I went to the Prime Time gathering in Aztec tonight. I was aiming to get there at 6:00pm., so as to miss the dinner.
I arrived at the library complex with the Boys & Girls Club, etc. early and went to the library briefly. Then when
I tried to go to the reading group, the Boys & Girls Club did not know about it, the Aztec library did not know about
it, and the San Juan College secretary did not know about it, but she called Farmington library for me. So,
I arrived just in time at Mosaic Charter School a couple of blocks away.
The Farmington Library director was in charge and there were two other adults who stood at the front and
spoke, one of whom read the story to us. They had all read it during the week, except me and Ben. Karen lead the discussion
and she started by saying that it was a book about someone's personal dream. She asked the boys and girls if they had
some career dreams. Two boys said they want to be computer game designers. One little girl wants to be a lawyer and
one wants to be an artist. Karen talked about how the dream that the main character had in the beginning had changed
and been replaced. She talked about how that was okay, that as you grow and change your dreams grow anc change too and
while it is important to have dreams maybe it is not important that they all come true. Some of the kids commented
on that; they could already see that some dreams are more realistic than others. She asked the parents what they had
dreamt of being when they were young. ONe young woman had wanted to be in the Peace Corp and she was there with
her husband and three children. Her husband said he is doing his dream right now, building houses.
At the end of the story the couple's house had burned down and they built a new one. That lead
into a brief talk on the current out of control fires in southern California and the 250,000 people who had bee evacuted by
then.
There were about 11 kids who stayed for the reading and discussion, which was only about 30 minutes long.
There were another five who went next door and played and did arts and crafts. There were I think seven different families
present. It was an interesting assortment of people. A couple of the boys were probably early teens and very quiet.
There were two little girls, sisters, who were very well-spoken; and there were about seven boys under ten.
I think it is too bad that there was no chair for the reader and discussion leader to sit in so that
they would be actually in the circle instead of set apart and above. I was expecting something different. I thought
it was going to be a discussion with everyone participating, but it was far more like a class in school.
Note: I did not open my mouth.
