For Ty

We were in the kitchen a few days ago working to get the dinner dishes cleared and tucked away into the dishwasher. Ainsley and Ty were busy playing on the floor just a few feet away. As I wiped the counters Ty stood up and walked off into the garage to play with Harper and Muluken. Ainsley looked up at me and said with a smile, "Ty is really kind to me."

What he had done to deserve this rather adult-sounding praise I have no idea. I do know, however, that he and Ainsley love playing with one another and can spend hours on end making up games and giggling at themselves.

Last winter my mom took the kids to the Sandhills to do some shopping and stopped by to let them see Santa. Santa gave them all a coloring book to bring home. Within a day or two Ainsley somehow managed to lose hers and did not take the loss gently. As we drove to the store a few days later she sat quietly beside Ty, who was busy coloring in his book. She said nothing but was clearly  upset.

"What's wrong, Ainsley?" I asked.

"I can't find my coloring book anywhere," she said, starting to cry.

Ty looked over and, without thinking twice, said "Here, you can have mine." He put away his crayons and handed the book across the aisle to Ainsley. She quickly reached over and gave him a big warm hug.

Ty surprises you like that sometimes. A teenager at heart, he has days or even weeks at a time when he becomes very argumentative and mischievous. And he understands this. Just the other day he was in my classroom and saw that I had a new beanbag sitting out near the library shelves.

"Can this be my new timeout chair?" he asked. He was obviously planning ahead.

"No, how about we just assume that you won't even need a timeout chair this year," I said.

Sometimes I fear it's hard for teachers to see beyond the occassional behavioral problems of kids like Ty. I fear they don't see how incredibly successful they are at so many things - things that aren't always so obvious at school.

Last spring we had two of our friends over for dinner. One of them, Mr. O, also happened to be Harper's third grade teacher at the time. After finishing desert, the kids ran upstairs to get ready for bed. A few minutes later they came barreling back down the stairs in their PJs, ready to offer everyone a hug or kiss goodnight.

As Harper made her way around the table she reached Mr. O and stopped to let out a small giggle, embarrassed a bit by standing before him in her pajamas. He reached out to put an arm around her shoulder and, hugging her, said "I don't know that I've ever seen one of my students in their pajamas before!"

It's funny how something so little can stay with you for weeks or months or even years. Over the past few months that one seemingly meaningless statement has popped back into my head a number of times. It's occurred to me that I've never seen my students in their pajamas either. Or at least not at their homes as they are giving kisses, accepting hugs, or crawling up into laps for a story. But maybe I should. Maybe all teachers should.

When you see your students in that way it reminds you how small they are. As teachers we talk about our kids as readers and writers and mathematicians and scientists and community members. Basically, we talk about them as students. Perhaps we should spend more time, though, talking about them as children. Children with lives that go far beyond the reaches of a classroom. Children who have skills and interests and experiences that sometimes struggle to find their way into a classroom. Children who are much more than what we see on the surface when worrying about things like classroom procedures or homework or handwriting.

Ralph Fletcher, who has written some really nice books for children, wrote a wonderful memoir of his childhood titled Marshfield Dreams. In it he shared the story of his brother's first year of school and how hard a transition it was for little Jimmy to figure this new place out. It's one of my very favorite pieces of writing.

I don't share it here to suggest that school is no place for Ty. On the contrary, he has had an absolutely wonderful first few days of kindergarten. He has come home excited about tree frogs and evaporation experiments. Already he loves his teacher and shows signs that he might be figuring out that there's room in his life for both school and hours spent riding bikes, playing catch, and catching bugs. He's fallen in love with the Fly Guy book series and is thinking about sharing his backpacking expertise with his new classmates.

He's going to be a terrific student. Thankfully, though, he has a teacher who's going to take the time to learn that he is good at a lot more than just school.

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School
by Ralph Fletcher

It was time for me to start first grade. Jimmy stood with me at the bus stop. Mom waited with us.

"What are you going to do in school?" Jimmy asked, frowning.

"I don't know," I said. "Learn stuff."

"Why can't I come too?"

"You're not old enough," I told him.

"Next year," Mom said.

Jimmy kicked a stone across the street. Finally, the bus rumbled up, huge and yellow. It opened its doors; Jimmy stepped back as I climbed the stairs. I found a seat next to my friend Steve Fishman and waved through the window. Mom waved and flashed a big smile, but my brother kept both hands at his sides.

I liked school. And on that first day I knew I'd be good at it. I could just tell. I was good at figuring out what the teacher wanted me to do and exactly how she wanted me to do it - add, read, copy letters (though my handwriting was terrible). I even liked the hot dog, wax beans, and fried potatoes they served for lunch. The day flew by. That afternoon when I got off the bus, Jimmy was at the bus stop, tapping his feet, eagerly waiting for me.

"Look!" He had a samll animal skull in his hands.

"What is it?"

"I think it's a beaver," he said. "Too big to be a cat. I found the bones in the woods. Here. It's for you."

The next day when I stepped off the bus he gave me an old wasp net. Every day, as soon as I got off the bus, he'd hand me a treasure he'd found in the woods.

I knew Jimmy would be going to school soon, and I was worried about him. I tried to get him ready for it.

"It's not like home," I said. "You've got to follow the rules, or you'll get in trouble."

"What rules?"

"Like, you can't just talk whenever you want," I explained. "You raise your hand if you want to say something. Okay?"

"Okay!" Eyes closed, he raised his hand and pointed straight up.

"This is serious," I told him. "Do you know the Pledge of Allegiance?"

"The what?" he asked. I made him stand with me in the kitchen, put his hand on his heart, and pledge allegiance to an imaginary flag on the wall. Jimmy groaned and rolled his eyes.

"They say the Pledge every morning, so you've got to know it, and you've got to know it by heart," I said, jabbing him lightly in the chest. "Better learn it now."

The following September, the big day came. Jimmy held my hand and giggled nervously when the bus arrived. We ran up the stairs together, and Jimmy sat on the edge of his seat all the way to school. When we go there, a woman met us and pinned a paper circle to his shirt. My brother shot me one last look before the lady led him away.

That day I spooted Jimmy only once, walking in a line with other kids, headed into the cafeteria. In the woods he always knew exactly where he was. But standing in that noisy cafeteria, with his freckes and thick glasses and cowlicky hair, Jimmy looked lost.

When Jimmy got off the bus that afternoon he went straight to the woods. I didn't see him again until supper time.

That night I asked Jimmy if he liked school.

"Boring." He didn't want to talk about it.

And that's the way it ws for him every day. He'd come home and go straight to the woods. He didn't even wait to change out of his school clothes or eat a snack.

School was fine for a kid like me, because I knew how to shut up and listen. But it seemed wrong to take an outside kid like Jimmy and lock him inside for six hours a day. They should have had a different kind of school for Jimmy, maybe a place with acres of unexplored woods and streams and swamps and steep rocky cliffs where he could spend hours making forts or digging for fossils and animal bones.

In November we got report cards. I sneaked a peek at Jimmy's. His grades were lower than mine, a lot lower, which didn't make any sense. I knew that Jimmy was smarter than me, but on that report card, there was no grade for knowing where snakes sleep in the heat of day, for being able to tell the difference between the skull of a cat or a beaver, a salamander or a mud puppy. It wasn't fair, but I told myself that the woods would always be the place where Jimmy learned best. In that school he would always be a straight-A student.
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