Art Linkletter Relived

Some days as an Experience Corps volunteer, I feel like I’m in the middle of the Art Linkletter Show.  

My kids say – and do – the darndest things. Sometimes touching, sometimes funny, sometimes heart-wrenching:

#1

On my second day of observing in the classroom, Shanice is defiant. 

With her long legs, she inches her desk away, slouching ever lower in her chair.  Dreads cover her profile, except for the pursed lips.  Ms. Kelly is unprovoked.

“Please put your desk back, Shanice.” She moves on, expecting, but not waiting for, compliance.  Proper behavior gets Shanice onto the whiteboard’s “participating” list for the today’s game of Mum Ball. 

“You can fix this,” Ms. Kelly prompts when she turns back around to find the desk even farther out. Shanice stays slouched, legs crossed on top of her desk.

Mum Ball starts.  Unmoved by her failure to make the play list, Shanice keeps her head and eyes down – on the book in her lap.

From my observation post in the back of the classroom, I watch the action. Defiance by reading makes me smile. What a welcome for this reading mentor!

Shanice’s name is on my list.

#2

My kids are having some fun reading Duck For President, a rousing tale about a hard-fought election for president of the farmyard.   My instructions are to link it to the real event.

“Who knows who Barack Obama is?”

“The President,” they chorus.

“What do presidents do?”

Ada doesn’t miss a beat: “They bake cherry pies.”

She looks to me for confirmation and I can't help chuckling.

After taking a breath, she adds: “They cut down trees, too.”

Yes, she was quoting from a lesson on George Washington, but I’ve come to understand that Ada is always quick with an answer.  That 8-year-old brain works on intuition, flying from one subject to the next with the greatest of ease.  She may not always be on topic, but if you need an answer, ask Ada!

#3 

On the day after the Presidential election, Ms. Ray, the new permanent substitute, woke up to results she wasn’t expecting.  “What am I going to say to the kids?” she wondered as she drove to the school.

Her class of 22 children of color had just one question for her, a white teacher they’d known for one week:

“Why does he hate black people?”

She took a deep breath and said: “I don’t know, but he’s our President now and we need to give him chance.”

Her answer apparently calmed their initial fears.  I was there later in the day and they were on to other critical worries, such as who gets to be the line leader on our walk down the hall, who gets which chair at our library table and whether they get to read the exact number of pages in our book as everyone else in the group.  You know, the things eight-year-olds should be concerned about.