Curb Your Enthusiasm

Image @ smcdsb.on.ca

"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all." ~Aristotle

At what age do we begin to lose our enthusiasm for simple things? Perhaps you're one of the fortunate souls who maintains that innocent joy for a lifetime, but for me (and many others I know) the light found in such small pleasures as hugging a teacher or telling a dumb joke gets muddied, lost in this whole "adulting" thing. Disappointments, paying bills, experiencing heartbreak pile up like grown-up garbage leaving a taint on us that's difficult to shower off. It is a tragedy that makes me absolutely indignant to the injustice of the loss! I want it back, dagnabbit and I'm working very hard to make that happen! Fortunately, there is a group of tiny humans that are helping me.

This morning I sat doing fluency drills with my second graders, and I kid you not when I say they are so happy to attain even the smallest of milestones. Their excitement at getting through a hundred words in under five minutes was infectious. The students who read the hundred words in over five minutes still took delight from every word, every sound they knew on their own. One young lady said with utmost seriousness when she got stuck, "Now don't help me," and hid the card so I couldn't see the word! She concentrated on each part, her little eyebrows drawn together in intense focus until she said the word aloud and I confirmed she was correct. Then, her entire face bloomed with an "I did it" smile that warmed me to my bones. Another child, who's having a really rough time in his everyday life told me at the start, "Mrs. Schaefer, I can't do this." "You can," I assured him. "And I should know. It's my job to know!" I puffed myself up importantly to make him laugh. "Show me whatcha got, pal?" I challenged. He started off slow, unconvinced, his little sighs of frustration telling me he wanted to give up, so I ratcheted up the praise and it worked. He picked up steam, his fluency improving with each new card. By the end, he was smiling and I wanted to hug him tight. I wanted to tell him that in his whole life, if he just did what he did with me in regards to reading those words he'd be completely unstoppable (but that was way over his seven-year-old head). As I watched him return to class, I offered up a prayer that he would have more people along his path to offer him words of encouragement.

I want to tell these tiny humans I see every day, "Don't let grown-up life steal your enthusiasm", but I know even if I did, it wouldn't make sense to them until many years down the road where the possibility that it's too late is almost a guarantee. And while I thoroughly believe living a life of joy is 90% attitude & 10% circumstance, life will eventually kick you in the teeth. It's tough to forget when that happens, to set it aside and keep moving forward. It is harder still when those heartbreaks are a seemingly endless loop.

I may be teaching tiny humans how to deal with r-controlled vowels and other meticulously chosen reading strategies, but they are giving me lessons on how to not let life curb my enthusiasm. I'm also helping them discover a love of reading in as many ways as my time with them will allow, which to my mind is an amazing gift (I couldn't face this world without cookies and a good book), the lessons they're reminding me of leads me to conclude I'm the one getting the better end of this deal!