Sol, Juliana, Emma, and Lilly were all playing in the house corner of their classroom. As the space was small, I stood on the outskirts, observing them over the bookcase that was serving as Emma’s desk where she was working at her computer (aka – an old keyboard). Their play shifted back and forth naturally between “family” and “store” – it was never totally clear to me which theme was in play at any given time. I glanced down at Lilly and Juliana, their arms outstretched side by side, as they began to debate about arm hair - “Everyone has hair!” “I don’t because I have different skin.” “Brown people have no hair.” “Yes you do!” “No I don’t.” Sol was sitting across from them, quiet until this point. “You’re not in control of her body. Basically, if she doesn’t want to have hair then she doesn’t.”
Yes, we know that it is not possible to simply will our body hair away on a whim. But the idea of being in control of our own bodies and respecting each other’s opinions and physical differences is, from my perspective, a much stronger truth. This is what I think Sol was trying to share with her friends. Her comment successfully ended the debate and the family/store play resumed naturally…but what a big lesson to learn.
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Jake was quietly building with magna tiles on the light table. I walked over and sat down next to him. He looked at me and didn’t say anything. We had not yet met, so perhaps he was a bit unsure about my presence. There were four different sculptures in front of him. I asked him about the one he was working on at that moment: what was it? “This is a giant little squid.” Ah! I gently moved some of the other magna tile sculptures out of the way so I could put down my clipboard and take notes about his work. He kept working at his squid, carefully balancing each tile on top of the next, trying to figure out how to get them to stand up at an angle. Then he realized I had moved his work, and he calmly moved each piece back closer to him. I apologized for moving them. Pointing to the large flat work, he declared: “Look at this! It’s a squid popper. It’s a kind of squid that squids his arms like water, squirts bubbles, and squirts water out of his legs!” All of a sudden Jake stopped working and knocked all of his sculptures to the ground in one large crash. “These are my things. I crashed them.” Yes, he did. He began to play with Sequoia, who was showing me his weapon made from plastic blocks. Joining Sequoia’s imaginary play (at that moment he was a transformer), Jake came over to me. “Look at me, I have lasers in my eyes! They are red.” I asked what happens when he looks at me with his laser eyes: “Your skin turns different colors.”
During these short moments with Jake, I felt his desire to be powerful and to engage in acts that exercised this power: he rejected my movement of his work and put it back where he felt it needed to be, he took control and destroyed his own work on his own terms, and he invented an imaginary power (with a strong color!) that could physically alter anyone he chose. For small children, who are often controlled by those bigger than them, these are such important feelings. I’m glad I was there to witness them and record these moments of Jake being in control and powerful in his own small way. |
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