"I want to find out who keeps on clogging up the boys’ bathroom toilet," said Paolo, 9. "I don’t even know why this is happening. We might even have to go to the downstairs bathroom if this keeps on continuing. We have to just stop the person who’s doing that."

Paolo’s civic-minded approach to journalism mirrored the dedicated efforts of members of the Hackensack community, including plumbers, firefighters, and other professionals who went back to school for a day last week to discuss what they do for a living, taking time from their busy schedules to encourage the children who will one day take their place.

Changing places, getting grilled

This reporter was asked to come to Fairmount School to talk in detail about my job. In front of a combined group of Ms. Montone and Ms. Mager’s students, I thought I was ready. I went through a brief overview of what a reporter does.

Ask the five W’s and one H: who, what, where, when, why and how, with why being perhaps the most important question. Read the paper to know what’s going on, but understand that paper itself may become less important as the news is delivered more and more via the Internet. A well-written story has a solid lede at the beginning and a good kicker at the end, a writing structure quite similar to the standard five-paragraph essay the students are being taught in school. Finally, ask all the questions that you want. But never forget to listen.

With that, I thought that I was pretty much done. Just kick back, answer a few questions, then return to my desk on River Street and bang out some more words.

I was wrong. Horribly wrong.

Questions came flying at me from the students at an alarmingly quick pace, so fast that my mental inbox almost exploded.

"Do people lie to you?"

"Do all stories tell the truth?"

"What do you do when people won’t talk to you?

"Do you get enough sleep?"

"How much school do you have to get to be a journalist?"

"How much do you get paid?

"What’s the craziest story that you ever covered?"

"Do you like your job?"

"Can a kid write a story and get it in the paper?"

"Can a kid take a photograph and get it in the paper?"

My answers to the first seven questions: I hope not; I hope so; keep trying; usually; college helps a lot; no comment, but do what you love no matter what; I used to cover Hudson County, but Bergen County is proving to be equally as interesting.

My answers to the last three questions: absolutely; absolutely; absolutely.

Kids open to all career opportunities

Although the Fairmount fourth graders and I spoke a lot about journalism, several students expressed an interest in a wide range of career options.

"I want to be a teacher when I grow up," said Samara Sewell, 11. "I want to teach children about everything that they need to know."

"I want to be an ear surgeon," said Jordyn Hellpap, 9. "My brother has ear problems and I want to help him when I grow up."

"Career Day is good because you get to learn about different people’s jobs and maybe when you grow up, you can become one of those jobs," Jordyn added. "You’ll already have experience with what the job is about because someone told you when you were in fourth grade."

Responding to the opportunity at hand, some fourth grade students displayed a real enthusiasm for the writing life. Melanie Lewis, 10, said that maybe she will become a journalist one day now that she knows "how you can write and what news reporters do," while Shanisse Williams, 9, seemed ready to start tapping away immediately.

"I think being a journalist is fun," she said. "You can write stuff in newspapers about people’s lives and about what happened around the city."

Meanwhile, Paolo San Miguel was already figuring out what’s happening around the hallways of his school. He had taken his pencil from behind his ear and had begun furiously scribbling in his reporter’s notebook. A boy on a mission, he made me pleasantly nervous. Listening to him talk to his editor, Ms. Montone, about his 3 p.m. deadline, I knew that when Paolo becomes a man, he will take my job.

"I’ll have million of stories ready for you," he said, smiling. "At least five!"

Paolo then ran off, still smiling, still scribbling.