What I like about kids

What I like about kids is how much their emotions are on the surface. Like at Ben's soccer game - the boys were pushing a lot, and at one point one boy said,

"Stop pushing me!" To which the other responded,

"Stop elbowing me!" The play continued and in the next tangle, the one was pushing, the other was elbowing.

I covered a couple of 3rd grade teacher's at a city-school near my home. The kids were needy, but the school building was impressive. Within its walls was a YMCA, a job center, family center, center for most types of needs (including winter coats!) a clinic, and financial education center. The teachers I subbed for were excellent and had so many things in place in their room. Each grade level has its difficulties, but I am always most impressed by elementary school teachers. So many details need to be thought of in order to encourage learning with the students - the details are exhausting in its importance to focus on such minute procedures as how to sit in a desk, put a book away, sharpen a pencil - and so on, simply to avoid chaos and confusion while allowing for the clumsy energy of so many small bodies.

The teachers that I was subbing for were not even absent, but using the time to test student's reading levels individually. In the meantime, I went through the day with simple lessons while trying to figure out procedures and student quirks of two classes. As much work as elementary kids are, they are fun and break my heart at the same time. They break my heart because they are so needy but I am unable to fill all their needs - needs that boil down to one-on-one time.

And so occasionally, I'll take one to the side. One boy, I was standing next to him near the door. He'd been unable to stay focused without a teacher's aid nearby. He hadn't started his next task, but sat on his feet, looking around the room. He got up, in one of his wanderings to ask for a band-aid. I found one and put it on his scraped knuckle (a wound he told me was because his cousin stuck his hand in the fan). He wandered over to me later to show me that his finger had turned gray - having played with the band-aid and putting it on to tightly his formerly black skin was now gray. I readjusted his band-aid, and he began pestering me about the bathroom. We were standing near where his teacher was testing, looking in, waiting to speak with her - and to boy absently picked up my hand and put my hand on his head.

I don't know why, but I understood the feeling.

Thinking about it now, I can imagine the feeling - support, protection, covering, caring, contact comfort. I get it, because I need it too. When I'm stressed, but can't really express all the reasons why. When I'm somewhat powerless to resist all the environmental, circumstantial and historical factors around me - I need a hand on my head too.