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The Back Yard Zoo by Jim Dunlap "New York Times" |
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The subject line of the email made me suspect a sales
pitch, which I would automatically delete, but instead I accidentally
opened it. I sometimes miss things with that little arrow (I'm
"mouse challenged") so I opened it instead of the next one. It
began, "I am Sam Dillon, an education correspondent for The New
York Times." He mentioned my key word, "education," so I
figured I should read on.
To make a long story fit my space, he is working on an article concerning animals in the classroom. He found me after searching the web and for some reason thinks I am an authority on the subject. He said he had ordered my book, "They Don't Have To Die," and we needed to talk. After two phone calls at over an hour each, many emails, and a few digital photos of the Living Materials Center, his editors decided to send Mr. Dillon for a visit here with a photographer on Tuesday. There's company coming and it was time to clean house. With the staff we have, that was not even a problem. Matt Roark, a freelance photographer, arrived first. His instructions simply requested a portrait photo of an animal and me. He seemed determined to have my face no less than one inch from the animal I was holding. We used Amos the alligator first and he was dead set on removing parts of my face! Katy the python, Don the South American caiman, Chicken the ball python, and others played snuggle-cheek with me while Matt snapped away. He got up on chairs, tables, and at one point he was on his back on the floor just to get the angle he wanted. He must have taken a thousand photos. One of them might even show up in the paper. Sam Dillon of The Times arrived and the questions began. We walked through the entire collection while he wrote furiously on a big, yellow legal-sized pad. We discussed the pros and cons of animals in the classroom. He had done extensive research, interviewed teachers and administrators, visited campuses, and concluded that our program was pretty much unequaled in this country. We knew that. I advised them both that I would require my own photos of them holding an animal. Holding Jose, the South American tegu, did not seem to be a problem. There were some anxious moments when I talked Mr. Dillon into posing with Gertrude the tarantula perched on his forehead. I will attempt to keep you informed as to when the article will be in the paper. I'll try for "will be" but you will most likely get "when it was." Contact Jim Dunlap, director of the Holifield Science Learning Center of Plano Independent School District, 3100 Shiloh Road, at 469-752-1194 or jdunlap@pisd.edu. |
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