What the Children Know

The squirrelly boy in Art class argues with the teacher, order maker, that his loud talking and laughing with the boys behind him is the most important part of school - socializing. He tells her he is practicing "relating to my peers". She observes him closely, slight and maybe 13. He has his spiel down, that she must allow.
" So, what will you do after school is done? What will your work be in life?' She asks, as she asks many cheeky kids who see no reason to follow the lesson of the day, to focus on the work, to listen.

" I plan to be a minister with the Assembly of God Church. I will bring the message of Jesus to people, and help them be saved."

The teacher is somewhat speechless. Memory flash, the little church across the road from their house next to the Rez, with black letters against white, "Assembly of God". A modest white building in the middle of the farm fields, with a pastor's house next to it. Her son once caught head lice from staying over night with the Pastor's boys. It was a small nightmare to rid the whole family of it once they realized they had lice. 

She cannot help herself, pursuing the boy's line of thought.
"Well, it is interesting that Jesus didn't own anything, he went about in sandals, almost like a homeless person now. People in churches seem to have lots of money, which isn't the way Jesus actually lived." 
The kid is not phased.
"Well if I had lots of money I would buy a whole bunch of Bibles so I could give poor people a Bible."
"What", she asks carefully, "If the people you want to help are hungry?"
With a surprising amount of bluster from a slightly built 13 year old kid he answers without missing a beat.
"They need to be saved more than eat."
"Have you ever been hungry?"
"Yes."
"I mean really hungry, with nothing in the cupboards. No money to go to the store."
Honest for the first time he answers, "No. But they will be happy if they have a Bible because it is  the word of God, and they'll forget about being hungry." He is deadpan serious.

The teacher is rendered speechless. There is no conversation here. This boy will go about being this, and god help us if he does become a minister. The teacher can only think this of course. Teachers have to be very, very circumspect about what they say. It is the challenge to appear not to have an opinion.

Later in the day the last class is making coil clay pots. She sits with the students at the ceramics table, fashioning a small vase as the others work, and chat. This is a calm class, they are absorbed in creating from the elements. As the boys talk, the girls remain silent and the teacher listens as she works on making her own vase. This vase has curves, curves like a woman she realizes. Most of the students coil pots are straight up and down, awkward lines.

The girl across the table finally looks at her and asks, after half an hour without speaking, "How did you get your pot to curve like that?"

The teacher is ecstatic, that she has taught, in silence and in modeling. She makes an example for the girl of how the coils can be graduated or reduced in their circle. The girl watches carefully, and then  tries to make a curve in her own vase.

The school day ends with all the pots on the drying shelf, and the students off onto their yellow buses. The building is a different place, suddenly calm and tranquil. The teacher cleans the room in this quiet atmosphere, taking the opportunity to converse in Spanish with the janitor when he arrives to empty waste baskets and sweep.

 The sky opens on the way home, across the fields of the Willamette Valley where thousands of the Mexican peoples have come to work. The day of school is over now. One child off to propagate his dogma, another to think about the curves of life, of women and mothers. The teacher is overcome with the rolling hills of verdant earth which feeds each and everyone.