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Show Answer Man knows When my third grader, Jared, was assigned a science report, he chose to write about the space shuttle. We looked through the encyclopedia. I read a paragraph, and then Jared put it in his own words. We read the next paragraph together, and then he rephrased it. He read the next paragraph by himself and restated it. He decided what was important to include and what to leave out. "'J LILY ESKELSEN UEA President "Who?" I wrote a long distance number on his paper. I told him to ask for The Answer Man. "Say who you are, and tell him you're doing do-ing a report, and he'll help you. That's what he's there for. Dad and I will pay for any charges." A sense of awe came over his face. This was mysterious. This was exotic. This was something that cost money, and it wasn't coming out of his allowance. He smiled and dialed. The line was busy for quite a while. "A lot of people call The Answer Man," I explained. He finally got through. "This is Jared. May I speak to The Answer Man?" Grandma Ruthie asked, "Is this Jared? Do you want to talk to Grandpa?" "Mom! Grandpa Quinn's The Answer Man!" And he was. They chatted while Jared took notes. It may cost 75 cents for the long distance charge. Jared had a resource much more valuable than our set of encyclopedia. He had Grandpa, a retired engineer who had helped test the space shuttle rockets. If you have an Answer Man or an Answer Lady in your family, use them. Benefit from them. Value them. Books are wonderful tools, but my son has The Answer Man's phone number on his bookmark. We were coming along fine, but he seemed to be getting a little discouraged with the slow process of reading the book. We switched gears. I asked him to write a list of questions ques-tions about the shuttle that he'd i always wanted to know. He thought f for a few seconds. "How high up is space?" "Why do all those parts ' f al 1 off? " " What h appen s to I them?" We wrote a lengthy list, - and I told him he should call The e Answer Man. |