Something that was all kinds of beautiful and surreal

I just witnessed something that was all kinds of beautiful and surreal.  A 1st grader walked into my class with a random book.  She held it up to me and asked, "What's this?"  It was the music for "We Shall Overcome".  I sang it for her.  Then, I thought what the hell...I'll do it for the whole class.  What followed was a lengthy conversation about race, civil rights, inequity, and fairness. 


YES, 1st graders. 


It was astounding when that same girl stood up in front of the class and clearly explained Dr. Martin Luther King's vision of a world where races were equal (she pointed directly at another student in the class and said Dr. King made it possible for her and the other student to be in the same classroom today).  It was heartbreaking when a student cried over the fact that a white person had shot him.  It was darkly hilarious when the whole class stood up, literally STOOD UP, onto their feet and verbally BOOED the person who shot MLK (these kinds of wild tonal shifts are totally typical in a classroom full of kids, don't worry).  It was difficult trying to push the students' thinking, to explain that inequity exists in a way that you can't necessarily see anymore (I tried, and perhaps failed to explain how Detroit schools are still not like our schools).  It was mind-numbingly incredible when a student asked, "Why is it that white people treated black people unfairly and not the other way around?"  It was hysterical when the student, not ready to settle with my answer of, "I don't know," said that she would google it and let me know next week if she found the answer (I told her good luck).  It was poignant when a student hugged me after class because she was upset that MLK wasn't with us anymore, but then hugged her friend who said, "Don't worry.  He's looking down on us from up in heaven.  He is still helping us."  And it was jarring to talk with another student, who I thought looked offended by our class discussion about race, be mad that someone had sat in his seat before class let out:  Another reminder that these are only kids, after all, and somehow they have the capacity to contain the weight of social injustice and the anger of someone stealing their seat. 

To think we have to "save" these conversations about the realities of the world until students are old enough is completely ridiculous.  Kids, especially ones who are around Kindergarten or 1st Grade, see the world for what it is.  Their untethered minds have very little for concepts, categories, and schemas, so they are free to have a lucid look at the world that our adult minds (that do think heavily in concepts, categories, and schemas) cannot see.  They are also the most social animals I have ever seen, absorbing almost anything that people do around them.  They watch us.  They see how we act.  They know about how we operate in the world, feel about our world.  They are aware, and it is our job to make the conversations happen, appropriate for the age level of course, as early as possible.


After the conversation came to a natural closing point, I still had 15 minutes left of class.  To sort of salvage the class out of this pretty substantial conversation, I needed an easy music activity.  The students voted on their favorite activity (freeze/copy dance, where you dance when the music is on and copy one person's dance move) and we did that until the end.  Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke" was clearly the only song choice for this.  The students danced, uninhibited and unconditionally, watching each other with absolute joy.