Life at Kid Level
On Thursday I spoke at our town’s local chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma, an organization for professional women. Several of the women were former teaching colleagues of mine an during the question and answer time, one of them asked me if I missed teaching.
I didn’t want to offend anyone by saying “No!” with too much enthusiasm and conviction. So I paused to think before speaking, a practice I should use more often, and something came to mind. “I miss my teaching friends and the relationships we forged together.”
Several women nodded in agreement and smiled. As they did, my thoughts raced back to San Diego and my stay in the guest house on the mountain top. One morning as I did laps around the exterior of the mansion and back and forth on the section of driveway which was not more than a 5% grade, a little girl popped out the back door and asked, “Why do you keep walking by here?”
I stopped to explain. “I like to walk, and there aren’t many places to walk on top of a mountain. So I have to go in circles.”
“Oh.” She thought for a minute. “I’ll come with you.” And she did, though her feet were bare, her wavy brown hair was a beehive bed head, and her pajamas were an old t-shirt of her grandpa’s that nearly dragged on the ground.
“How old are you?” I asked.
The words tumbled out and her soft brown eyes sparkled. “I’m just passed four. I’ve only been five for a few weeks. My birthday was September 22. That’s two twos.”
“Did you have a party?”
Abruptly, she stopped walking and put her hands on her hips. “Yes, I did. And I invited you, but you didn’t come.”
I defended myself. “But I didn’t know you then.”
She shook her head. “I invited you. I know I did.”
No matter how many different ways I phrased it, she wouldn’t buy it. Finally, I had to promise to come next year if she invited me, even though it would take a drive in the car and two plane rides to get from my house to hers.
And I realized, as I spoke at Delta Kappa Gamma on Thursday night, that is what I miss about teaching: life at kid’s level where for a brief moment, I could make a difference and become different by bending down and seeing things with the eyes of a child.
“There’s one other thing I miss,” I told them. “Life at kid level.”
They knew exactly what I meant.
