"Ooh, nasty!" chorus Johnnie and Taja, as they watch me dump the cooked apples - skins, cores, seeds and all- into the food mill. We are making applesauce from scratch in the classroom. Many of them took turns at cutting up the granny smith and gala apples. They simmered in a pot on a hot plate while everyone went to lunch where they were served the usual array of gray and white fried things, the brown edged iceberg lettuce, the dispirited dessicated tumbled carrots, and the chocolate milk that has not the remotest connection to either chocolate or milk. Lots of high fructose corn syrup, though.
Back in the windowless classroom it is time to turn the apples into recognizable applesauce. "This is really going to be applesauce?" they ask. We crank the food mill until all that is left in the hopper are old skins and seeds. What a miracle! In the bowl beneath is real for true applesauce. We dump in a hefty portion of organic brown sugar and some cinnamon. Felix stirs it in with a big spoon. Cinnamon! Everyone has to smell it and I tell them that this cinnamon comes from the bark of a tree growing in India. They wonder if this cinnamon stuff comes from the same maple tree in Vermont where we got the syrup for pancakes a few weeks back. India and Vermont could be on the moon. Few of these kids have ever been anywhere since they got here from Mexico.
They all want to help serve it in small bowls. Brittany, the new child, counts out the spoons needed. Lorenzo pours a dab of cream into each bowl. They take the bowls back to their seats and happily eat every drop. Many come back for seconds.
When I arrived on this clear cool morning at Lacoochee for my usual Tuesday, it seemed that the whole school was in a very good mood. Melissa and her mom and a younger sibling were outside the school as I pulled up to unload all my bags and boxes. As I began to place them on the bench outside the office while I parked my car, this little family took everything out of my hands and carried it down to the classroom. When I went into the office to pick up my identification sticker (I have been investigated and found benign), it was already printed out in anticipation of my arrival. It seemed that everyone I saw was in the mood to return my greetings. Only a few months ago, it seemed that everyone was grouchy.
In the weatherless classroom, now considerably brightened by CareyAnne's ceaseless rearrangement and additions, we begin the day with the relentless T.V. pledge of allegiance and patriotic song, which some kids say they hate now (it is pitched too high for kids to sing). CareyAnne must speak with some parents who have come in to tell her that a grandfather has died, arrange for a child with lice to go home for treatment, or other pressing concerns.
So I am left to do the FCAT reading exercise: "What scientists do" is the title of the BIG BOOK. "Look at the script!" hisses CareyAnne, as she moves off to talk to the parents. The kids all are seated on one of the small rugs I scrounged from a friend who was redoing her kids' rooms. The text of this book is pitifully lackluster, but I carry on without the script. The kids can read it effortlessly, so I move on to tell them about a recent momentous paleologic find in our area. One page is about what astronomers do.
The night before I had been out looking at the stars at our ranch. They were so brilliant and magical in this relatively non light- polluted place. I had the idea that the kids would enjoy making their very own constellations of buttons sewn on dark blue felt. I had the felt pieces, thread, buttons, and large eyed needles. Orion, the hunter, is a constellation one can see anywhere in the world, seven main stars. These seven and eight year-olds could learn to sew on buttons!
When CareyAnne finished speaking with the parents, we all settled down to sewing on buttons to make Orions. CareyAnne put a list of names of kinds of scientists on the board: archaeologist, botanist, marine scientist, entomologist, ornithologist.. The kids were entranced.
I had loaded lots of needles with thread. Everyone sat around the small rug and the kids hummed with interest, wanted help as their sewing sometimes turned into the nests of drunken spiders, and they felt successful as Orion's belts took shape or Rigel or Betelgeuse was placed just so. Between starting the applesauce and doing the sewing, two hours passed in a flash. They didn't do a worksheet all morning!
While we were waiting for kids to go to the bathroom and wash their hands before lunch, CareyAnne engaged the kids in her 'word of the day' activity. Today's word was "prance". They sounded it out but no one knew what it meant. Not to worry! Our fearless teacher pranced all over the room, skirt fluttering, and gave many examples of prancing. Yesterday's word was "buffoon".
Experience! My grandsons have so many incredible experiences. Their parents and family have always taught them things, read to them, taken them places, showed them stuff. They get to school and do beautifully. I am saddened by the contrast. They know what it takes to make applesauce, or pasta with capers. They've all been to Vermont- and Europe!
And yet! A new child, Brittany, joined the class today. Her mom came with her and I went up to welcome her, maybe start to get to know her. Brittany is standing there with us. I have a burst of enthusiasm, and then I look at Brittany and her lovely mother who does not look hispanic and realize that mom is totally uncomprehending and doesn't speak a word of English. Brittany, who speaks flawless and unaccented English, translates for her mother. I do understand Spanish, but I let Brittany go on. Somehow, I think a connection was made. Brittany tells her mother, "Mom, you said you would go to those classes to learn English!" I tell Brittany's mother that maybe we can help each other as time goes on. Brittany feels empowered to be a translator. We all leave beaming.
At lunch in the teachers' lounge, CareyAnne told me that her next writing project for her master's degree would be about the No Child Left Behind Act as it applied to poor and migrant children without the experiences so many kids already have when they begin school, how NCLB doesn't get it and relentlessly teaches only to the narrow strictures of the FCAT when something else would clearly be more effective. Doing this takes a big degree of courage. She'll have to research what she can find about newly arrived immigrant families, rock the boat at Lacoochee in the process. .
Another talented teacher would quit Lacoochee in search of a more conventionally supportive place. But she is not going to do this yet. And this is why I believe that out there, there are truly talented teachers, unsung heroes who just keep on going everyday, not only making their little bailiwick better, but making a revolution for kids.
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