What I Learned in Kindergarten

The other day I was thinking of a funny kid story of mine from kindergarten. Hubby and I had been watching America's Funniest Videos when one of the clips prompted the memory. Just the whole idea of laughing at someone's expense.

Why do we get so much glee from the sweetly ignorant things little kids say and do? They never seem to run out of ways to entertain adults with their quirky antics. (Unless, of course, the antic falls into the "naughty" category. But even then it tends to attain a few laughs after the fact. Or, at least, after the mess is all cleaned up.)

If there ever lived an ignorant child, I was her. I always seemed to ask questions none of my other peers had, which often made me feel foolish and dense. Nevertheless, my lack of common knowledge as a child certainly must have afforded my family and teachers many a chuckle in my expense.

Now that I am an aunt, however, I realize a lot of it is provoked, because Jeromy and I frequently provoke our 4-year-old ultra-gullible nephew, Isaac, for a few laughs! Poor kid, he has no idea!

It was Springtime in Minnesota. Spring is always a big deal in the barren tundra land that is my home state. The buds are popping. The air is warming up so that you can safely put away your winter coat in favor of the glorious windbreaker. (Well, almost safely. I have experienced many a late-April blizzard in my day.) The birds are returning with bleached feathers and Southern accents, the lakes are crowded with runners and rollerbladers sweating out their Spring Fever on the paths, and the school year is quickly vanishing along with the last traces of dirty snow.

During the long-awaited Spring Thaw, Minnesotans are ever in a collectively unshakable good mood, even on Mondays.

If you cannot tell, I have been reading Garrison Keillor. Forgive me. :)

This such Spring of 1987 was much like any other. Except that the Twins would actually play an amazing season that year, but that's irrelevant to this story. Ha!

As Spring is given to the theme of "new life", our teacher decided to teach us about the life cycle of the butterfly. We learned about how a butterfly begins as an unsightly caterpillar, then perches on a leaf and hides in a cocoon until he develops wings and breaks out and flies away. What a perfect Spring unit for kindergarten!

For an object lesson, Mrs. Provart had us each craft our own little cocoons to display around the classroom, using what resembled (and probably was) homemade play dough. We were excited! First, we threw on our jackets and headed outdoors to find a twig, on which to attach our makeshift cocoons. Getting to go outside during non-recess time was always the best treat!

I have to say, I probably would never have remembered this project at all, since I was only 6 years old, if not for the incident that ensued.

I don't know if I thought I would recognize a twig when I saw one, but I looked and looked all over the school yard and found not one little twig. All my classmates didn't seem to have the same problem as I, snatching up their finding from the ground and promptly running back to get in line at the door. I was too busy looking for my own twig that I never bothered to look at what the other kids were picking up.

Finally, every last student had found a twig and was lined up to go back inside. Except for me. My child mind simply did not know what a "twig" was. A slight desperation came over me. My teacher noticed me, head down, nervously pacing under the big tree in the yard and came over to see what the trouble was.

"Did you find a twig? We need to go back into the classroom now."

I felt like crying, I was so embarrassed. I didn't know why I couldn't figure this out but that all the other kids could. Not wanting to admit my uncertainty, I exclaimed, "I can't find a twig!"

Mrs. Provart furrowed her brow. Of course, there were twigs everywhere underfoot, but I didn't know it. I have no idea what she was thinking when I told her I couldn't find one, but she bent down to pick up the first twig lying in front of her, handed it to me, and said, "Ok, let's go - it's chilly out here!"

Was I ever dumbfounded, holding what was, apparently, a twig, in front of my face. I clearly remember thinking, 'Why didn't she just say she wanted us to find a stick?'

After getting inside I noticed that my twig was smaller than everyone else's. It also was broken, barely holding together in the middle. But it was too late to go back out to find a different one. If only I had known, I could have found the best twig for my cocoon!

This was probably one of the first times in my life I recall feeling ridiculous and being resentful about it. 'How come I didn't know a small stick was a twig? Why didn't anyone ever tell me? Why didn't Mrs. Provart show us what a twig was before making us find one by ourselves?' Though apparently, I was the only one in my class in the dark. How silly! I remember feeling bothered at the thought.

That day I learned what a twig is. I also discovered that there was much to know in this big, wide world, and that the learning might not always come easily or naturally. I learned that sometimes you will even feel foolish in the process, but that those are the lessons you never forget.