notes from public school - day 51

One of my favorite writers, Kate DiCamillo, wrote, “Writing is seeing. It is paying attention.”

Do you know her work?

I love her novel The Tale of Despereaux.

I try to teach my students to walk around in the shoes of the characters of the stories they are reading. When I read this book, I found that Despereaux’s shoes fit me well. I so identified with the little mouse on his big quest to rescue a beautiful human princess from the rats that at the end of some of the chapters I found myself with tears rolling down my cheeks.

“Yes,” I thought, “I would have thought...I would have done...I would have seen things exactly the way Despereaux did.”

As a writer, I agree with DiCamillo.

Wholeheartedly.

As a teacher, I agree with her, too.

Teaching is seeing and paying attention.

Here is one thing I saw today.

One of my students has a younger brother with autism. He is in one of the four exceptional children’s classes we have at my school.

I check in on our exceptional children and their teachers first thing each morning.

I give a fist bump to every person and sit down to talk and eat with them.

This morning, I looked up and there was my student, her left arm around the shoulders of her little brother, helping him with his breakfast.

He is non-verbal, but his face spoke a thousand words as she leaned over and tenderly kissed his cheek before heading down to the 4th grade hall to begin her day that includes math and science with me.

His face spoke, “My sister loves me,” and his smile shone throughout the school cafeteria as if it were a light.

It was a light.

His smile.

Her act of kindness and love.

My student might make an A on a standardized math test on a random day in her 4th grade year.

Or she might make an F.

But these academic measurements cannot measure the depth of her heart and the beauty of her life.

Her heart is deep and her life is beautiful.

Pay attention.