Miraculously Mundano : Of Smiles and Subways
It’s a Friday, around 9:15 in the morning. It’s unusually warm for this time of year. The sunlight paints itself onto the light wooden floors inside the school. I’m greeting families and children as they arrive to school, a lot of “buenos días!” and “qué gusto de verte!”
Most children have arrived for the day. I close the glass paned door in the front of the school and walk toward the classrooms. I open another door and Carlitos, one of our two year olds, has just finished washing his hands. He gleams at me, “Hola Rafa!” as he trots to pull the towel paper and dry his hands, looking at me the whole time before dropping the towel paper onto the floor next to the trash can and stomping back to his classroom.
The school is one big room divided by cubbies and other pieces of lightly wooded furniture - imagine a labyrinth that is very easy to navigate.
I walk in past Carlitos’ classroom and look to my left. Sasha, a teacher in the Papel classroom is sitting on a bench. Two benches are turned on their sides, looking at each other. Children sit on the inside of these benches, looking at each other. Sasha says in a muffled voice, “The next stop is….” I imagine they’re pretending to be on the subway. Across the room, a child is tucked into a cardboard box and sneaking his head in and out like a jack-in-a-box and smiles at his teacher, Amelia. Amelia smiles back as the two other children around her smile at the friends on the makeshift subway. I take a picture of the scene to recall and reflect on later. But now, I leave the classroom space, walking down into the basement, to meet with a mentor of mine and talk through the week, as we typically do at our ATARIP meetings.
Reflections and a Next Step
I had gone to a fundraising event the night before and come back home energized. It was almost 10 PM and typically am well on my way to sleep by that time. I didn’t get to sleep until 11:30 PM. I woke up groggy the next day at 6:30 AM - how fragile my rhythms can be! When I arrived to Mi Casita and witnessed the above moments, while I was tired I was thinking, “how grounded it feels to be here.” I felt relaxed and tired, which is a great recipe for a nap. It is also an opportunity to let go and simply allow my attention to be with the every day magic that children and adults co-create at Mi Casita, the school I teach and direct. Throughout my teaching career, I have looked for a sense of groundedness on a daily basis, and it had always proved elusive. I think that’s why the above moments caught my attention - it was a reminder that it is possible to be grounded by my work as an educator.
The discourse around teachers and why their jobs are so hard often revolve around all the extra hours grading, not enough time to prepare, and the different hats we wear. I wonder if this focus on what makes our jobs so hard puts “working hard” on a pedestal - as if we have to justify ourselves by how hard things can be. The other side of that is that the reasons for why teaching are so hard often don’t do justice to the depth of work we do. Yes, making copies is time consuming. Yes, grading is time consuming. But, ultimately, much of teaching (especially in Early Childhood) can do without printing and grading. Holding space, building relationships, maintaining them, and expanding on them, are a large part of the what makes teaching so rewarding, challenging, and requiring of proper compensation and rest. When I think of this moment of a morning at Mi Casita, I hope that others see possibilities, not getting stuck in the luxury that a morning like that can feel like. It should not be a luxury - that should be the norm.
If you are reading this, I invite you to consider, what do you make of this moment? What does this bring up for you?
As a next step, I want to re-visualize the above story - the images, the sensations, the narration - and connect it as a time that I felt grounded and want to feel that value in action - a value that I hope becomes a part of more of our society. In doing this visualization I hope to enjoy more of these moments throughout my days and immerse myself in the pleasure of being and co-constructing learning with others.
