Five little first graders sit around the table. They are all eating snack. Goldfish, most probably. Their feet barely reach the floor. They are discussing appearances. "So you are chocolate, you're chocolate too." The whole group nods in agreeance, so she continues..."I'm vanilla, he's vanilla..." They all stop to stare at the last child to be pointed to, wondering what will be said about this one. "...and you're. um. you're tan." A smile of assurance spreads across tan's face and they all again nod to show they wholeheartedly agree.
The teacher, being the good teacher he is, decides this is the perfect opportunity to push these children to think even deeply about an already complex topic. It's what we call a "teachable moment" in the classroom.
He crouches down to be at eye level with them, you know, to really drive the point home. "Why do you think it is that we are all different?"
The conversation stops, all eyes turn to him, and then back to the little girl making the original ice cream flavor distinctions. "We aren't different!" she says, without hesitation and with a little underlying chuckle, "we just have different color skin!"
They all laugh and turn back to their goldfish.
Why are kids so much smarter than the rest of us?
2 comments:
Precious, love this! You're such a great storyteller.
omg, adorably sweet. love this.
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