xp_logs | Sooraya & Kyle; textbook shopping

Kyle and Sooraya go shopping for textbooks as a start to setting up some kind of education for the kids in the Underground.

"We are going to stick out like a sore thumb." Sooraya commented as she watched another woman exit the shop with at least three children in tow. Looking over her shoulder at Kyle, she asked: "What do you think?"

"Nah. We look like people who tutor rich kids." Other than Kyle's knit hat and beard, which made him look like a hipster tutor. He'd put on some new brightly colored Chucks and a vest just to complete the look. "Which isn't too far from the truth, I mean, creatively truthing the rich part."

Sooraya glanced down at her own black slacks and embroidered tunic. "Well, I suppose you are right. I still think we'll be in the minority." She replied as she pushed open the door and entered the shop.

"Dude we're gonna be that no matter what." But Sooraya was right, the bookstore was mostly women, mostly white, and more than half had a kid or two or three. "But not like, that much that people are gonna be all did you get lost?" Kyle tended to order textbooks online, and make intense use of the library, but this wasn't the first store for teachers he'd walked into. "I mean at least this one isn't fifty shelves of textbooks written by dudes who think the Civil War was won by the wrong people."

"Oh, I am sure there will some of those. But this shop was specifically recommended for their large selection of material with a more... neutral viewpoint. I made a list of some of the materials we could at." Sooraya pulled a list from her purse, flipping her braid over her shoulder to not get it stuck in the zipper, and handed it to Kyle. "Any of them familiar to you?"

Kyle went down the list. "Yep. I have like, I dunno, a couple of these myself, and I think we've got a couple more in the library." Maybe. He'd have to check with Topaz for sure, because he hadn't gone through the library much since M-Day. He pulled his phone out and started texting Sooraya titles as he read. "Easier than writing on your paper." He explained. "Anything I text you, I've got copies of already."

"I am not sure those books might be the best options though... I was thinking... the circumstances. The teens might become separate from their teachers or parents... might not be able to attend school... and have to move around. Should we maybe look for something that is student directed as much as possible and easy to take along..." Sooraya mentioned. "I just don't know enough about some subjects if the materials in those are enough..."

"Some of ours are student-directed." Kyle said. "Anything I throw at Xavin is, because they do like, way better when it's not me lecturing and is me just like, checking up on how they're doing." He tapped out another series of texts. "Throw in some GED study guides. Most of the tests don't change too much from state to state, and getting a GED is gonna be important for those kids who can't stay in a school."

"That is a good idea, especially for the older teens." Sooraya looked around the shop, spying a few shelves of what Kyle had mentioned in a corner with materials about testing. "Here we are." She lifted one of the guides of the shelf, paging through it. "Sounds like you are acting more as a tutor to the kids then as a full time teacher?"

"Ehhhhh." Kyle protested. "Doing more full on teaching with Rahne, less with Xavin. Like, the great thing about one on one is that I can pretty much tailor things to whatever the kids need. I mean one of the great things, on top of not wearing shoes, bribing Xavin with donuts and doing World Lit in the treehouse and not having to teach math because..." He made a face, all scrunched up. "No way I can handle high school math. I barely remember most of it."

"It's not my strongest suit either. So how are you doing math with them then? One of the others helping?" Sooraya pulled one of the other guides of the shelf, flipping through that one as well. She frowned when she saw the entrance test at the start of the book. "And this..." She tapped the page with the test with her finger. "... is something else I am gonna need to think about. How to organize that."

"I am not doing. I have student teachers for them for math. The Professor vetted 'em." Kyle explained. "Might bribe that weird Cho kid into taking it if Rahne needs another year." He moved to a shelf full of SAT and ACT guidebooks. "Prep guides in general might be a good idea. I gotta get some for Xavin anyway." Because if that kid figured out their powers, college would still be an option even if they needed a gap year.

Sooraya put the two GED guides she liked the look the best of to the side, then moved over to another section that caught her eye: colorful junior encyclopedias about history, science and geography. "I would have loved to have these as a child. I wonder if they could work for the younger age groups. I remember that one of the homeschooling books I have has instructions on how to use these."

"Probably less traumatizing than Wikipedia." Kyle said, with a snort. "Man, I think half the reason I tell people not to use it is because a handful of clicks and you're at a picture of some dude's junk or some horrible medical thing." He scrunched up his face. "Man, we need a guide on like, how to do online community college courses and which ones are a scam, and that doesn't exist yet." Well, it sort of did, online, if you knew how to look for it. "How's your group on tech? Might be worth looking into some of those, crap, the google people make them, the little computers that are hella cheap?"

"You mean those Chromebooks? It's an interesting idea, though I would have to talk to the computer folks at the mansion about them being traceable. That is one advantage of pen and paper. Though..." Sooraya considered for a moment. "... the ability to use Coursera and other MOOC's might be invaluable." She bent down, pulling several of the junior encyclopedia's of the shelves and adding them to her stack.

"Plus everything is online now, it increases resources like - like man, the amount of stuff I can add to teaching kids just because it's online and I can answer questions quick? Or tell them to go read a thing or watch a thing?" Kyle's hands were all over the place, gesturing emphatically with two books in one hand. "I mean, Khan Academy alone is freaking getting me through Rahne's science classes so I don't have to farm that out to a tutor."

"True." Sooraya agreed. "Definitely time to talk with the computer people at the mansion then." Looking around the shop again, she shook her head. "There is so much choice here..."

"You know... " Kyle tucked both books under one arm and picked up a third. "You know maybe we outta sit down and work out some sample lesson plans for you, or go over whatever ones you guys have? I mean, each one's gonna be individualized anyway, right? Cause kids who home-school usually have some specialty needs?"

"Most kids in the underground are at their own level with different subjects. And have suffered trauma to varying extend. One size fits all is not going to work here... I had hoped the assessment test on some of the home school methods would help to place each at their own level..."

"Man, is it just you doing this? Because hot damn, Sooraya... " Kyle rubbed at his face. "Okay, look, IEPs are my jam, okay? I mean, my concentration was students with special needs. It's what I do." Jesus, he sounded like Forge, with the "it's what I do" but it was what he did. "I mean, especially with mutant kids, even a kid who can integrate is gonna need some personal IEP stuff for powers control. Maybe this is..." he huffed, blew hair out of his face. "Okay, loop me into this network you got, because even if you have other peeps, how many of them actually did this for a career?"

"So far things have been focused on making sure the kids have a safe place to stay... food, clothing and some basic powers control..." Sooraya let out a long sigh. "But if we want these kids to move back into the world one day. They need more then just being able to hide their powers. I have one or two people looking into options of how to set this up with me."

"You've got another." Kyle offered. "I'm for serious, loop me in. I got all the stuff from when we used to video teach the kids at Muir, I got all the background on this, and this isn't gonna stop with a couple of kids who need self-teaching plans." He reached up to scratch at his hair and abruptly stopped at the hat he'd pulled on to cover his ears. "You're gonna want this to sustain itself. Get the same kids you've got taking practice SATs to tutor too, get parents involved. Keep things low key and low cost, cause." He picked up one of the textbooks from the stack. "Dude, fifty bucks just for one book. Textbooks are kinda a scam."

Sooraya eyed the stack of books in her bag. "But it's a place to start. And I figured that when we know what we want to use, we can go on the hunt for secondhand ones..." She pondered the issue for a few moments. "What would you suggest using then? I know from a paper that online schools can cost quite a lot as well..."

"I think you're gonna need a underground network of teachers and tutors and passed down books and a bookshare." Kyle said, all in a rush. "And you're gonna need people to scout libraries, find passers who can go into the library and take out books for the kids who can't. People to vet Wikipedia articles and all the online stuff, and give kids hundred dollar laptops instead of fifty dollar textbooks."

"Oh boy... what have I gotten myself into..." Sooraya shook her head. "Let's check this out and then get back to mansion to brainstorm and write some of the ideas down?" She finally suggested.

"I tutored you through an ESL class, you know exactly what happens when I get going." Kyle tossed back casually, and then pulled his phone out to check the texts he'd been receiving and ignoring - it wasn't an urgent text tone. "First, food. Jubilee's texting me to check her mutie-friendly restaurant list again and I think better over burritos. She's got a halal taco place on her list like two stops from here."

"That sounds good." Sooraya agreed as she made her way to the cashier. "Then we have some work to get done."