They say that working with kids keeps you young and for me it’s partly observing that life goes on with so much enthusiasm.  The very thing so aggravating about kids, that they are exhausting, demanding, talkative, bouncy, is also their strength. I love the sound of little girls who got the giggles, the determination of kindergarteners to build a freeway of blocks even though the class will end in 7 minutes. I love the way one little girl plopped on her ski toque to go out for recess and stood there to tell me urgently before she charged out, that her family was going to Edmonton this weekend. It was her news, her joy and she shared her excitement.

You really can’t keep kids down and that’s why the world will be OK. They are boundlessly optimistic about the happy ending, about their own ability to conquer the world. Their career dreams know no bounds and when they come dressed up as a princess or superhero for Hallowe’en, they are not quite pretending.  They all are the good guys in the story, the heroes conquering the villain, the smart knight who outwitted the monster and for that I know the world will be OK.  They will keep trying for solutions because they assume solutions exist.

In one junior high the twelve classes had been divided into ‘houses’ or teams. Some schools use names of birds or medieval knights, some even use names of classical scientists like Galileo and Pascal but this one used  names of colors.  I was teaching in a class from the Red House and before the pep rally to fire the kids up, all red house members were given red scarves.  They were to wear them at the rally.  I handed them out and as we waited to be called down to the event, they put them on. But of course not as expected, which I would assume would be as neck scarves or maybe bandanas.  the kids put them around the leg, wound as turbans, over the face as a mask, tied on the zipper of backpacks, around the wrist, around the neck as men’s ties.  They had thought of more ways to use those scarves than I would have imagined and I felt a kind of awe to see creative minds in action. 

One time I was teaching a grade 9 class and off to one side out of the corner of my eye I noticed one quite boy rolling a small piece of plasticene at his desk. He was not bothering anyone and I often find it best to not bring everyone’s attention to one kid because it disrupts the lesson. But occasionally I’d glance over and notice now the little ball was a figure with a head and body and little legs, and a bit later it had a hat and a cane. And then the boy looked up at me and smiled, took the palm of his hand high over the little figure and smashed it flat.

In any class there is usually one artist and sometimes there is a gifted artist. In an assignment in Spanish class to draw and label objects in your room, one high school student created a Picasso-worthy sketching of a bedroom. Suitable for framing.

I’ve noticed kids while I teach who are sitting at the desk doodling and though I might prefer they don’t, as long as they are not writing on the desk or in a textbook, I don’t care. Maybe it even helps them concentrate. But I remember one boy whose doodling was not the regular concentric circles of exploding liens most kids do, but a huge army tank complete with turret and guns.  It was amazing.

When the kids are given a test, there are of course games to try to avoid it or cheat during it and I usually think I”ve evaded most of those But once in a while I notice the opposite, kids who not only accept the fact of the test, but who take such a mature philosophical view of it that I can only admire. One grade 9 boy entering the room for a big final exam said back to a friend in the hall “Gotta go. I got an exam to ace”

Grade fours can make powerpoint presentations and I know some grade 7s who can create amazing commercial quality ads using their computers.  My son told me once that my generation gets mad at computers and just gives up when we find the computer is not doing what we want. He says younger people have a different attitude. They assume the computer can do anything they want it to and they simply hang in there experimenting till it does.  Does that mean kids are more patient than I am?  Apparently.

One time I was trying to impress OK let’s face it scare the kids into realizing this test, province- wide was a serious thing and they should work hard on it, sit desks widely separated, not talk and sit in alphabetical order by my seating plan.  They were in grade 9. One said “I think we can handle the stress of sitting here”.  Another said “Yes, I know. This will determine which courses I take, which high school I go to”. And another said “This will determine if I become a profesiaonal or a garbage collector.  Being an assistant garbage collector is what I’m aiming for”  One said’ This will determine if my parents wil fund my education or not”

I was in a grade 2 science class and we were to do a potato experiment. I was supposed to get the kids to notice some basic things about hard and soft though I felt this was a pretty infantile lesson truth be told. I was supposed to get them to notice that if you cook a potato it gest soft and we were to write in our books the conclusion “Heating changes a potato permanently and it can’t get hard again”.  The kids did as asked but then a discussion ensued. One said with a kind of disgust “Everybody knows that” and another said “Death makes a permanent change too”.  A third said, and this was my favorite comment “You could make it hard again if you froze it”.  I just mean beware – these kids are tomorrow’s lawyers.

I was in a grade 4 class and the teacher left plans for us to fill glass jars with varying heights of water and then to tap them to make musical notes. The kids came up individually to try this bout but being kids also made it a performance.  One yelled out to the audience a la rock star “Hello Calgary. Welcome to my show”. Another waited for applause and bowed. One rushed up to get his autograph.

We were at an elementary school where the bell choirs of several classes had been practicing their winter recital. They took terms being each other’s audience for this rehearsal so a group of about 15 played while the rest listened. I always find handbells kind of touching for their ethereal quality but when kids play them of course there is always the distraction that some kids will play slightly off timing or will drop the bell, lose their place in the line or lose their place on the page. However this particular performance what really stood out was the conductor, also a student, who stood very still, head bowed, , hands at his sides, then  shot his arms up dramatically in the air, shook his hair with a flourish and began.

I know I am in a position of responsibility and my job is to in some ways comfort the distressed. But sometimes it is also to distress the comfortable, to make them care about global warming, risks of disease transmission if you don’t wash your hands, or the vital need to look both ways before you cross a street.  I am not sure how much to scare kids when we are reading the fairy tale about the three princes who tried to fight death, two of whom died. I am not sure how to make sure news stories we are discussing end on an up note so the kids won’t have nightmares. And yet the kids sometimes are the saner and calmer ones. We were discussing during a SARS epidemic some years ago, the need to wash hands. One student suggested, jokingly that we all wear rubber suits, masks and wash our hands before entering any classroom. 

It always amazes me how much some kids know.  You can never assume when you are in front of a group of twenty talking about law, that one of them is not the child of a lawyer, or that when talking about science or engineering that the parents of one are not professionals in that field.  Here I am trying to teach the English as a second language high schools kids the difference between I tell and I told, English grammar, on the computer, and when my back is turned they are flicking over to a Chinese website studded with Chinese characters which they obviously can read very well.

Another time at a high school computer class I was told that one of the older boys was banned for a while from computer use. He sat at the back of the room, theoretically to do his work with pen and paper. But I noticed he kept glancing over the bank of computers to the students in rows farther up, and whispering advice to them about how to fix problems  such as when the computer froze. I realized right in front of me we may have a brilliant hacker.

In one high school I was teaching a low academic class about food safety. It was my job to tell them but also I happened to know a few news items about restaurant inspections and closures historically and the kids perked up as if quite interested.  It turned out that several of them worked in restaurants evenings already. 

This same knowledge of the real world experience happened to me in a downtown high school where many of the recently immigrated students, some of whom could barely speak English, were nonetheless out there evenings and weekends earning, as cooks.  I am pretty sure the household needed the income. What I could teach these kids about survival is paltry compared to what they already know.

I am subbing in a sports class and my knowledge of sports would fit under a golf ball.  And yet of course when the big sports jocks enter the room to use the weight machines I am to look vaguely at least like I am not lost in the building.  All goes pretty well and I notice this class is not all guys, and that some of the girls are really pushing the envelope too. One girl is lying on her back across a large balance ball, resting her feet on the wall and doing situps.  Really.

At one junior high the noise level of kid chatter has apparently become a concern but the way to address it is not, as in my day, to ask the kids to be quieter.  The solution also is not for the teacher to speak louder since teacher hoarseness is a common problem few want to endure often.  The solution this school picked was a little round the neck mike that is battery operated, for the teacher to amplify her voice.  It’s kind of cute but of course the particular privilege of the teacher or of that favored few students doing formal presentation and given centre stage.  However when I am there the kids who used it, at class end do not just turn it over to me. One starts making sound effects in it of motors and sputtering engines and squealing tires. 

The French class is asked to design a school and name the classrooms and I notice one group has named the school Lord of the Ring, one has named it the school of Nintendo. One has named the school rooms all under flaps of wrapped gifr boxes and one has actually made a model school out of Styrofoam.

Not only are these minds creative and hard to rein in but they go off tangentally way more than an adult would like. I mean we adults have learned that some body functions are to be suppressed or at least not discussed such as burping, hiiccuping, sneezing, coughing, or that real crowd pleaser – passing gas. However for small kids these events can all be hilarious and for junior high kids even voluntary creations to amuse and divert. I have had an entire two rows of a grade 7 class stand up and flee two rows forward when one passed gas.

Any allusion to sex is considered hilarious and if you even say ‘sex’ or  talk of the gender of words in another language, some will giggle.  But what is more disconcerting is that kids will assume a sexual meaning when there is none. Some will hear ordinary words and think of other meanings and snicker.    I was for instance in one Spanish class asking the students to create questions so we could practice the yes or no answers.  We were to answer “Yes I agree” or “No I don’t” in Spanish and because I was tired I did not dream up a nice concrete example like asking ‘Do you want to eat dinner” but only asked ‘Do you want to do it?”  I should have taken more time

Who knows why but the media may be related, kids very young are often aware of what terms in the language may relate to toilet functions or sexual activity and not completely understanding they do however experience a sense of shock at hearing any such terms, and they enjoy shocking others.  As they enter junior high in particular the taboo has a kind of magnetic attraction and while others don’t know what’s going on or choose to not think about it, others seek out such amusements or can’t help noticing them.  The fine line here is somewhat disturbing.  I mean the kids who disrupt a class with laughter when I inadvertently say “How are you making out?” may not be trying to disrupt the class.  The tittering when someone in a book mentions the lay of the land, or children being happy and gay, may be spontaneous.  But I get irritated inside myself when these immature minds titter at pretty normal expressions like keeping abreast, or social intercourse and what I generally do is quickly reword rather than deal with the impending hysteria.  There are quite a few trigger words and even in a language class you barely want to ask kids time of day questions like “What time do you go to bed?” for fear of nods and winks. One student laughingly said she had lots to do in life, things to meet, places to go and people to do.

And yet occasionally even I find the sudden shock funny. In fact, trying to not laugh is important in class control.  On the other hand, sometimes an adult laughing is apparently refreshing for the kids. I was told in the instructions to read to a grade 5 class a chapter of a book about pioneer life.  In it a young girl and boy were talking and the dialogue became increasingly affectionate. “He looked into her eyes and put his arms around her. She noticed how tall and strong he was and felt yearnings inside herself”.  It went on like this about her yearnings and at one point I stopped and told the kids, “Hey, I didn’t write this” and I was laughing.  At the end of the day one of the little girls ran back to me in the hall and said “I think you’re the best sub ever”

Another time we were reading about science developments and health. Because of the high rate of peanut allergies a product has been created as a condiment that uses not peanuts but chick peas.  The article said that a butter made from crushing such peas was very tasty though it was still… and here as I was reading to the kids it just struck me funny and I could barely get the words out…. ‘pea colored’.  The kids erupted in laughter and it was a neat moment really.  And at the end of the day as the kids left the room and one saw and greeted another teacher he immediately told about pea butter and it being pea-colored.  She looked at me in a kind of horror. Well I guess you had to be there.

The creativity of kids also makes some of the punishments I dole out less than punitive. It’s like Tom Sawyer’s fence I suppose but I’ve always found it odd that if a kid absolutely hates hates the class the worst punishment you can give him is to have him leave it.  If he really dislikes school you punish him by telling him he can’t come for a few days.  I mean in an adult world we may think this deprivation of education is massively devastating to him but hey, for him it’s maybe just a great holiday.  One time I was unhappy with a grade 4 boy who was very rowdy in phys ed class so I told him to do five lapsaround the gym. He was exultant. He loved to run.

At one high school pep rally the choir does a guest song and one soloist steps forward. She is tall, slender, has long dark hair and is terminally shy. But her voice lifts over the room and is though untrained, clearly amazing. The crowd goes crazy, waving their cellphone lights as if lighters at a rock concert and she goes and hides behind another student. Talent in the bud.   We are all in awe to see its first display.

Another time I am in a grade 5 class and as we all stand to sing the national anthem, I notice one small boy soprano voice amazingly clear and strong. Later when we are to prepare a short number for the teacher on her return I give kids the option of singing her a song. He does not sing.  I wish he would have.

We are in a class talking about safety rules. It could be a pretty dull and predictable lesson but as we discuss the kids reveal a few insights from their own experience. One points out that a few years ago a child was injured running into a branch on the school grounds and officials got so upset they cut down every tree.

I am at a school on one of the first winter days when it snows. The kids are out for recess for twenty minutes only and then come back in, taking off their outdoor shoes, shaking off their gloves and toques dutifully. But I look out and the school grounds are already covered with dozens of huge snow balls and a few snowmen.

The teacher has suggested a ‘writing starter’ to the kids of solving a dilemma of Santa stuck in a chimney.  Within minutes they are excited with ideas – soap, butter to make  him slip, ropes to pull him up, reindeer to yank him up, shoveling to carve him out, jumping on his head. 

In a grade 10 Spanish class the kids are learning names of body parts and today names of the body parts of animals. The teacher suggests they prepare skits and I set up a scenario where one brings in a sick dog to a vet and they discuss. Within ten minutes the pairs of kids are talking animatedly in Spanish, laughing and when we watch the skits I see why. One props up on the desk his sick dog, a large backpack, and the vet proceeds to lift up various flaps, zippered pockets and straps of it commenting on its heart rate, which he imitates, his ears, his eyes, his digestive system. Another pair presents a dog made of quickly rolled paper and the diagnosis is that its head is indeed missing.  Another group presents a dog that is a large chair and the vet looks troubled, then live and in front of us tells us the dog’s back is broken, and saying this he snaps apart a wooden pencil, loudly.

When I stand in front of 25 or 35 students I realize this is an odd, fake situation. I have a guaranteed audience, captive really, literally. It is easy and some fall victim to the temptation, to pontificate, to think my words really are weighty, to think my opinions really do matter and to think this audience will just sit there in rapt attention to my pearls of insight. And yet they always catch me up, or bring me down.  I think kids give you about five minutes to assess if you are competent or not, and then after that you have them or you’ve lost them.  For me, it’s important to remember that I am not in front of 30 kids. I am in front of 30 brilliant minds.  Theoretically I have something new to impart to them and for sure I’m going to force them to hear it. But I have to realize what they do with is is maybe going to surprise me, and the world.