School reflections: grade 5 Easter season: a memory

Self-tutoring about peers and points of view: the tutor goes way back to relate a story.

For me, grade 5 was great. I went to a big new school – 700 students – and my subjects were easy. The school had amenities – for instance, a great cafeteria where I ate lunch. More subtly, though, it offered another advantage: with so many kids, there was lots of action, and lots of different points of view. The hallways were full of bulletin boards showing posters from dozens of classes. To “subscribe”, you had only to walk down the hall.

My own class had 25 or more kids. As usual, I was “new” there: I didn’t know anyone in the class from before. We sat in rows like you’d imagine. Interestingly, I recall who sat behind me that year, but not who sat in front.

One desk back to my left was a girl whose name I can’t remember. Yet, in total, I might have talked to her the most. For this post, I will call her Chris, which likely isn’t her name.

Looking back, we had a relationship that an adult might find intriguing. We weren’t friends. Although she didn’t tell me anything about herself directly, I could tell she was from a large family, likely a farmer. She would mention looking after siblings or even cousins, going to family dinners, etc.

She (Chris) did most of the talking. I had almost nothing to share about my home life. Her life, on the other hand, centered on her family, and she would share about it spontaneously. I think discussing her plans with me helped her refine them.

Although all our talks were in the classroom, Chris never talked about school. She seemed to do all right in it, but was only present because she was expected to be – unlike me, she would have had much else to focus on, if she weren’t there.

I don’t know why we spent so much time alone talking in that classroom. I think it must have been that we both were slow leaving for lunch. As well, in the morning, we could arrive early. It couldn’t have been after school that we talked, since she definitely would have taken the bus (whereas I walked to school). However they happened, our talks were never planned.

Chris always shared her thoughts as if I knew about her life already (which of course I soon did); she never greeted me or introduced her topic. Seemingly, our dialogue just continued, similar to an online bulletin board (which of course I couldn’t imagine then). Usually she was occupied with an upcoming family occasion.

For Easter that year, in class, we made cards: The teacher provided each of us a photocopied template which we were to decorate. My parents never cared about what I did in school, and the card wasn’t for marks, so I forgot about it – and Easter – by the following Tuesday. Not Chris, however. I recall walking into the classroom a week and a half later to find her, alone as usual, with an unused copy of the Easter card template.

Outside the weather was glorious: you could hear kids exclaiming from the playground. Yet inside the classroom, alone, was Chris, with an Easter card template a week and a half past the date. Chris was, first and foremost, practical; therefore, the situation seemed absurd.

I think, breaking our rules of engagement, I began our conversation: “What are you doing with that?” I asked.

“I’m making it into a Mother’s Day card,” she replied seriously. I could see, on a different piece of paper, she was writing, very carefully, “Mother’s Day.”

As I watched, she carefully cut a rectangle around the words “Mother’s Day”, then removed it from that piece of paper. Next she grabbed glue from the desk she was sitting at (not hers, interestingly), dabbed a tiny bit on the back of the cut-out, and stuck it over the word “Easter” on the template. She recapped the glue and put it back as she assessed the adapted card.

I’m going to follow up about this story. Happy Easter:)