There was hardly any room in the Lacoochee School parking lot today. A huge fancy bus emblazoned with Ronald MacDonald was idling there, surging with the impressive groans of major air conditioning. At first I thought it was the lunch coming. Nothing about the diet these kids get surprises me anymore. But, no, it was the health bus from Tampa General Hospital that comes several times a month to attend to the health and dental needs of these good and patient children. I found the last parking spot next to one of those mud bogging, giant wheeled pickups. (Whose parent has this? Or, what teacher?)
My coterie of helpers, Melissa and her family, Dynasty, the patrol girl from fifth grade and all the rest were there to help me dislodge my bags and boxes from the car. Then I go into the office to get my stick-on badge that lets everyone know I am not a felon or a pervert. I'd be dead meat if they asked about religion or politics. I am pleased to see my photographs of kids prominently displayed in the office.
In the classroom, more dank than usual considering the glorious Florida morning outside, Dynasty helps me unload and prepare. Today I have many enormous collard leaves picked this morning from the garden. We're going to have collards Brazilian style, cut in thin ribbons and stir fried with garlic. I set up the electric burner, get out the skillet and all the other fixings. Our teacher, CareyAnne, looks weary today. She is looking forward to spring break which happens in three days. "They're all yours today," she says. Of course I am delighted to have free reign with these fifteen kids. Dynasty helps me make an art station where the kids will get their supplies to paint and construct giant curleques out of paper plates and we will hang these from the ceiling in celebration of spring.
After the T.V. Pledge, there is a new patriotic song, actually our National Anthem. This is a totally unsingable thing, unless you can sing high like a mouse and then suddenly descend to a walrus-like bass. The kids don't even try and look longingly at the 'projects' awaiting them.
Lorenzo still has not bathed since the field trip. His shoes must be part of the problem. I see why he is seated in the far reaches of the classroom. He keeps darting around, pushing the boundaries.
We get down to business. The classroom is quiet and humming as we prepare the collards. None of these southern children have ever seen anything like this. (??) They think it is lettuce. But they are eager to try anything. I have brought in a few radishes for them to try. I tell them that I do not like them: too bitter. But it is a new vegetable they have never seen and a few courageous souls try them.
As the first batch of collards comes off the burner and is served up, Adrian loudly announces that it smells stinky. Since it is so calm today, I can do a small etiquette thing about how you must behave if you don't like a food; don't shove it in a drawer, don't call attention to the fact that you hate it, just quietly take it to the trash and let it die there. But, please, just taste a little bit. Maybe five kids really liked it. The rest were polite, with coaching. CareyAnne says it takes five to seven tries on a new food before kids accept it. This was try #1 on collards.
We began the painting, a big success. I love how these kids are so eager to help, and today, they are actually very cooperative with each other. They share paints and change the paint water without being asked. By now they have some competence with paints. They can follow the simple directions pretty well. There are even a few moments when no child was knocking on my hips ("Miss Molly!, Miss Molly!") CareyAnne put some classical music on to play, and I had the peaceful feeling that school was a real respite for these children who have to deal with such extreme issues in their lives. Right now, in this small snatch of time, they could think about what colors to use, what designs to make, and think about how it would all look as it twirled in the zephyrs of the classroom. They also liked having Miss Molly stand on the tables and attach their twirlygigs to the ceiling. (No one here thinks of me as an old lady!)
One by one, they finish, and many of them are eager helpers in cleaning up the tables. After lunch, when their creations are dry, we will hang them over their tables. We had time to read a story. The kids helped me select one, Margaret Brown's "The Little House", and everyone settled down on the carpet in rapt attention. I got just a little glimpse of kids just being regular kids, focused and interested. They have never seen a city, and they do not think about issues of encroaching development, nor do they have parents who do. But I look at them, so young and trusting, and I want to enable them to be the persons they can be. Lorenzo is beyond all the help the school or anyone else has to offer. Marisol will go to college and leave Lacoochee in the dust.
After lunch, CareyAnne takes them outside as she does every day. (Her personal recess; she knows those kids need to run and play.) I take the big pieces of sidewalk chalk and start to draw the outlines of kids lying down on the pavement. When we are finished there are so many wonderful chalk drawings of kids in strange crime scene positions.
It has been an easy day with lots of things the kids can remember. CareyAnne has coaxed the girls to be assertive, not be the shy and non-verbal creatures they were at the start of the year. When I ask her how she has done this she answers with one word, "Love!" When recess is over, she gathers them to her, on to the next thing, and it is clear that her relationship with these good and patient children is the best thing in their lives.
When I leave, I have many helpers to carry my bags and boxes back to my car.
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