It's in all the translation

Neatnik's school is big on reading. From first grade onward, each student is supposed to have a non-curriculum book in their desk every day. Yes, every day. When a classroom full of children takes a test or has written work to complete, it is a guarantee that some will finish quickly and some will not. The early finishers are expected to pull out their books and read quietly, so as not to disturb the students who are still working. Sometimes, like when there is a substitute teacher or when they class is ahead of schedule, the whole class might be given a free reading interval. Number Guy and I, we like this policy.

Neatnik's school, we discovered this year, is also big on building study skills. My primary and secondary school teachers never taught us study skills. You brought home books if you had a homework assignment or a test the next day and you did the homework or crammed for the test. Other than that, the textbooks stayed in your desk/locker. Not so in Neatnik's school. The teacher will assign as "homework" things like Social Studies: Study Chapter 4, Lesson 1, test next Friday. Number Guy and I have decided that we like this policy, too.

Sure, it means that some days, Neatnik gets off the school bus lugging her own body weight in school books - but that's why we bought her a wheelie backpack.

Bringing home their notes and textbooks to study a little bit every night helps them to learn. Instead of "studying" only the night before a test in a traditional "cram and dump" cycle, Neatnik and her schoolmates are being taught how to move the knowledge into long-term memory. I don't think this child will ever forget the different types of clouds, for example.

Since Neatnik loves to read so much, she often brings books in the car when we are running errands. On Wednesday, we had a very busy afternoon so I suggested that Neatnik bring her religion textbook to read in the car between our various stops. The story of the week was Saul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9)

After listening to Neatnik read her highlighted notes, I started asking her about what she had read. Allow me to summarize for you

See, there was this dude Saul, he liked persecutin' da Christians (he's that guy what was down with Stephen gettin' all martyred like that) and he was on his way to this city called Damascus. On the way there, there was this huge lightning bolt and then Jesus said, "Dude, you're messing with my peeps. Don't like nobody messing with my peeps."

Saul got all blinded from the lightning and he fell off his ass. He got to that there Damascus place and pouted for a few days. In the meantime? Jesus, he said to his buddy Ananias, "Dude, go slap your hands on Saul's head so's he won't be blind any more."

Ananias asked Jesus, "Dude...seriously!?!?!"

So Jesus answered him, "Dude. Seriously. I got it covered. He's not gonna mess with my peeps no more."

Okay, so then Ananias went to find Saul and smacked him in the head and told him, "Dude, Jesus says no more messin' with da peeps. Seriously."

What can I say? I was inspired by those who came before me. Saint Jerome translated it from Greek to Latin and King James paid for the Latin to get translated into English so I figured it was okay to update the English into a kind of hybridized 21st-century urban. What? Haven't you read this?