Safeguarding childhood

Perhaps you are entirely unaware of this, but I write this blog for me. I started it as a way to reflect on that which was happening in this funny little place.  I don't venture to share any teaching wisdom (I fear I have very little), but I write to invite you into this hoot of an adventure. Nothing very profound. Or ground-breaking. Just the ponderings of a new, clueless teacher.

That being said, most of my posts are sweet or silly--tiny moments with these remarkable children. I write in a spur-of-the-moment kind of way when something in particular grabs my attention. But I have had a phrase clanging around in my mind since that heart-breaking day in December when every teacher in the country wept with the teachers of Newtown, CT. I watched my kids play in the sandbox on that day when I heard the news--when I heard the news that other teachers showed up on a normal day to work (just like me) and left work that day with shattered hearts.

My job is to safeguard childhood.

Life is unexpected, painfully so at times. While they are here in this classroom, certainly part of my job is to protect, but I have begun to consider it a greater job to safeguard their childhood rather than simply safeguard them. 

The phrase re-resonated in this mind when I heard the news of Boston. And of the chase after Boston.  And of the boy who tried to take his life in a Cincinnati classroom yesterday. I have felt a growing urgency to slow the clock (as paradoxical as that sounds) and let these children be children.

Please don't be mistaken--I do not live in fear, nor do foster fear in this classroom. This conviction has actually brought on quite the contrary. On the day that the Boston bomber was found, I felt the urgency come on again. And so I stopped by the library after school and picked out 40 children's books. Beautiful, joyful, colorful, bright, children's books. Books that make you laugh so hard you fall over. Or tear up because of breath-takingly beautiful friendships. I made a promise that we would read at least one every day. My kids are all proficient readers, are all reading novels, and I'm sure would comprehend a read-aloud of Tolstoy if I gave them the chance (well...maybe). But they are children and I will read them sweet stories for as long as I'm allowed.

We are just about a week from the end of our school year (sorry teacher friends--we end obnoxiously early) and my desire to slow the clock is heightening. I don't really want to take our posters off the walls. I don't want to peel their names off their cubbies. I don't want to celebrate the completion of their end of the year memoirs. I just want to read to them.

I could look at the ever-increasing checklist of skills and abilities that is expected of them, and panic about how much we must "complete" in such little time, or I could read to them. (Perhaps stay tuned for  a wildly angsty post about federal mandates in the classroom. I am only slightly opinionated about it.)

I could teach them about some of the harsh realities of the world. Or I could read to them.

I will read to them until it is time to go and our screen door slams for the last time of the school year. I just wish it wouldn't come so soon.