told her I did, and I told her what the story was. Later, I complimented her on her question, and she smiled. Dave and I asked the kids if they read the Globe. They said they do. But kids always say that, so we asked them what they like about the paper. Some kids said they like the sports page. Some kids said they like to read our crime stories. Several kids said they read the obituaries. (I thought only people my age did that.) Several other kids said they like to read our comics. To test them, we asked the kids to name their favorite comics. “Peanuts” and “Garfield” were the clear winners. To test the kids further, I asked them to name the dog in “Garfield.” The kids said the dog’s name is Odie. Then I asked them what Garfield’s favorite food is. The kids said his favorite food is lasagna.

Diane told Dave and me that her class soon will start working on its newsletter. The students will design the newsletter themselves, and do the reporting and the writing. She told me that the kids plan to interview Superintendent C.J. Huff. I don’t want to C.J. to worry or anything, but I think he better be on his toes. I’m pretty sure they will come up with some good questions.

I’m pretty sure that when I was in fourth grade, my teacher wouldn’t have been planning on his students putting out a newsletter. I’m pretty sure my teacher would call it a good day if we put out a spelling test. I’m not saying my fourth-grade class was dumb. I’m just saying we weren’t as smart as Diane’s fourth-grade class.

And that’s the way it should be.

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