Two and Three Year Olds Rock

We are still waiting for our roof to be fixed. Grumble, grumble. But they’ve promised to be at our house at 7am tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, I’m counting my blessings. One of them is teaching Sunday school to two and three year olds. Here’s why they are the best age group.

1. Love. Sometimes a little one will come up to me and bump my leg, when I kneel down, they will give me a heartfelt hug.

2. Honesty. When they are upset at me, they will tell me. Or stick out their tongue. That’s okay because sometimes I want to stick out my tongue at them too. And the rest of the time…hugs.

3. Information. I always know when someone is pregnant—“My mommy gets sick a lot.” Or even better, “The combination of our safe is **,*,**, and there’s money in it.”

4. Absolute joy. “Miss Connie, I go pee-pee on the potty!!”

5. Great press. They think I’m wonderful. Older siblings will say with a sad face, “You were never my teacher.” Parents say, “My child was angry at me this week and said that he was going to go live with Miss Connie.” What can I say…they really love me…or maybe it’s the cool Winnie the Pooh cookies I give them. Hmm.

Queen of the Universe

I have a special role on the earth. Every Sunday I teach two and three year olds. I have 12 students (most of whom are two) and two sainted helpers, Miss Ariel who is the preventer of the crayon pounding and table kicking and Miss Leah whose extraordinary reflexes snag the little deserters before they make it out the door. And while teaching two and three year olds is a bit like herding cats, I love it. Although I must admit that I have been privileged to teach very articulate two and three year olds. (BTW, if you are the parent of a child in my class, don’t worry. Names are withheld to protect the guilty.)

One reason is that it is hilarious. Me to child: “Honey, why are you coloring Adam red and orange?” Child: “Because Adam is on fire for Eve.” Miss Ariel, Miss Leah, and I burst out laughing, and I tell the child, “Great idea.” Another time, one of my little girls asked to try on my heeled sandals, so I let her. Afterwards, I said, “I need my shoes back.” A tear streamed down her cheek. “I know and that makes me sad.”

Besides the fun, I love that my students are completely honest. Me to a child, “You need to sit in your seat.” Child, “What if I tell you no?” Me: “And what if I tell you that I’ll go get your Daddy.” Child considers the situation. “I think I’ll sit in my seat.” Me, “That would be wise.” Or, Me: “You may not color on the table, do you understand?” Child, “No, I don’t understand.” Me, “I think you do.” Child scowls and stops coloring on the table.

After a few skirmishes where we determine that I’m in charge of the class and they are not, they are exuberant with their love. Their faces smile at me, and it feels like I’m looking at the sun—and that’s not just when I’m passing out Winnie the Pooh cookies. In fact, I become the Queen of the Universe, their first teacher. Their first step into “being big.” In fact, one parent told me that when his son is unhappy with them he says, “I’m telling my Sunday school teacher on you.”

Yep, I love being Queen of the Universe.

Those Poor Egyptians

I’ve mentioned before that I teach Sunday school for two and three year olds. I’ve been doing it on and off for over 20 years. Most people don’t volunteer to teach these little ones, which is fine with me because I love them.

They are a delight. Once they get passed being afraid (which isn’t bad because they ask to sit on my lap and they snuggle—I miss when my own kids were snuggle bunnies), they are completely honest.

For example, (disclaimer—this one is from many years ago) I asked a little boy to sit in his chair. With sparkling eyes, he said, “Mrs. Keller, what if I say ‘no?’” I said, “Oh, sweetheart, if you say, ‘no,’ then I will have to tell your daddy.” He pondered that for half a second and then sat in his chair.

Then there are the three year olds who try to “shock” me. Of course, what shocks a three year old is not what shocks an adult. One of my favorites is when I pass out animals crackers.

3 year old: “Mrs. Keller, I hate cookies.”

Me: Oh, that’s too bad. Well, you don’t have to have any if you don’t want them.

3 year old, looking terribly indecisive, says nothing. At which point, I surreptitiously slid the child two animal crackers.

And there are the three year old misunderstandings of the world.

Me: There was going to be a famine in Egypt and the people would have nothing to eat.

3 year old: In Egypt they eat only skeletons

Me, trying to figure this out: What?

3 y.o.: They don’t have food. They eat bones.

Me, light coming on: Are you talking about mummies?

3 y.o nods, looking quite pleased with himself

Me: Mummifying is what they did with dead bodies. They didn’t eat them.

3yo, looking disappointed but resigned: Oh.

And, of course, I always have shoe/purse/jewelry bonding. No matter how shy, every two or three year old girl is eager to show you her shoes/purse/jewelry and discuss its merits. And I admit that I’ve worn certain earrings/necklaces/shoes because I knew that “my girls” would love it.

Shoe Love

I admit that I love shoes. Ariel loves shoes. I’m pretty sure that most women love shoes. Even little girls loves shoes—I wonder if it’s an X-linked trait. Yesterday I was leading Sunday school singing and one of my three year olds (I teach two and three year olds) raised her hand. I thought she was picking a song so I called on her. Instead she said, “Mrs. Keller, can I try on your shoes?” I said, “As soon as we get to class.”

When we got to class I took off my strappy black high-heeled sandals. She tried them on and looked at them. “Hmm,” she said, “They’re a little big.” Shoe love starts early.

NEH Class

I am an art history teacher, at least I was this week. In case you don’t remember, back on April 1 I blogged that I’d gotten a very cool grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to teach American Art History. This was the week I taught my class.

Being that I’m a writer by trade and a fiction writer by avocation, I took a storyteller’s approach. Each painting/sculpture/photo/architectural landmark has a story. Part of it is the artist, part of it is how art works, and part of it what the artwork says. Of course, I’m going to mix my metaphors, but…a work of art is a kind of riddle, in our study we find the answer, and that’s where all the fun resides.

The Artists
Some moved our souls with their understanding of transcendence. Some showed us things in a new way. And some made us laugh at human frailty—they said one thing with their mouth and did the complete opposite in their work.

How the Art Works
We learned that “when confronted with a bit of art”* and questioned about it by a teacher, who constantly gives the wrong dates for when the works were completed because she reverses numbers, there are five safe answers: triangular/pyramidal, visual rhyme, halo, and Paris. (Actually, I argued that “halo” was not a great answer and that “contrast” was a better answer, but they didn’t buy it. And Paris has more to do with the artist or his school, but it was one of their favorite answers.) And, lest you think we had too much fun, we spent a lot of time looking beyond the surface aesthetics, to understand why it pleased our eyes.

What the Artwork Says
Some said “The Glory belongs to the Lord,” others said “The Glory belongs to me,” and there were a few that said “Dude, you did way too much partying last night because you can’t be serious.”

In conclusion, I want to thank my students who ranged in age from 9 to 70+ for their attention and eagerness. And thanks to the parents who told me, “I can’t believe my teenagers love art history—who’d have thunk it.” You all made the hours of preparation worth it!! And thanks to the NEH without whose support this would never have happened.

*Thanks to PG Woodhouse who gave me this phrase and taught me/us that the thing to say “when confronted with a bit of art” is “it has a nice patina.” Hey, “patina” should have been one of our five answers!

Here’s a picture of me with a reproduction of a painting by Thomas Hart Benton titled, The Sources of Country Music.

Bribery 101

I remember talking to someone, actually several people, about teaching, and I mentioned the word bribery. You would think that I spoke the name of he-who-must-not-be-named. Frowns and looks of malediction all came my way. Apparently, we don’t bribe kids. Bribery is bad. Rewards are good. Okay, I am a word person, so I get the distinction. Bribery has connotations of corruption and wickedness while reward is a positive “Johnny did a good job” type of thing. Though, according to Webster’s, a bribe is simply “something that serves to induce or influence.” So, I’m not sure the difference is as great as people think. For example, I hate ironing. I mean, I abhor it with a consuming passion. But I like neat, pressed clothing. So, I iron. But I bribe myself first. While I iron, I stream a detective show like Inspector Alleyn on my computer. Since we don’t have cable and we’re on the back of a mountain ridge, we don’t pick up any local programming so video stimulation is a treat. Thus, getting to watch a TV show during the day is almost naughty. It’s my treat for doing something I despise. I think of it as a bribe.

I bribe my kids all the time—hey, no piano practicing, no computer time. Is that a reward, or a bribe? How about let’s get the dishes done and we can play “Bang,” which is the coolest card game around and unfortunately no longer available in the US due to licensing issues. I think those are all bribes of a sort. So, the next time you see me in dark sunglasses with a hat pulled low over my face, it’s probably ironing time and I’m bribing myself with a Campion.

Here's a picture just before I bribe myself.

NEH Grant!

I won a National Endowment for the Humanities grant! Really—it’s not an April Fool’s joke. I wish I could say that I won it for my writing. But I didn’t. Instead, it’s for teaching. I applied for a Picturing America grant. It’s an attempt by the NEH to encourage students to understand American art history and its implications to American history, sociology, culture, etc. The most awesome thing is that I received dozens of 4 foot by 2 foot museum quality laminated reproductions of American art. And it comes with a teacher’s manual detailing the history of the artist and his/her interactions with the culture. I hope to teach the class this summer. Can you tell I’m excited?!

Here's another photo.