As an ESL
teacher in a preschool, I spend most of my time worrying that I have no impact
on my children. On my bad days I know
with some surety that to my kids, I am nothing more than a pesky fly, pestering
them with buzzing words of a foreign language.
I am an annoying and only occasionally amusing presence who prevents
them from playing with their LEGOs. On
my good days, though, I mostly know that this is not the case.
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| "I am Rico! Where's Kovalski?...Evaporation!" Still not sure how it fit into a game about cartoon penguins, but who am I to question "kid logic" |
During our
most recent project, two weeks of intensive exploration of water in its various
shapes and forms, I spent a day teaching the water cycle. We spent two hours playing with and
experimenting with evaporation, condensation, saturation, and
precipitation. Later that day I heard
one of my six-year-olds shout “EVAPORATION!” like it was an interjection in a
comic book. Instead of BAM! or POW!, he
opted for “EVAPORATION!” and ran off to continue his game of “Penguins of the
Madagascar.” It probably wasn’t the
correct context, but this child remembered a word I’d taught him, so I’m
counting it as a victory.
This
last Thursday we concluded a week of lessons about music. We learned the names of instruments, listened
to various genres, we discussed what we liked or disliked, and we listened to
music to hear the emotion or the story it conveyed. For this last activity we listened to the
awakening beauty of the sunrise in Peer Gynt and the violin’s heartbreaking
melancholy; we listened to clips of Beethoven’s Fifth and Ninth Symphonies,
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and (humorously) Wham’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.” To end the lesson, I told them that often
dance can also express musical sentiment and to illustrate, I showed them a video
of a ballerina dancing the death of the swan from Swan Lake. My girls exclaimed over the poignant beauty
of the music and the dancer’s grace as she fluttered and floated to her tragic
end. I then played clips from Glenn
Miller and ABBA and asked them to dance the way the music felt and we laughed
as they tried to shake, rattle, and roll to “Dancing Queen.”
Later
that day, after playtime, lunch, and naptime, I was working on lesson plans as
the children had free playtime. My
partner put on a CD mix of Polish songs and classical music for the children to
listen to as they played their individual and organized games. During one particularly sweet piece of
classical music, my partner Aneta whispered to catch my attention; I looked up
and saw that my Sarita was dancing Swan Lake.
Now
although I shouldn’t have favorite children, I have to admit that Sarita is one
of my favorite children. Quiet and
small, Sarita is often drowned out by the four boisterous boys in her age group
and she is often ruled over by her two more dominant friends. In six months of work together, though, I have
seen her grow in confidence and strength, and occasionally I see her challenge
the other children and hold her own ground.
And although I have to tell her to be quiet and to sit on her bum, I am
inwardly delighted to see her meeting the world head-on. As I watched Sara dance the dance of a swan, I
felt a similar feeling of pride and delight.
Sara wasn’t using any of the words that I’d taught, but she was moving
her arms and gliding just as the Russian ballerina had. Watching her, it was clear that the lesson
had resonated with her, and when she heard the classical music, she decided to
dance her own childish but graceful imitation. It was perfectly beautiful and touching.
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