Brain damage

I think one of the most refreshing parts about kindergarten is the kid's total innocence, or oblivion, regarding where things came from. The phrase, "You don't know where that's been," is totally lost on them, because it's true, they don't know where aforementioned item in question has been, and consequently, could care less. That might be a childlike purity, or it might be brain damage that I think all five year olds are naturally born with. I haven't decided yet.

So I shouldn't have been surprised about the pigeon incident. Gosh darn it, these poor Arizona kids will cling to every pathetic bit of the winter experience they can get. Puddles the size of paper plates are cause for a Singin' in the Rain jubilee, and ice...ICE! Oh my goodness, ICE! Which leads again to the question of cleanliness and where something comes from, and why that should matter if you are going to interact with it. 

The third day of official student teaching the overnight temperature in Phoenix dropped below freezing. Obnoxious when you have early morning playground duty, a providential miracle when you're a kid. So we watched the kids happily exploring the wonderment of their newly ice laden wonderland: the crunch in the grass, the ability to write in the frost on the picnic tables, the freezing cold monkey bars. It was all Christmas movie-magical.

Then first recess came.

Now this is where I think the childlike innocence ends and the brain damage begins. Because these perfectly intelligent children, who knew two hours ago that the slide had ice on it, are now completely shocked that when you slide down a formerly frozen slide, you consequently have wet pants! Shocked! Brain damage!

And if you stick you're tongue on a always grimy picnic table, even when it's frosty, it's going to taste like grime, just cold grime. Again shocked! Brain damage!

But truly the most obvious evidence of kindergarten brain damage was found in the pigeon problem. Now our school has a metal roof, which was understandably covered with a slick coating of ice when the first bell rang. No one gave it a second thought. And being in Phoenix, the roof is quite often home to a line up of mangy looking pigeons soaking up some heat from the metal's reflection. This also shouldn't require a second thought.

So at first recess, as the ice on the roof is beginning to melt, we find these brain damaged children lined up underneath the awning of the roof, heads back, mouths open, blissfully catching the yellow/brown drops of rain water onto their tongue.

"Stop!!" we say, "Do you know where that water's been?!"

And they look at us with the sympathetic, poor-teacher-has-lost-her-marbles look on their faces and say ever so patiently, "Yeah. The sky."

And I suppose they're technically right. Rain, no matter where it ends up in between, ultimately comes from the sky. Who am I to tell them any different? 

Children are a gift from the Lord. Psalm 127:3