The massive banyan tree grows up out of the ground where it has stood for over a hundred years. Generations of children have played around it and in its branches. It stands in the playground of a 170 year old K-12 school in Honolulu. It seemed the perfect place to gather and celebrate twenty-five seniors who will graduate in a week. They were my kindergarten students thirteen years ago when the class of 2021 sounded absurdly far into the future and now we are here. 

Preparation for this moment had actually begun back then. At the end of their kindergarten year, the room parents had created a huge thank you note for me. Inside it contained 25 little notes written by each child thanking me for something about the year. On the cover, along with the words, mahalo for a magical year, were 25 stamp-sized, individual photos making flaps that lifted to reveal each child’s prediction of what they would become later in life. I had promised then that when they graduated we would revisit these predictions.

The time had come. One of the seniors and her mother had helped me work out the details for the afternoon gathering. She drove up, moments after I did, and we unloaded a folding table, an enlarged copy of their kindergarten class photo, and some grad cap shaped party favors from her van. From my car, came the card I had promised and some other treasures from that school year that I had deposited in my personal, professional archives. I carried a stuffed animal the children used to take home at night and the journal where they recorded their adventures, two bound books authored by the class that were printed at a time when digital photography had just become reasonable, and another book with watercolored illustrations that was another collaborative project. I also had a photo they had all signed with their five-year old signatures. And I had a full-sized rocking chair with their handprints that had been in my classroom until I retired and had been collecting dust in the garage since then just waiting for this day. 

As we were unloading, one of the boys walked up and gallantly took the table out of his classmate’s arms. Was that a look of years old friendship or the glimmer of a crush I saw in their eyes? I hauled the rocking chair to the site by myself. 

We set up the table under the shade of the banyan. We placed the rocking chair nearby and spread all the memorabilia on the table. In a few moments, another student arrived. As she walked across the yard to where we were, I recognized something of her kindergarten face, but also the face and stature of her mother, in the young woman she had become. It was like time travel. I greeted her joyfully by name and she responded by reaching into her bag and pulling out a puakenekene lei. It was homemade and so fragrant it was euphoric. 

The kids started arriving more rapidly now. In addition to the length of time since I’d seen some of them, mandatory face masks made recognizing them and putting names to faces a challenge. I was elated when I could recall, and a little heartbroken when I had to admit to a former student that I couldn’t figure out who they were and they had to reveal their identity to me. 

The objects on the table did their job as icebreakers, as I had hoped. They gathered around, flipping through pages and photographs. They laughed about their artwork and their handwriting. “What size font was that?!” cried out one of the boys to his friend whose letters were over an inch tall. 

“Oh, I remember those blocks. Now I’m starting to remember more. I didn’t think I could remember anything about kindergarten.” 

​“Do you still write?” I asked one girl who had been such an imaginative author when I had her. Shyly she smiled, “Yes. But mostly I do comics now. Do you want to see them?,” she asked as she pulled out her phone, to show me images of her black and white manga comics. I could see the afterglow of the unicorn and fairy stories she used to write all those years ago.

When the timing seemed right, we asked the group to arrange themselves in the same position as they had in our kindergarten class photo. Short people had now become taller and some of the tall ones in kindergarten were now the shorter ones. It was fun to watch them shift to make sure all are were seen. 

Then we shared the card. One by one, each of my former students walked up to the front of the group, under the shade of the enduring banyan, and lifted the little flap revealing their prediction. 

“I said I was going to be a ‘bunny vet.’ What is that anyway? Well, really I’m going to go the Cal Poly SLO and major in environmental management.”

“I said I wanted to be an artist and a teacher. I am going to Japan to study art. Maybe I will be an art teacher.”

“I nailed it! It says a ‘cat machine engineer.’ Yeah, as is Caterpillar—those big yellow machines. I’m going to the University of Hawaii to study mechanical engineering.” 

“Mine says ‘I want to be an astronaut.’ I am going to study aviation at Purdue.”

“I thought I was going to be a librarian and gardener. Not anymore. I’m going to Cornell and planning to study food science.”

And so we went through them all. There was lots of laughter and lots of clapping for each other. I watched as boys, twice as tall and twice as wide as their former selves walked forward. One girl with turquoise and pink striped hair, asked why did I have bangs then? Another who used to wear floppy, bunny ear pigtails, looked more grounded now in her fashion choice of thick, black boots. 

At the end, I thanked them all for coming. I told them that I was just delighted to see who they had all become. I wished them all the best as they move through the last few weeks of the school year and onto this next chapter. I also told them that I hoped they had enjoyed themselves and they were welcome to take any of the mementos on the table. I was pleased to realize that no one was rushing off. They continued to mingle, to catch up with each other, and share memories from other grades, too. There were many heartfelt good-byes and the sense that this was an important moment that should be savored a bit.

​Several of the kids hung around and helped carry what remained back to the van and my car. Again we found ourselves lingering on the sidewalk, enjoying the feeling, and not quite willing to let go. When my high-school helper did climb back into her van, I waved her off and got back into my car. I sat with a contented sigh. It's such a gift that I can reunite with my former students when they are seniors. It's not something most kindergarten teachers get to do. I carefully took off the lei I had been given and placed it on the passenger seat. They don’t do well with seatbelts. As I started up the car, I decided to keep the sound system off. I just wanted the silence to hold me and all the love I felt. As I pulled away, there was the banyan in my rearview mirror. ​

My five year old grandson came into the kitchen where I was washing up the lunch dishes. He had been entertaining himself happily on our wooden deck in the back.

“Baba,” he moaned, “The Broncos football is stuck under the steps. I can’t get it.”

“Let me see where it is,” I reassured him.

We walked happily out the sliding glass door together, turned to the left, and he led me to the source of his predicament. 

“It’s under there,” he said, pointing to a set of three steps that connects differing levels of our deck. I got down on my hands and knees and peered into a place that I had never had any reason to explore before. Fortunately, the decking was solid under there and his foam football was just trapped at the back corner. I had feared that it might have dropped below to ground level. If that was the case, I had no idea how we would recover it.

“Not a problem,” I exclaimed confidently. “We just need a long-handled broom.”

Enthusiastically he responded, “We have one of those! The black one!” We both bounced back up the steps and back into the kitchen to retrieve the broom.

Back at the site of the difficulty, he asked, “Can I try to get it?"

“Sure. Go ahead,” I replied, passing him the broom. 

He crouched down and stuck the bristle end of the broom under the stairs. A couple of jabs and he turned to me, “I can’t do it.”

“Okay, let me try.” I knelt down again and tried to get the broom behind the ball, so that I could ease it toward me. Not quite sure how I managed it, but before I knew what had happened, I had pushed it further under the steps. The ball was now out of sight, and I knew it was wedged under the lowest step and a support stringer. I tried a couple of times to move it, but no luck. 

Desperate to see it, I lay on my belly and stuck my head into the small opening under the stairs. I inched forward. Not happening. I could not move in far enough to see exactly where it was. Suddenly, I had a better idea. Backing out, I turned to my grandson, “You might just be the right size for this job. See if you can put your head in here.”

So he copied what I had just done.

“Can you see the ball?”

“No.”

“Okay. Scootch in a little further. Can you see it now?”

“Yes.”

“Great. Can you reach it?”

“Not yet.

“Well then, go in a little further,” as I wrapped my hands gently around his little ankles just to be sure I didn’t loose him. 

“I got it!”

He inched his way backwards and I pulled him slowly along by the feet. He emerged, triumphant smile on his face, and favorite football clutched to his chest.

As I gazed at him, I felt such pride for this little guy. “You were just the right size for that job! Nobody else in this family could have done that.”

It’s the house on the corner. I’ve walked past it hundreds of times with its overgrown side yard. This is Hawaii where everything grows like a weed. But recently someone was carving away at the jungle. One evening I happened upon my neighbor as he chopped and dug vines out by the root. “You’ve got your work cut out for you with that yard,” I called out as I paused for a moment. “It’s true,” he sighed. “Years ago the City used to clear their easement, which actually ends here,”as he gestured to where he was hacking back plants. “They would just cut it back all the way to my wall, which was nice, but no more.” 

On my evening walks that followed, I observed the progress. Haole koa cut back, ficus chopped down, undergrowth pulled up. The patches were small, but daily the land was getting clearer and clearer. One day I came by and the whole side yard had been completely cleared!

The following evening, my neighbor was out again. “Wow! You got whole thing done,” I said as I nodded with my head toward the side of his house. 
“Yeah,” he acknowledged, “I had some friends come help me.” 
“Many hands make light work!” I said as I set off again, silently savoring how good it must feel to have that job done. I wondered what he was going to do with the space now that he had tamed it. 

Perhaps it was a week later, an email came into my inbox from a local realtor, listing houses in our neighborhood that had just come on the market. Staring at me from my computer screen was a photo of that corner house. Could it be?

The next time I saw my neighbor in his yard, he had his children, both tweens, with him. “Are you selling your house?”
“Yes, we are.”
Truly curious I asked, “Where will you be moving to?”
“We’ve decided to head back to California. Lots of reasons. Parents are getting older. The kids are at a good age to make the change.” They nodded their agreement from behind him. They appeared to have a favorable attitude toward this move. 

“This makes me a little sad,” I confessed. “It reminds me of my childhood. We only fixed up our house when we were ready to leave it. Had to get it ready for the new owners.” Now I realized that what had motivated all the work I was witnessing was that the house was going to be sold, and he was getting it ready for someone else.

Everyone has their reasons, and I'm not passing any judgement, but it stirred something in me. One of the things I've learned from the pandemic and a year of staying put, is how important our home is. It's so much more than a pit stop on life's racetrack where we pull in, recharge, and head out again. I've learned to cherish it.

My husband and I have come to recognize that although our tract-home kitchen is small and efficient, and we love it in many ways, it's getting worn out. So we recently made the decision to renovate it. It's certainly a process, yet with every cabinet, counter top, appliance, flooring, and backsplash decision we are making, I'm rejoicing that this will be for us. 

In Hawaii, it's not spring-cleaning that folks talk about but rather cleaning to get ready for the New Year. Sweeping, polishing, and clearing out clutter are common practices in households--those with Asian roots, where the custom originated, and everyone else, no matter what their ancestry.
 
Inspired by New Year's cleaning, I decided that over the winter break I would completely clear out and purge the contents of a very large closet in my classroom. Then I would re-store my stuff. That's when my one little word hit me. RESTORE.
 
I love this word! It has so many positive associations for me:
     • restore a native habitat
     • restore peace
     • restore a painting
     • restore an old house                                                  
     • restore something taken unjustly back to its original owner
     • restore a relationship
 
But this twist on the meaning of taking things out, examining their value and usefulness, and putting them away again intrigued me.
 
Maybe it’s the time of life, in my sixties and nearing retirement, but I've been doing a lot of self-reflection over the last couple of years. I've realized that my inner world is similar to that closet. I have experiences, emotional memories, and habits that I have stored up for a lifetime. Recently it's feeling like a whole lot of clutter. I want to open up space there. I feel the need to RESTORE myself.
 
When I told my husband that my word for the year was "restore," he exclaimed, "That's perfect!" I don't really think he was focused on my inner meaning, but it's true that 2017 was hard and exhausting in many ways. ACCEPT, which was my word last year, turned out to be a strong guide throughout. Now I am ready to RESTORE, as in restorative poses in yoga. But also to restore balance, restore some teaching practices that have gotten pushed out by new initiatives, and re-store my inner closet. Here's to 2018 and my one little word—RESTORE.

Pretending creates a powerful context for learning—for my kindergartners and for me as their teacher. On this day, three girls planned to play in our pretending area. They told me that Lauren was going to be the sister, Teresa was going to be the mom, and Wisdom was going to be the baby. "She's always the baby," Lauren informed me, as an aside, and off they went.
 
Awhile later, from that corner of the room, I heard Lauren's voice cry out, "Oh my goodness, I just had another baby! Now I have three babies!" Apparently someone else had joined the original three and roles had shifted, with Lauren back in her favorite role, that of the mother.
 
Nearby in the block area, which was clear of buildings on this particular day, two girls, Danica and Bella, were using the carpeted area to play a math game. Suddenly two of the "babies" came crawling out of the pretending area and into the block area. The game players registered their protest at being interrupted and Lauren quickly retrieved her escaped charges, admonishing them, "The neighbors don't like noisy babies."
 
It wasn't long before Lauren could be heard commenting from the pretending area to whomever would listen, "Three babies is a lot of work. I'm going to need some help!" (Seriously, what mother has not said the same thing at some point?!) Danica overheard this and stood up from her game. "I could be the babysitter," she offered.
 
The next thing I realized, the previously escaped babies, the "mother," Lauren, and Teresa, who seemed to have now become a baby, were in the block area again. Danica and Bella looked on. Lauren was complaining that the two babies, Wisdom and her friend, Janice, had taken the baby, Teresa's, bed. A couple of pieces of cloth from the pretending area were spread on the floor in the block area. Janice and Wisdom huddled against the block shelves next to the cloth "beds." Teresa self-righteously explained, "They are the naughty babies. I'm the good baby."
 
They seemed to be appealing for help so I asked, "So what do you do with naughty babies?"
"I put them in time out," replied Lauren.
"Yeah," added Teresa, "That's why Janice is crying." It appeared that it was not pretend crying, however.
 
Moved by her classmate's distress, Bella crossed the block area and began rubbing Janice's back. Janice continued to cry, perhaps enjoying the attention that came with it. Lauren and Teresa returned to the pretending area.
 
"Are you worried about her, Bella?" I asked. "She's crying because she's pretending. She got put in time out. Have you ever been put in time out by your mom and started to cry?" Bella could identify with this. "She's going to be ok. You don't need to worry about her." Bella left Janice who continued pretending she was in time out with her real tears.
 
What happened next I could not have predicted. At this moment, Danica, the "babysitter," sprang into action. "Oh, what's wrong, babies? Do you need a hug?" Janice immediately nodded and they embraced. "It's okay," Danica comforted, patting Janice's back.
 
Then, no longer crying, Janice sat back down beside Wisdom. "So what would you two like to do? the "babysitter" asked. "What would you like to play?" I couldn't hear their response but they gathered up the "stolen" bed cloths and returned to the pretending area, seemingly reconciled. They continued to play until it was time to clean up.
 
Recently, I have been trying to give children the space to navigate their own struggles. I've been thinking a lot about how children spend almost all of their time "supervised" by adults, and understandably, we are not comfortable watching their conflicts and hurts. But on the other hand, how will they learn to navigate life if they don't figure this stuff out? So, I'm trying to observe, trust, and not step in as quickly. And when I do, mostly ask questions.
 
One of my favorite quotes is from Marie Clay, "The one doing the work is the one doing the learning."  She was referencing learning to read, but I've come to believe it applies to all learning, no matter the subject, no matter the age. In the past, I probably would have intervened. I might have suggested that it wasn't fair for Lauren to be the mom and everyone else be the babies. Or I might have told Wisdom and Janice that they weren't allowed to be naughty babies and if they wanted to play there they would need to change. But I would have been doing the work of resolving the conflict. I would have robbed them of the opportunity to learn to empathize, to ask for help, to see what happens when you are "naughty" (in low risk ways), and to emulate caring people they have known, things that are much more important to me than easing my discomfort.
 
And equally as important, I would not have learned that children are capable of much more than we sometimes believe. You have to make the space and give them the chance.
 
 

 

As I write this, we are officially two days into the new school year. I've been at this for over 30 years, most of it in kindergarten. I love the work and it's so challenging. Always has been, always will be. I once heard that the only profession that requires more decisions than teaching, is being an air traffic controller. It's true. How many decisions do you think a teacher makes in an hour, a day, a year? I mean, when my little ones come on that first day, they are ready, willing, and able, but they don't know much about how school, this school, or this classroom work and what's their role in it.
 
That's where I come in. I've thought a LOT (over these last 30 years) and have made thousands of decisions about what I want them to do, how I want them to do it, and how I hope they will grow. One, and just one of many dilemmas, is what kind of paper to give them for the start of writer's workshop--blank, loose sheets, single sheets with a box and lines, or pages already stapled into a writer's journal? In fact, a colleague and I had this conversation again this year. I've tried them all. In the end, I said, "Let's do plain white, individual sheets." Inwardly, I trusted something, but I'm not sure I could have articulated the reason.
 
Then it happened. On the first day of writer's workshop, as I enthusiastically introduced the children to their power to put onto paper all the stories of their lives, one eager author raised her hand. "Can we make real books? Can we fold the paper in half so it's a real book?" A smile started in my heart and spread up and out across my face. "Yes. Yes, you can. You can make a real book."
 
And that's it. Plain, white paper works for a reason. It's a choice that creates the flexibility and freedom to empower children and not hold them back. I had my answer. Later there would be other paper choices—paper with lines, pre-stapled booklets—meeting other children's needs and encouraging everyone forward. But for now, I recognized and reaffirmed something I learned early in my teaching which is the value of open-ended materials. Ahhh, one less decision to make going forward.   

     "Did you grab a mat for the kids to eat lunch on?"
     "How are we going to carry the lunch boxes?"
     "Do we have all the iPads?"
     "Are the kids going to ride in kindergarten and first grade pairs on the bus?"
     "Has everyone gone to the bathroom?"
     On a field trip day, despite all the planning and preparation, getting 4 teachers and our 48 kindergarten and first grade students out the door, and headed toward the bus requires considerable effort. Finally, we are underway.
     Moments later, as we get to the front of the school, we see… NO BUS! Panic sets in. We turn to each other.
     "Did you turn in the requisition?"
     "Yes. Did it not get passed on?"
     "Well, did we get a confirmation?"
     "I don't know. Check in the office."
     "What do we do with the kids while we wait?"
     "Let's take them to the playground. They can run around while we sort this out."
     We head off toward the playground with all the littles in a crowd behind us. They are eager to do something beside stand around and wait. "Oh no!" my co-teacher at the front of the pack cries out. "The groundskeepers have just turned on the sprinklers!" We turn the group around and we edge back the way we came.
     At that moment, word comes that the charter bus company has been called and they are sending a bus our way. It should arrive in 10 minutes. We calculate when we will arrive at the Aquarium and decide to have the children eat their lunches here, rather than in the park outside the Aquarium as planned. We sit them down and pass out the lunches. Three bites later, the charter bus pulls up. "How in the world, did he get here so fast?"
     "Oh well, never mind. Let's just get to the Aquarium."
     "Close up your lunches, everybody. Hang on to them, but do not eat on the bus!"
     Gratefully we file the kids onto the bus. Arranged like eggs in a carton, four dozen, two by two, in rows, front to back, we are on our way. "The parents will be wondering what has happened to us. I bet they are all standing around in a group in front of the Aquarium. I'll call one who can pass the message on that we ARE coming."
     "Hi, just letting you know that there was mix-up with the bus, but we are now on our way. We should be there soon."
     "Oh, okay. Well, there's been an accident at the corner of Kapahulu and Ala Wai Blvd. and the police are diverting traffic. We all assumed you got caught up in that. If you're not there yet, you should go a different way!"
     I head up the aisle to the driver and inform him of the situation. With a groan, and a "Good to know," he makes a quick right turn and takes an alternate route. I settle back in with my colleagues as we huddle to adjust timing and responsibilities.
     "Ahh, I see the ocean. We are almost there!" As we make the final approach, we look out the bus window to the section of the park where we had planned to have our picnic.
     "You've got to be kidding me!" one of my partners exclaims. "They're trimming the trees!" We note that the grass is full of heavy equipment.
     "Oh, well. I guess we'll just have to eat on the other side of the Aquarium."
     Suddenly she bursts into laughter. We all burst into laughter. "Can you believe this? We should write a story about today. And we can call it, 'Can we just get to the Aquarium, please?' "
 

A blog I read encourages people to choose One Little Word at the start of each new year. It replaces resolutions and it's something you can hold onto for the year. I like that. Previously, I have chosen "Enough" and "Ready." This year my word will be ACCEPT.
 
The dictionary gives six definitions. My intention is the first: "to receive willingly." The key here is willingly. Such as "I will accept this gift."
 
I will accept the children that I teach, just as they are, in all their diversity. I will help them to grow, but I will not try to make them different than who they are. I will accept my colleagues and recognize that we are going to be different and disagree about some things, and I will receive those differences willingly. The same is true in my family.
 
This year I want to remind myself of the line from the prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr, "O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed." There are always events and situations, such as changes in administration, traffic jams, people not doing what I expected, and weather, that I also want to accept. It's all a part of life.
 
But probably the one who I need to accept the most is myself. I'm not a project that needs to be worked on. I don't need to be "fixed." This year I hope to remind myself over and over to accept the wild, beautiful, irritating, capable, critical, controlling, creative mix that makes me, me. It's not that I can't be changed. It's that I don't need to be. I can grow, I will grow, but it will no longer be driven by my need to become more "acceptable."

In early August, the office sends me the first glimpse of who my next group of kindergartners will be. It's a computer-generated list. It's orderly, neatly typed, and purely black and white. Definitely not like the children themselves. As I prepare for the new school year, I look toward the time when their smiles will fill the doorway and I'll have real faces and real children to match these names.
 
Finally, the day comes and they enter the classroom. There is the one who stands quietly on the edge and watches. There is the one who speaks continuously. With him I know everything he thinks at the moment he thinks it. There is the one who asks if she can pretend to be a fairy godmother. There is the one who can't quite figure out which direction to turn in order to get where he wants to go in the classroom. There is the one who goes to the drawing-and-making center and cuts a heart out of paper. She hangs the edge with the heart-shaped hole on the wall to decorate our room, and hands the heart-shaped piece to me shyly, like a secret admirer. There is the one who tells me at least seven times throughout the day that she will be going to after-school care, as much to reassure herself as to inform me.
 
That night, after the children have gone, I decide that I want to capture this beginning time. I want to honor each unique person and I want to bring us all together in one grand act that will represent the unity and the diversity simultaneously. So on the morning of the second day, I ask the children to tell me a color that they really, really like. "Red," is the first response. It is followed by "golden." Hands wave in the air like palm branches as I call on them and record their replies…purple, pink, hot pink, light blue, green, dark green, light green, lavender, light orange like peach, black, white, dark orange, turquoise, yellow, and brown.
 
Later while the children are outside playing, I place one large, long, brown sheet of butcher paper over the lanai tables. I fill little cups with paint. Some colors are straight out of the bottle; others are surprise packages of two or three colors waiting to be mixed. I grab a large handful of brushes from the shelf—thick, thin, medium widths. When the children return, they are invited to surround the tables. I remind them that they know what lines are. We talk of ridgelines, and curving lines, bouncy lines, and zig-zag lines, thick lines, and thin lines, and then they each get a color and a brush. One by one they add their line to the mural. "Can I paint on someone else's line?" one child asks. I refer the question to the group and the decision is no. So they figure out how to "jump" over another line if it's in the way. In the end, they have all added their mark.
 
The school day ends. The children are gone. The paint dries and I smile at what they have created. I drag it inside and, with some help, adhere it to the classroom wall. Stepping back I savor it. This represents the little people I am beginning to know. They are vibrant pink, adventurous orange, steady black, and calm light blue. They are bouncy, stiffly straight, thick, and very thin, so thin that you have to look hard to even notice. It's this variety all together that makes the painting beautiful.
 
I sigh. It's a deep exhale. I'm glad it's on the wall for those days that I know will come when someone will be just a little too "bright orange" or another painfully "thin." I want to remember to look up and say, "That orderly, black and white list has been replaced. And that's the beauty of it all."

The Live Poets Club had its final meeting. With the start of the school year on the horizon for several of us, we no longer had the time to meet twice a week. And our gentle, quiet leader admitted that he was ready to let go of the responsibility. It had taken lots of mental and emotional energy. On the last day feelings were warm and no one could quite explain how the magical combination of writing, listening, and commenting had brought about the growth in all of us that it did. With gratitude to my fellow poets, I've selected to post, the two poems that I am most pleased with.

                                                      Words as Lens
 
The poet is like a photographer,
Who captures a moment:
Backlit grasses, geese in flight,
Ruins of war, hollow black-and-white eyes,
Hands about to touch, old man on a park bench.
The poet takes existence and suspends it,
Focusing our attention on that which was
Unseen.