The
Wonderment of
Young Children
Dick
Miller
October 1, 2014. We were sad to learn of the recent death of Dick Miller. May his stories live on.
©
Copyright
2014
by Dick Miller
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There
he stood in the
middle of the aisle at the Target store, mouth agape, eyes like
saucers, staring at my two leg prostheses as I sat in my motorized
wheelchair. He had been obediently following his Mom as she headed in
the direction of the checkout line, but this sight brought him up
short.
“Pretty
funny
looking legs, aren’t they?” I asked. He nodded,
still
wide-eyed. “I’ll bet you haven’t seen
anything
quite like them before, have you?” I continued. This time,
his
head shook from side to side. By this time, Mom had realized the boy
was no longer in tow, turned around, and circled back to recapture
her wayward son.
This
scenario repeats
itself time and time again whenever I go out to a public place
because I wear athletic shorts, summer or winter, and my prostheses
are always quite visible. And young children are always fascinated by
anything that’s outside their usual world of experience. At
the
age of three or four or five, young minds are like sponges, ready to
soak up all sorts of knowledge. I, being a former schoolteacher, am
only too happy to supply it if the situation is right.
The
way that I proceed
from this point on depends upon Mom’s reaction. Some mothers are
anxious to get going, whether because they are running late or
because handicapped people make them nervous I don’t know. I just
smile and let them go on their way. But most mothers recognize a
learning opportunity when it presents itself and are willing to take
a few moments to let their son (or daughter) learn something new if
it is done in an acceptable manner.
“I’ll
bet you’re
wondering what happened,” I continue. Head nodding follows. “Well, you know how, when you get an owie, your
mom puts a
band aid on it and gives you a kiss and before long
it feels better?” More head nodding. “And sometimes, if
it’s a bad owie, you have to go to the doctor and
have the doctor
give you a big bandage and it hurts for a long time before it feels
better?” Still more head nodding. “Well, I had really,
really
bad owies that even the doctor
couldn’t
fix. They were so bad they were making me sick. So the doctor took
away my regular legs and gave me these special ones so I wouldn’t get
sick, but I could still stand up.”
I
then take a quick
look at the mother to see how she’s dealing with all of this. If she
seems to be fine with the way her child is reacting, and the child is
still interested, I keep going.
“Even
though the
special legs let me stand up, I can’t do it for very long because my
balance is pretty bad. If I tried to walk, I wouldn’t get very far
before I’d fall down. So that’s why I have this wheelchair
that
helps me get around.”
Most
of the time, I
will have been interrupted several times by questions during this
little speech, and I answer the questions as they come up. If there
haven’t been any questions I’ll usually ask something like, “Would
you like to touch the legs to see what they feel like? Is that okay,
Mom?” Older kids and boys tend to be a little
braver on this
one. I’ll explain that the top part is made of
plastic, the middle
part is made of metal, and the part that looks like a foot is also
made of plastic. I’ll tell them that some people like to cover up
the
middle part with plastic so that it looks more like a real leg. From
a distance, you can hardly tell that it’s a special leg like mine.
And other people like to wear long pants so you don’t even
know
that they have special legs at all.
At
one point in my
life, after surgery and intensive rehab and before I found an
apartment that would accommodate my wheelchair gracefully, I lived in
an assisted living center as a sort of transition arrangement. There
was a children’s day care center next door, with preschoolers
in attendance during the school year, and some older kids in addition
during school vacations. The kids would troop over en
masse
for performances, to show off their Halloween costumes, or to enjoy a
visit from our Santa. Part of their routine was to line up in the
lobby of the building before heading back to the school, which was
just a short walk next door, but passed along the sidewalk of a
fairly busy street, so order and safety were the order of the day.
While
the kids were
lining up waiting to be marched back to school, I made sure I was
nearby so I could chat with them while they waited. It always
delighted me how completely without guile or pretense they were. They
were obviously fascinated by these very different looking legs (as
well as my bright blue power wheelchair that looked like it could go
pretty fast) and were not at all afraid to ask questions about
anything that piqued their curiosity. I had great admiration for
their teachers who, watching from a distance, seemed to enjoy seeing
the young minds exploring and learning as much as I did.
One
of my earliest
experiences with this wonderment occurred when I was a young high
school physics teacher. My wife had just finished her
Bachelor’s
degree on her way to a Master’s in Early Childhood Education,
and had taken a summer job, along with her school chum Mary, as
Kindergarten teachers at the Jewish Community Center’s Summer
Day Care Center. That was quite a sight: Irish Catholic Maureen
across the hall from Italian Catholic Mary, in charge of all the
Kindergartners at the Jewish Community Center for the whole summer!
Besides
being a physics
teacher with the whole summer off, I was also a musician of many
years experience. Maureen was just learning to play guitar, while I
was versatile enough to be able to handle just about every
children’s
song the kids knew, all the way from “Eensy Weensy
Spider”
to “On Top of Spaghetti.” So, once a week, I
brought in my
guitar and we’d gather in a circle on the floor and sing.
At
first, I must have
seem rather frightening to the kids. I’m 6’
3”
tall, so when this giant with a big black bag walked into the
classroom for the first time they must have been taken aback. Maureen
then introduced me and assured them that I was harmless, and that the
mysterious black bag had a guitar inside. We all sat on the floor
(which made me a little less intimidating) and, launching into
teacher mode, I asked them if any of them had a guitar at home. A few
raised their hands. I pointed out the strings, the soundboard, the
fingerboard, the frets, and plucked a few strings so they could hear
what the strings sounded like individually and together.
Then
Maureen and I
launched into a humorous song that the kids always enjoy:
“There’s
a Hole in the Bucket.” In case you’re not familiar
with
the tune, it’s a conversation between Henry, who’s
complaining that there’s a hole in the bucket, and Liza, who
offers a series of solutions on how he can fix it until it all comes
back to needing water, which he can’t get because
there’s
a hole in the bucket. Amazingly, even young kids get the irony of the
situation and have a good laugh.
I
then asked the kids
what songs they knew. Maureen had prepped me with the ones they had
learned a
capella,
so I was ready for those. Some, I
suspect, were made up on the spot to stump the visitor, so I asked
how they went, and made up an accompaniment for the made-up song,
which was always a big hit.
I
then reverted to
teacher mode and began explaining how softer plucking made softer
sounds and stronger plucking made louder sounds; how shortening the
vibrating length by pressing on the string behind one of the frets
made the pitch higher, and so on. The most popular part was when I
had the kids come up one at a time to strum the strings while I
fingered the chords. They could try different strums to get different
sounds, and I would vary the fingerings to make
“songs.”
The expressions on their faces were priceless: from rapt, delighted,
giddy, fascinated, awed, to I-want-to-go-home-and-do-this-by-myself.
It’s no surprise that many of Maureen’s students
wanted
guitars after that summer session was over.
I’ve
taught
people of many different ages and in many different settings over the
years: in public schools; in industry; in retirement homes; in
in-service workshops for government employees; at every age level
from pre-Kindergarten through graduate school and on to senior
citizens. But, without a doubt, the most fun I have had is when
I’m
teaching young children around age three to five, whether
it’s
in a formal setting or not. I think what gives me the biggest kick is
their openness to learning, their willingness to ask questions
without being afraid to look stupid, and their curiosity about the
world and how it works. Sometimes I wonder why society has drummed
those characteristics out of so many our children within a few short
years after these ages of wonderment.
It’s
my fervent
wish that we all had a bit more wonderment in our lives, and acted
upon it as naturally as the little boy in the department store I
described earlier.
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