Why I Love Children

My first of two weeks subbing back at The San Francisco School ended yesterday and there wasn’t a trace of a TGIF feeling. I entered the weekend uplifted, energized, ready for more. Why? What is it precisely that I love so much about kids and the grand privilege of teaching them?

 

A few things come to mind based on the last few days (and the last 50 years):

 

• Fertile imagination and fresh thought: As I do, I didn’t simply play the Old King Glory game with the five-year-olds, but used it as a way to go away from their home (a colored carpet square) and back moving to the song without touching others and understanding the phrasing in order to get back on time. But always my mind thinks, “How else can we do this?” and I challenged them with many variations: Forwards, backwards, fast, slow, high, low, tiptoe, giant steps, jumping, galloping, skipping happily, stomping angrily, etc., etc., etc. 

 

One of them raised his hand with great excitement and said, “I have an idea! Let’s do all of them!!!” Meaning in one trip away and back, do each of them in the short 24-beat-song-length. I could have said, “That will never work!” but following his enthusiasm, I said, “Okay! Let’s try it!” Of course, it was sheer chaos, but I loved that his active mind was thinking and that he was fearless in suggesting it. And speaking of…

 

• Fearlessness: I gave the 2^nd graders a challenging little jazz arrangement that I usually reserve for older grades and they grabbed it by the tail, swung it around and played it perfectly with great energy and a swingin’ rhythm. Then I gave a couple of hints as to how to improvise a jazz solo— like start on the high A and find your own path down to the low A (in the La pentatonic scale) and dang if they didn’t come up with fabulous little solos! All jumped in with uninhibited confidence and the result was spectacular. 

 

At the beginning of class, I also had to run to another room to grab a missing instrument and gave them the assignment of memorizing the poem the piece was based on while I was gone. The words were written on the board and when I came back, they all were turned the other way reciting it flawlessly. 

 

• Working Well with Others: After playing the piece, those second graders had to choreograph a little dance to the stanza they had memorized and within three minutes, were ready to perform. Their ability to jump into the deep water and come up with something so quickly and effortlessly is light years beyond most adult committee work I’ve witnessed. 

 

• Determination: I set the 6^th graders on a fast-riding horse of a complex xylophone piece from Ghana and then watched as they got thrown off and immediately mounted again, each time with a better sense of how to keep their balance and only an occasional tip from me. And then the reward—the moment when the music clicked and they felt the thrill of the ride. 

 

• Fun, Fun, Fun: In my short time with them, I decided to play one of my old favorite games with the 5^th graders called Stations. Groups of three have to think of a combination of words that begin with a certain letter and silently act it out while I play the piano. All of the above came into play—their fearlessness, ability to work together, determination to come up with something aesthetically pleasing and boundless imagination in both their string of words (“Tina Turner teaching Tai-Chi to Turtles while tap-dancing on a tightrope”) and the ways they used their bodies together to create the scene.

 

I could go on. And luckily, I will go on next week and add the 8^th graders and 3-year-olds to my schedule. But you see why children are so far superior to adults. Not a one, left to themselves, is consulting a rule book to decide what to do or praying to a deity for success or choosing not to work and play together with another child who looks different than them. Not a one is refusing to consider an idea or thinking their idea is not worthy or is rejecting the notion that ideas are important. Not a one is worried about acting silly or how their body looks or afraid to try something new (like a jazz solo). 

 

Of course, some of that changes naturally when the teen years kick in and what Nature has in mind there is another investigation altogether. And some of the young children are already getting tied up in knots by religious indoctrination, traumatic family situations, the toxic leaking of more-confused-than-ever adult culture. Their body’s energy and elegance, their mind’s grand intelligence and curiosity, the Spirit and Soul’s sense of wonder and connection with the natural world is being de-railed by adult-approved electronic addiction, the full 360-degree radiance of their child spirit chopped down and splintered and narrowed by all of the above. Not to mention schools accenting all the wrong things, like dead facts and dull tests and meaningless answers to unimportant questions. 

But I’m here to testify that at The San Francisco School, that marvelous institution that miraculously has kept the thread of intellect, imagination, community and humanitarian promise unbroken, it is a supreme pleasure to spend time with each and every child there. And as testified in other posts, I get the same feeling from many of the other schools where I’m fortunate to guest-teach. 

 

Instead of TGIF, I’m feeling CWUM—can’t wait until Monday!