Is That A Rocket In Your Pocket?

spaceball
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

It's always the sweetest children who manage to surprise you the most.

Another moment of levity/honesty from my classroom! These images are from a mini-book written by S.

The project grew organically out of the reading to my class aloud of "Lunch Money" by Andrew Clements.

As an aside, Mr. Clements IS my read aloud author of the year, and to date we have devoured, "The Report Card," "The Landry News" (which spawned competing classroom newspapers), "School Story," "The Last Holiday Concert," and, of course, the progenitor of them all, "Frindle." We are currently reading "A Week in the Woods." Every novel is a story of conflict between adults and children, realistic drama. And every novel ends with children who have made tough choices and left adults wiser and more compassionate as a result. I confess, there are many places in each story where I fight back tears. That's how well written they are! And the endings? -- I fain allergy attacks, dust in my eyes, choking fits....you name it, but I think the kids understand. I'm a lousy actor! Mr. Clements has found a powerful formula for empowering children and humbling grown-ups. Can you tell that I love his work? But I digress....

So here is my little S.'s offering. A tale called, "Space Ball." Like the hag/damoiselle illustration in my previous post, what do you see?

I'm often asked if I (as a gay man) can tell the orientation of my students. And frankly, I can't. I don't believe that feminine characteristics or masculine ones determine anything. (One of the greatest "Sissies" I have ever know is a happily married man with 7 children!) I do know that I knew (even if I could not have articulated it to save my life at the time) when I was in kindergarten that I was different...and then that I was gay. And so I do know that children have sexual lives. Even if they are confusing, incomplete, and unarticulatable. I also belive that most children grow up thinking that this part of themselves is shameful, and therefore they begin to repress it early on. Our society/culture does little to shed any healthy light on this.

But like placing an old garbage can lid on "Old Faithful," such efforts are futile. I hope S. saves a copy of this little tome, someday his therapist may appreciate it -- no matter which way his door ends up swinging!