After school at Lake Harriet I had a parent call me and she began asking questions about the new algebra curriculum. I told her that there wasn’t a new algebra curriculum – the new material was for K-8 kids. She asked what the publisher was, but I wasn’t sure. Since Helena was in the room, I asked her. She looks at me with the look like she’s trying to remember and then she remembered: “Oh, oh, one book is called daily work and the other is called home work.” Thanks honey.

Then on the drive home, I was driving down Dupont Avenue like I usually do but a bus pulled out in front of me so I didn’t want to get behind it. Helena starts talking about buses and how we have to stop behind them if the stop sign comes out the side. I told her that our buses didn’t have those stop signs and we didn’t have the bar that comes out in front of the bus. She begins talking about the bus and starts rattling off things with terms that really have no “standard” meaning but she thinks that they are universal:

“Yeah, the SAFETY BAR. It is there so kids can’t get too close to the bus and that way the bus driver can see them. Because if the SAFETY BAR wasn’t there, you would be in the DANGER ZONE and you might get run over”.

When I was pulling into the driveway she tells me that people weren’t too smart back then if they didn’t have SAFETY BARS on buses.