The Value of Coins

Rose has a fascination with coins.  Really this started even before we gave her a US States quarters book for Christmas.  She loves to count them.  She loves to sort them.  She loves to clean them.  And from her unworldly child-centered perspective, she can't understand why anyone would prefer paper money to coins.  Paper doesn't have the same heft, sound or presence in her opinion.

So, we have been hunting quarters, popping into Wachovia branches just for coins.  We've figured out that if we purchase a $10 roll of quarters and ask for wrappers, she can sort through them, re-wrap them and exchange them for a fresh roll. We've found that if we stumble across a kind teller, they will search through their drawer for us.

Here are some things we've learned while searching for coins:

Adult tellers, even staid-looking managers, can revert back to their youth when hunting coins.  The human thirst for a quest, even a simple one, is deeply wired.  Most tellers are surprisingly happy to leave their boring adult world to join our adventure.

In contrast, some tellers (and people) are simply not curious types.   No amount of enthusiastic coin talk will lure them from the dreary basics of their perceived job description.  I get it.  I'm sometimes stuck in the confines of my head agenda too.  We don't begrude them, but instead feel sad for what they are missing.

You can also find change at the car wash vacuums.  Yesterday at Gorilla Car Wash on Patton Avenue, Rose found 41 cents of change by scanning the eight vacuuming bays.   We talked with an attendant and learned that one employee has created a discipline of culling all of the change out of the collective vacuum filter.   Over the course of a year, this man collected $1,500 dollars in coins then used the money to go on vacation.

No doubt, some of you will read this (hurriedly, of course,) and think--"that's nice that they have time to float around car wash parking lots and sort through rolls of coins.  Unfortunately, I have weightier work--x, y, and z--to do."  I get it. And I'll admit that sometimes I doubt my time investment too.  It's intangible, unquantifiable, unlike our solid coins.  Homeschooling is a world-class head game for sure.

But, yesterday as Rose and I held hands crossing the busy bank parking lot, she commented in passing, "I like you." To which, of course, I replied "I like you too."  I know she loves me, but boy am I glad that she happens to like me.

I believe the best educational experiences and most beautiful keepsakes are such "by the way" explorations and comments.  I'll take them a thousand times over scanning yet another book entitled "What Your 4th Grader Needs to Know."

My 4th grader needs to know that education is a journey not a workbook.

That looking closely at coins and people is valuable.

That some people are kinder than others and that the difference is magnificent.

That little things, like coins forgotten while vacuuming the car, can add up to big things, like a free vacation.

And that the things which are important to her 10-year-old heart are also important to her mother's 45-year-old heart.

If I kept attendance diligently, which I don't, I'd check the box for Saturday.