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Parents Through the Open Door

October 14, 2006

Yesterday a parent spent the morning in our classroom.

He is trying to establish home school connections and, definitely as all young parents are doing tryingto do, to assist his son. He rather surprised me because I had not known before that he is a Marine reservist back from a two year stay in Iraq. An auto mechanic by trade, he was a helicopter pilot, which you have to admire. He came in as many parents do and, as I often do, I put him on the spot to create a connection to our room. "Please," I said, "I want you to talk about yourself to my class." What happened from this is why I'm taking the time to write.

I read a bit about the school bullying assembly online. Seeing children daily I know how important an issue this is for us to work with in real ways at school. Sadly, this week in room 10 we had a sand throwing incident that was really a kind of bullying. I was fortunate to be able to address in a fuller and a learning way with older kids and younger kids meeting to talk about it and to figure out what had happened and what might happen in future. Also we had read Rosemary Well's Rules book (a href="http://tinyurl.com/yzt2qk"> Yoko's World of Kindness: Golden Rules for a Happy Classroom), a volume unparallelled in understanding community behavior in school with a lovely story of the Frank twins who often hide bullying behind teasing.

Anyway this father, by way of cosmic coincidence, tried to describe his service job in the military to the children. He was so sensitive and so thoughtful the term gun or violent action never got near the carpet, a feat in and of itself. He began to talk to the children who were so impressed with this well spoken father taking time to talk to them thoughtfully. He began to speak of this place across the seas with people who cannot secure safety for themselves, can't go outside, can't go to school, and who are so bullied his team of soldiers has to go in and be a force like teachers and police to try to sort things out.
Through this talk he continually asked for questions.

Questions, so essential in 1st grade dialogue with children who are right on the edge of their learning curve, are very hard to achieve. For one thing questions serve as ways to check for understanding. But specially in second language learners, a question is a very hard thing to generate. It is necessary to expand on the idea at hand and to then select a specific piece to look for more.

I was feeling rather confident as we have been working on asking questions a la our hierarchy model since day one. We play a quick round of 20 questions some days at recess, which is why I'm often late going out. Anyway I thought the children would ask about trucks or planes or guns or dangers. But here is what happened, taken from my notes. . . .


• "Do you know me?"


• "Do you know my family?"


• "Do you know what I like to do on Saturday?"


• "Do you like to know me?"


• "Do you like to know my car?"


• "Do you know my Dad?"

. . .and I had to laugh.

As we know, 1st graders like to "tell" and at first I thought this was what was happening, so I deflected in a "take over" move. I told the Dad about out little bullying experience with older kids throwing sand as a "Just Kidding" game and how we are learning that with our intelligences we can become more than animals. . . just nipping and fighting...we can filter compassion and we can take turns, we can think first, we can consider consequences, we can "be nice." Golden Rule type talk.

But the kids countered with, "Do you want to see my house?" My inclination was to voice a "Stop it, ask about what he does." But I held my tongue and tried to apply some of what I had just recommended about bullying.

And then it hit me like a thunderbolt from my own long dialogues about evolving and becoming "human." THESE children wanted connectivity.

They wanted this father to be their friend. . . to KNOW them as individuals as people. . . as themselves. And I also realized that it is almost impossible to bully when such things, through the grace of our lives, are granted. Connection is understanding and interest in another as a person. It's important I try to explicate this for what it was: the children were extending the question, "Will you come into this circle of class community and care about us and care with us?" And this to a father coming back to a country he fought to protect children just like this so that we could have our assemblies, dialogues, discussions, points of view.

This father was obviously processing this ahead of me, for he looked at me and said, "These kids ask very good questions, teacher."

They ask these questions in order to talk about the job you do, or your thoughts on politics or your views on war or social constructs. First we must know you, and you us. All welcome through that Open Door.

This father ended his visit in a way that defines my classroom, creatively, unexpectedly and with something indefinably relevant to my teaching life. He sang unaccompanied in the finest voice I ever heard in a long life a song he had "prepared." He asked the kids if he could sing them this song and they said, "Yes." He then sang the "Star Spangled Banne,r" which we know in sign, while they watched with smiles and sang too, as we have been working our our patriotic songs. And I sat over in the corner with tears in my eyes, tears from the clarity with which I now understood these children.

So come in, anyone , and share community with a group of good little askers who probably will start with, "Do you know ME?"




--
"Teachers know their own students best - or they should - and no outsider is qualified to prescribe the course of action to be taken for any particular student at any particular time. Learning and teaching are part of a social collaboration that can never be scripted in advance. "

—Frank Smith, Ourselves: Why We Are Who We Are

2006-10-23 07:23:27


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