Tears and Butterflies
Little Lives in Grave Danger from a Lack of Soap
I taught brand new Kinder children on their 2nd day at what they call big school. Also their 7th, 11th, 12th, 14th day, and every week since. They were scared of me at first. Out of 19 little mites, 6 broke down and howl-cried that first day. I don’t think howl-cry is a word, but if you experienced it you’d know what I mean.
A 1st week example: a golden haired girl called Joy remembered how much she missed her mum.
Tears dripped into her lunchbox; that was just the start. Joy’s nose ran and dripped. I watched as she licked it off her lips with her tongue. She shook so much it looked like convulsions. Bubbles emerged from mouth and nose, popping as she wiped them on her forearm. A wobbly chin, shaking hands, shortness of breath, gasping, then a huge intake of air in readiness for the howl. A loud one, right into my ear as I’d got down to her level in the playground.
Joy, who was giving me no joy at all, flung herself at me. Quivering hands held my sides as she smeared her face over my pale blue dress. Bowling me over with her sorrow, Joy struggled to get some oxygen in while manically gasping in but not out. That’s when I realised my own chest was wet.
The fabric I was wearing darkened when it was ironed or dampened. Pulling back, I realised I had a nose snail-trail from Joy. What a joy that was! I stand her back up gently and she tries to flinging herself back. Her eyes are red. She resembles a just boiled beetroot in colour (which goes great with that red hair). I put up a finger and point to my wrist. I tell the time, swirling around 3 times to indicate when home time will be and she can see her mummy again.
Joy’s eyes are blurred, she has no concept of what I mean, but she does notice the purple butterfly on my wristwatch. She is distracted, she is curious; we change the subject. After 2 minutes of butterfly talk, where I learn she has a sparkly pink butterfly on her wall and bed quilt, she calms down. I walk away, folding my arms to try and hide my wet breasts. The howl-cry stain resembles a nursing mother with a let-down response.
The newbies have buddies at the top end of primary school in Year 6; the littluns cry when they leave to go back to class. They cry when it’s home time and haven’t finished colouring. They cry when they have a sandwich filling they don’t like. When they aren’t the line leader, when they don’t win an award, when they fall over for the 11th time that day. They also cry when I raise my voice slightly because they are crawling under the desks between the chairs and sucking on the sharpened lead end of a pencil.
Fast forward 2 weeks.
Teaching them a science unit called Staying Alive we covered the 4 basic needs of air, water, food and shelter. I added that cleaning ourselves was good for out health, saying something like: ‘If we don’t wash our hands with soap and rinse off after going to the bathroom, the germs can make us sick.’
A crisis occurred when there was no liquid soap left in the girls bathrooms.
‘Mrs Ralston, Mrs Ralston: I can’t wash the germs off and I just did a poo. Am I gonna get sick? Am I going to die?’
Joy waves her possibly poohey paws in front of my face. I’m confronted by a wall of anxious frowns from other students. I say I’ll try to get more soap, and they should just wash well under the water. I add we can use a squirt of sanitizer (a teacher’s best friend) back in class.
The little ones take everything I say so literally, but there’s less snot, vomit wee and tears now. There is still a lot of falling over, more farting and laughing about it as well, but only the occasional howl-cry. Nothing I can’t handle.
Fast forward 2 more weeks and Joy is a joy.
She waves goodbye to mum without a backward glance and runs to meet up with her best friend Gilly, to hold hands and improvise a game of Duck-Duck-Goose they can giggle over before school starts. Joy writes j o y on the back of every worksheet I give her and her handwriting is immaculate. The smallest possible size 4 uniform that was swimming on her a month ago now fits as she’s stopped shrinking and weeping and being scared to do anything.
This girl embraces it all now.
Joy can anticipate my needs and instructs the other pupils to do what she thinks I think they should be doing. In their 2nd ever technology class, Joy helped other children to log on to computers and typed their names. This tiny golden haired girl sits front and centre, keeps her blue eyes focussed and takes school very seriously. A model student, I fear she may be able to replace me as the teacher given another month or 2.
And little Joy is completely normal. Just like the 18 other midget boys and girls starting kindergarten, their social, psychological, academic, fine and gross motor skills have grown exponentially. Blossoming, they can remember to go to the toilet at break times so they don’t need to rush out of class holding their genitals mid lesson. It is a definite improvement and it has happened so fast it astounds me every time.
Joy and the other’s have undergone a metamorphosis from timid caterpillars to vibrant butterflies. Watching them reboot, adjust, cope and soar into the world of education is awesome. Honestly, it’s 100% pure joy.
I’ve put out my own blog recently birdlifesaving.com, hope you’ll check it out.
