A WHOLE NEW WORLD

The Los Angeles Unified School District gets a bad rap. But last year, in kindergarten, Arden learned all the fundamentals of reading and now, not even half-way through first grade, she can read. I mean really read. When I was in kindergarten we made collages out of our mothers' Vogue magazines and watched our teacher make applesauce out of the crab apples we found in the woods. First grade was spent drawing pictures of my imaginary home planet Xenazonamus and learning the Pledge of Allegiance (neither of which are taught in school today.) I didn’t start to read until second grade. The book was called “I Am Sam” (not to be confused with the terrible Sean Penn movie or the protagonist in Green Eggs and Ham.) And as a reward for reading my first 10-page book, unassisted, my folks presented me with a Greedo action figure from Star Wars. If my parents had a scanner and actually knew what a scanner did, I’d post a picture of myself proud and front-toothless holding up my prize (now worth over $300 if I didn’t open it up.) But I digress…

Arden can now read pretty much anything these days, whereas Alex, who’s now 3-years-old still can’t recognize her own name. In fact this morning, after dropping Arden off at school, Alex looked up at the Hollywood Sign and said, “Hey, that’s my name on the mountain.” Close. Anyway, on the actual drive to school this morning, Arden starts reading all the signs and billboards we’ve passed a thousand times before. She sees a sign that says, “Keys” and asks, “Why does that sign say ‘keys’ on it?” I said, “Because they sell keys there.” “Huh.” We then passed a building and Arden says, “Citizens Medical Group? Is that like a doctor’s office or something?” I said, “That’s exactly what it is.” Arden says, “I had no idea. It’s kind of like a whole new world when you can read.” I smiled and said, “It is.” We then passed an HIV awareness billboard that featured a retro cartoon of two men about to kiss with the caption, “New Love?” Arden says, “New Love? What’s that billboard selling?” I replied, “I must have missed that one.”