Wee Wisdom: I Am

As part of the last-week-of-school festivities, my daughter Ella and her fourth-grade classmates held an Authors Tea to showcase their writing from the school year. Each student compiled an autobiographical information card and a book containing poems, stories, letters, biographies and various other assignments, all designed to help them learn the art of the written word. Along with many other parents, I was lucky enough to attend.

While I was obviously proud of Ella’s work, I was overcome by the creations of the class as a whole. One specific exercise affected me more than the others: a poem called “I Am.”

In “I Am,” the students had to fill in the blanks after lines like, “I wonder,” “I worry” and “I dream,” and they were given loose guidelines to get started. Some made me laugh. At others, I fought back tears.

With Ella’s permission, here are a few that reinforced my already firm feelings that kids are smarter and more intuitive than we can ever know:

“I hear … my family laughing.”

“I cry … when animals die.”

“I am … smart and kind.” This one was repeated all four instances “I am” came up.

“I understand … you don’t live forever.”

“I dream … I have a dog.”

I learned some things from reading Ella’s entries. First, it’s obvious Ella still pines for our dog Scooby Doo, who passed away in March. It also buoyed my spirit to know that of all the things Ella hears in our house, laughter is the one she thought fit to write down. And she clearly is aware of her most salient attributes.

Having perused most of the presentations, I know Ella wasn’t alone in her assertions of self-confidence. For that, I’m immeasurably grateful. Self-esteem is, after all, crucial to healthy development. And while the writing itself wasn’t always flawless, the Authors Tea’s enduring image for me has more to do with hope than sentence structure.

Elaine Rankin’s fourth-grade authors at Kruse Elementary demonstrated that a group of 10-year-olds should never be taken for granted. As with every class in every grade in every school, these kids spanned a wide spectrum of socioeconomic backgrounds, academic achievement levels and behavioral tendencies. Still, each one bared his or her young soul for all to see and took pride in what mattered to them. When they were encouraged to express their creativity, they obliged. That kind of symbiosis may be all we can really hope for when raising our children.

The ability to compose a sentence will inevitably serve our youths well in the future. But the true benefits of creativity stretch beyond words. People need only opportunities to be heard, supported and challenged in order to discover their own greatness. This goes double for children, and it starts at a young age.

“I tried to let them make it as authentic as possible,” Rankin told me afterward. “It was hard.” No doubt. Ten-year-olds can be uncomfortably honest. And that’s precisely the point of pursuing creativity.

I hope more schools will do this.

I am so very fortunate.

Ella's Authors Tea Book