I am so sad
. . .
I try to be
so upbeat in my daily life, especially around my class and my own
children. (That's a photo of my daughter above.) Twenty years ago, I was a
student teacher who was desperately trying to establish control over an unruly
class, and failing miserably, and my school advisor said to me, “What’s wrong
with the sound of children laughing?”
And I stopped, took a breath, and considered what she said.
“What’s
wrong with the sound of children laughing?”
There’s nothing wrong with the sound of children
laughing. Children WANT to laugh. They WANT to have fun and enjoy life. They are little people, designed to learn and
absorb knowledge, and they want to have FUN while they do this.
My personal
quote on Teachers Pay Teachers is “There’s nothing more special than the sound
of children laughing.” And I hold this
statement close to my heart.
When I’m
having a terrible day, when I’m exhausted and my class is goofing around
when I want to teach, I try to take a big
breath and slow down my thinking.
What’s the point of getting all stressed out about something you can’t
control? So the kids are a bit
squirrelly today, go with the flow.
Think of the laughter. As long as
the laughter is not mocking, it must be genuine. It must be worth something. It must be precious.
I am so sad
because . . .
Twenty
children died yesterday.
In their
school
In their
classroom
In the place
they feel safe
They DIED!
Violently!
They will
never laugh again.
I know that
there are probably terrible things
happening to children all over the world right now.
And I know
that more than 20 children probably died today in other countries, all over the
world.
But our
children are supposed to be safe at school.
I remember school massacre in Dunblaine Scotland. I was a young teacher, with only a few years
of experience, and I was teaching kindergarten in a tough, inner-city area in
an isolated portable classroom. And then
I heard about the shootings in Dunblane, and I was shocked. A gunman went into a kindergarten class in
Scotland and killed 15 children and their teacher. That day I sat, whenever I had a free moment,
and I watched my students. Everything in
their lives revolved around learning and laughter. They wanted to have fun, and innately they
were driven to learn. School was a safe
haven in their lives.
We spend so much time planning, and
organizing our classrooms to make them safe places for children. If you work with needy children, like I
sometimes do, then you truly understand that school can be the only organized
and happy place that they experience in a day.
So when I hear about something like the
tragedy yesterday, I need to stop
breathe,
and cry.
Those children will never laugh again.
For a brief period of time, those souls
were on this earth. It was too brief. .
.
Do you remember your own
kindergarten?
When I started teaching kindergarten, I spent
a lot of time trying to remember what happened in my own childhood Kindergarten. Early on in my career I was substituting and
got called to my old elementary school, and spent a day in my old Kindergarten
classroom.
My first thought was, “wow, it’s so much
smaller than I remember.”
My second thought was more organic. It was more of a feeling, than a
thought. I remember being thrown back in
time and remembering the room from my 5 year old perspective, and got a warm
feeling in my belly. I felt comfort, and
I felt safe.
At the school I teach at, we practice Lockdown drills a few times a
year, and during the drill I spend most of the time trying to stop my children
from giggling because they just LOVE to laugh.
And why shouldn’t they want to laugh?
They should feel safe.
School should be a safe place.
Why do these tragedies happen?
And how can we prevent them from happening
again, and again, and again?
I’ll think about this in the next while,
when I hear my students laugh.
I’ll try to remember those who will never
laugh again. . .
