This is the story of my goat.

Question:  do teachers and librarians reserve a soft spot in our hearts for the first schools we ever  worked in?

I know I do.

My very first school library position was in East Point, GA. I loved that school!
It was part of the Fulton County system, a star in the school library world.
A Title I school, back in the day when there was all sorts of funding to support kids who needed it. (One of my very first blogposts was about that experience.)

Part of the funding went for art.
Can you imagine? We actually had reproductions, small sculptures, all sorts of wonderful things. Lots of brand new books! As a new librarian, I thought that would be the norm for the rest of my career.

In that Georgia school's library, Picasso's goat greeted my students.

The real one resides at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

This was a hefty, table-top reproduction. 
There was just something about that goat that really appealed to kids.

Today I learned that many of the pieces Picasso created during that period were influenced by his young family. The fabulous exhibit at MOMA now has a whole room of them. 

Little Girl Jumping Rope
Baboon and Young
Bird

My goat has been moved inside for the occasion. 

Here she is, early this spring, in the museum's sculpture garden.

His shiny bronze nose shines from years of rubbing.

Seeing She-Goat always takes me right back to those first years as a school librarian. 

I learned as much as I taught.

The She-Goat

In the enthusiastic years of my early career, I worked as a librarian in one of the finest school library systems in the country, Fulton County GA. I worked at the Harris Street Elementary School with an amazing group of teachers, who were facing a lot of challenges. It was the 60s, what can I tell you.

A wonderful replica of Picasso's "She Goat" sat on a round table in the middle of the library. The students loved that statue. They loved to touch her. They loved to make up stories about her. Most had never heard of Picasso but they wanted to know more. So yesterday when I saw the real one at the Museum of Modern Art, surrounded by other intriguing, fascinating sculptures from the museum's collection, it was a thrilling moment and a memory to cherish. I looked around at my fellow museum-goers. Who knows. maybe some of those kids who admired the replica might just travel to New York to see the real thing.