"I Want to Be an Author."

That tiny little person is me. Off to pre-kindgarten to learn the essentials of reading, writing, listening and speaking (literacy) among many, many other things.

Fast forward to my classroom last friday. Students were reviewing the sight word word "play." One child who struggles endlessly with retention and memory not only identified the letters in the word but very simply said, "This says play." I was astonished. When the little redhead, electric blue-eyed boy whispered to me, "Mrs. Beaumont, when I grow up I really want to be an author, " I had to catch my breath.

As I was zipping up coats for recess asked my Russian Speaking student (entered my class speaking absolutely no English in August), "Do you have another jacket to wear?" 
He said, "Yes." 
I responded, "Go put it on, please." 
And he said, beaming from ear to ear, "No, it's not cold for me." 
I could have fainted. I could have ran down the halls celebrating for days. But rather, we smiled at each other and he went on his way to find his friends my the slide. 

"No, it's not cold for me." For heavens sake. The child first had to understand what a jacket was, that I was asking him a question, that I was talking about a jacket that belonged to him and then reason as to why he didn't need his jacket and finally verbalize his thoughts into English. Imagine an adult in the same scenario trying to express his thoughts in Russian! Meanwhile, the next child beams up at me and exclaims, "I am so excited...to go to college! When I go to college I am going to make things."

The students. The respect I have for my little ones is overarching. Yes, I work tirelessly as their teacher. But I can really only facilitate their learning. I cannot make them learn anything.  These five and six year olds are not only learning their letters. But they are learning how to read, write, express themselves...They have this incredible desire to continue to learn something that is in all reality extremely difficult.
 Literacy is a skill that as adults we depend on and expect to serve them automatically throughout their life. And here we are expecting that this little person who just barely left his mother will come to school and find meaning from the symbols he is seeing and writing on his paper. It is absolutely incredible! 
Pause today as you read a sign, a newspaper, anything and recognize how much your brain had to comprehend before you could read. Congratulate yourself. So much of the English language does not make sense-but your brain automatically does it because of the learning you began in Kindergarten. I feel like adults should literally give a handshake to each little person they come across and say, "Congratulations! You are embarking on perhaps the most difficult and essential journey you will ever experience in your life." 

We have been created in a way that we desire personal growth. Our brains crave new information and store away essentials. It is so interesting to me that the most patient, kind, forgiving, resilient people on the planet (kindergartners) are given the task of learning how to read. I'm so thankful to work alongside such hard working (little) people.