Knowledge is the Tickle Monster

Today with some third graders I was reading "What About Me" by Ed Young out of our Scott Foresman curriculum books. The story is about a boy who wants knowledge, so he goes to the wise man. The wise man tells the boy he cannot impart knowledge to him until he gets a rug. So the boy goes to buy a rug, but the rug maker needs thread, and the boy goes off to get some thread. Unfortunately for him, the spinner needs goat hairs to make the thread, so off the boy goes to the goatherd, who is kind of a jerk, quite frankly, and won't give the boy any goat hairs until he has a wooden pen for his goats. Then the boy goes to a carpenter who won't build the pen unless he gets a wife because he is lonely and the women in town "won't have" him.

To be honest, maybe the carpenter is unmarried and undesirable to women because he is kind of creepy and inappropriate. A child comes up to him and asks him to build a wooden pen, and the man replies that he will only if the boy can get him woman. That is no way to do business with children!

But anyway, I'm sure you can see how the story progresses without me retelling the entire thing. Now I am going to spoil the ending though, so if you're planning on running out and buying this book to read, please stop now. The boy eventually gets his rug and shows up to the wise man's place, demanding his knowledge. The wise man is all wise and annoying, telling the boy that he has already gained more knowledge than the man could ever give him just by sitting down and lecturing.

While I can't quote it exactly since the book isn't in front of me, I'll tell you that the moral of the story was two fold:
1. Sometimes it is better to give than to receive.
2. Knowledge comes to you when you least expect it.

Explaining the first moral to third graders was not difficult, since they've been hearing it year in and year out for about 9 years of their lives. The second moral was trickier.

The third grade teacher and I were trying to use student friendly language and analogies that were meaningful to our students without "dumbing down" the content. As we watched the blank looks on the 32 kids' faces become even blanker, we began squishing up our faces, trying desperately to come up with new ways to explain it.

All of a sudden, one boy sits bolt up right. His face lights up and he exclaims, "Oh! I get it!" The teacher and I are on the edge of our seats, "Yes, go on!" she says.

"Sometimes, my grandpa turns into the tickle monster. Usually, he is just Grandpa, but sometimes he becomes a tickle monster and chases me and my sister around and tickles us until we can't laugh anymore. My grandpa always says that the tickle monster will get you when you least expect it!"

There you have it, friends. Knowledge is like the tickle monster. In fact, who is to say that knowledge and tickle monsters are not synonymous. They do both, as it seems, come to you when you least expect it.