Current affairs and determination: through the eyes of five-year-olds

Before starting our Monday afternoon PE lesson, another teacher and myself have a short talk with the kindy kids about current affairs, to settle them a little before they (and we) start madly running around.

Here's our discussion from a couple of weeks ago:

"Did anyone watch the news over the weekend? What were some of the big events that happened?"

Kids: Michael Jackson died.

"That's right. Who was Michael Jackson?"

Kid 1: He was the King of the Pop!

Kid 2: Yeah. He was the first zillionaire!

Kid 3: Yeah, I saw that on the news a few weeks ago.

Mr Walker: "Are you sure you saw it a few weeks ago, C. He only died on the weekend."

C was adamant: he'd seen it on the news a few weeks ago.

Teacher: " And where did Michael Jackson live?"

Kid 4: He lived on Anzac St [in Leederville, Western Australia].

Kid 5: Yeah. My brother's birthday is on Anzac Day.

Teacher: "I think we'll end our little talk there, and go out to sport now."

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When talking with four- and five-year-olds you've got to tailor your delivery: short words, concrete objects, and loads of passion. Oh, and be prepared for random interjections.

With these things in mind, I gave the kids the following pep-talk on goal setting and determination.

Last year I had a goal. A goal is something you want to do in the future. Something you work hard to get.

My goal was to run the City to Surf Fun Run. Who's heard of the City to Surf? Near-unanimous show of hands.

To help me, I got a piece of paper and drew some boxes on it. I put one box for every week in the year. Does anyone know how many weeks are in a year?

Kid 1: Seven?

Kid 2: Twenty?

No, there are fifty-two weeks in the year. So I drew fifty-two boxes on the sheet of paper. And every week, after I'd been for a run, I stuck a gold star in the box. I had lots of gold stars.

Then, something happened: the week before the City to Surf, Mrs Walker had a baby.

Because we had a new baby, it wouldn't have been fair for me to go and run the City to Surf. So, I missed out.

BUT, this year, I thought: I'll do the same thing. So I set another goal to run the City to Surf.

Yesterday, boys and girls, I went for a run. I ran up some hills so I could get extra fit. But yesterday was stormy and windy, wasn't it? [Nodding of heads.] I got to the bottom of one hill, and guess which way the wind was blowing?

That's right, it was blowing against me. So, as I was running up the hill, I felt like a piece of paper, that could be blown away by the wind. But I stuck at it. I kept running up the hill. Why do you think I did this? Because you wanted to make it to the top.

That's right. Because to be good at sport, you have to be determined. You have to do what you say you'll do. You have to train hard, even if it hurts.

[This was the crescendo; I was bristling: I'd just boasted to and, I hoped, given a glimmer of inspiration to these kids.]

What do you think about that, boys and girls? Would anyone like to ask any questions?

Kid 3: Who's Mrs Walker ... is she your mum?

The wonderful world of kids

The five- to seven-year-olds I work with say things that are delightful, hilarious, common-sensical, nonsensical, profound and bemusing -- often several of these at one and the same time. Here are some recent offerings:

Seven-year-old N: When I run, I get a headache. My head hurts because my brain bounces up and down in it.

Six-year-old D: My lip got sof-tened today, when my board [magnetic writing board] fell on it. That's what happens when you get beatened up -- you get a soft lip.

Me, to five-year-old F: "What sports do you like, F?"
F: "Sports what we're not s'posed to do [here at school]."
"What sports are they?"
"Football"
"Oh, which team do you play football for, F?"
"Everyone. I play for everyone."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Some fitness-testing I was doing involved the kids seeing how far they could hop in a single hop (i.e. landing on their take-off leg). Many struggled with the concept of a single hop: they wanted to hop hop hop all the way to the end of the outstretched tape measure.
After his multi-hop effort, F exclaimed: "I's making myself fly. I's flying myself."

Six-year-old budding inventor, C: "I'm gonna invent a computer and then I type in and see if fairies and aliens are real."

Five-year-old burgeoning biologist and environmentalist, K, after showing me pictures from National Geogrophic of a sperm whale and a giant squid:
"I've been learning all about life! I've been doing it because I'm going to save the planet. Mr Walker, would you like to come over to my place and learn about life?

I tried to picture thirty-six-year-old me explaining to K's mum that I had popped over for the afternoon to learn about life from her son. And then I thought: do not go there.

Seven-year-old P brought in his globe for news today. (It was about the size of a large, spherical watermelon.) When the kids tell news, they're encouraged to say how the event, person or object they're talking about made or makes them feel. "I felt happy," is the worn out phrase of choice.
P surprised us today by saying: "When I got the globe, I felt like I was outside the world. And like I could just go down into the world. Oh, and I felt happy."

Five-year-old J had one hand very deeply and noticeably tucked in to his short pocket.
"Hello Mr Pockets," I jovially greeted him.
Earnest J: "Do you know some people don't even know where their pockets are?!?"

If you have any adult-world insight into what five-year-old J might have meant, please share it.

Fairies

'This is my tooth-fairy box,' said six-year-old K, holding up a pink heart-shaped china jewellery box with white frosting-like edging. 'And last night the tooth fairy gave me this...'; she proudly displayed a two dollar coin.

K's tone and the expression on her face left no doubt that tooth fairies and their business were serious subjects. 'Our cousin doesn't believe in tooth fairies. But he hasn't lost any teeth for a long time, so he can't be right.' Apparently, they're controversial too. After K asked the customary 'Any questions or statements?', ten minutes of earnest tooth-fairy talk followed.

J offered the following: 'I know that the tooth fairy is real, because once, when she came, she left a message on my mum's mobile phone.' Tech-savvy tooth fairy!

'I know that she's real because once I felt her wings flapping,' another member of the pro-tooth-fairy lobby said. 'Yeah, and once she wrote me notes saying, "Make sure you brush your teeth," and "Don't forget to smile,"' K chimed in. A tooth fairy with parental biases.

Of course, waiting in the wings were the tooth-fairy skeptics. Demure Z struck: 'I know that the tooth fairy isn't real because once I peeked from under the covers and saw my mum putting it [the money] there." Others similar sightings of parents were held out to dispel the tooth fairy myth. I was worried that, before her own eyes, and before the entire class, K's friendly tooth fairy was being shown to have no clothes.

K didn't miss a beat, 'Yeah, the tooth fairy probably asked your mum to put it there, because she was having a holiday.' Brilliant!
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In other breaking news, yesterday our three-and-a-half-week old daughter found her lungs, i.e. she took to seemingly spontaneous and very hard to control squawking. They say it's normal, but I think I preferred the quiet version.

From the mouth of a six-year-old

Today's comments were sweetly and earnestly made by Miss K.

During a pause when reading to me: "How do adults learn to read so much?"; followed by, "Sometimes when I turn the page, I feel very happy. Because it's hard to read a whole page." Amen Miss K: that's exactly how I feel when reading certain theologians.

An excerpt from Miss K's news this morning: "This is my Docker's hat. It got signed. Mummy can't read who signed it, 'cause it's signing writing." What a great euphemism for doctors' or lawyers' scrawl -- "signing writing".

PS I recently spent some time in Melbourne, and have a few Melbournian miniatures -- vignettes about people, places and experiences -- which I hope to post soon.

More Kids' Comments

From the sublime, "Mr Walker, I love you," to the ridiculous, "Mr Walker, can we make Christmas hats now?"

Another kid's comment

Some time after I'd been leaning over a group of students, helping them, a girl came up to me and said: "You smell just like my dad ... He works at IKEA."
The IKEA statement seemed to be an afterthought, a crumb of extra info. to identify her dad. I'm getting used to the seemingly tenuous logical links between kids' statements; in fact, I think they're delightful, a bit like little puzzles.
As for her first statement -- comfort plus, I say! I'll take a 'manly-smell' description any day.

A new job

"Mr Walker, would you come out to recess with us, as some people are not well and you need to tell them that they're well," six-year-old M said to me.

I pondered what M might have meant, and somehow -- I'm not sure what exact words I used -- managed to make it to the staffroom for a cup of tea in preference to well-wishing students in the playground.

About one-and-a-half hours later; M again: "Mr Walker, would you come to lunch with us. At recess we saw a caterpillar. It was furry and Grendel* touched it."

"That sounds great," I replied, with a fair dose of sincerity, "but Mr Walker has to get home to look after Mrs Walker, who is sick in bed."

M is one of about twenty students in the Year One class I have recently started working in four mornings a week. My job is to help a boy with Autism (not M): to keep him 'on task', and, just as importantly, to prevent him disrupting the other children. Thus far, the work has been testing yet rewarding.

* Not his real name.