Of Jacob and Daniel

I remember the first day I entered the kindergarten classroom for my brief stint of student teaching and surveyed the twenty-two squirming bodies in September. Most of them wereMe and Daniel seated, though not necessarily in chairs. My face must have mirrored my internal feelings of churning confusion and fear, because the alarmingly pregnant teacher laughingly remarked, “You’ll get used to it.”

As I continued to look around the room, I found her statement hard to believe. One little boy was shoe-less, and seeking refuge under a table with his hands covering his ears. I later learned that he does this when he is too agitated. Those are the times we leave him alone. When Jacob feels calmer, he rejoins his friends. (And I cannot help but now fondly remember the number of times that I have bodily carried him because he would plant himself quite solidly in one place and would refuse to move – he was a stubborn one).

I grew very attached to another boy right away. He was seated in the back of the classroom because he was a “troublemaker” and could not focus on the task at hand. Daniel could barely form the letters, and misspelled his name quite often.

One of the first things he said to me – other than asking if I liked Spiderman and Transformers (to which I responded affirmatively) – was that I looked a lot like him. I said, yes, we both have the same color of skin. He did not pursue the conversation, but as the semester wore on, I could not help notice that he never asked for help from the actual teacher (who, incidentally, is white). He preferred asking me.

He drew me the picture above, and gave it to me on my last day. He said that we were brother and sister, and asked me to not forget him.

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Published:
8 December 2007 / 3:41 pm
Category:
School
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