i love spending time with children and i love listening to them express their opinions on different topics. i love how they ask the most absurd and the most profound questions in literally the same breath, like “what would you do if i was a snail?” and “what happens to us all after we die?”
i love how they can talk so passionately about something as inane as porridge, and then ask questions about God or metaphysics or the length of infinity. i love how children develop habits and likes and dislikes from the moment they’re born, and how you can start to see what kind of characters they’ll be when they eventually grow up. i love how they find it difficult to conceptualise time and the passing of years. i love how the 7 year old i teach thinks i’m 44, whilst the 11 year old i teach thinks that i’m 16. and i love how both of them can’t seem to rationalise the fact that i’m actually 23.
i love when they start searching for a new word they don’t know, “the wetness on grass”, “the opposite of wide”, “half rain and half snow”. dew, narrow, hail. i love how when i say the words, they repeat after me and a whole new neural pathway is born. i love asking them questions and allowing them to consider why they hold the opinions they hold. why do you think this country is better than the other? why does this song make you feel sad, and another make you feel joy? why do you think you can’t achieve this, why do you think you won’t be able to finish, why are you scared to try this out?
i love how children absorb everything they come into contact with, but i hate that they absorb the toxicity of those who they look to for guidance. i hate that being told once that you’re not a fast enough reader, can put a child off reading books for pleasure for the rest of their life. i hate seeing the self esteem of children crack under careless adults, who should know better, and who should want better for the children in their care.
i love taking the time to talk about those things with the children i get to spend time with. i love finding those cracks and pouring confidence into them. i love showing children that they can pour confidence into themselves too. i love showing them that love doesn’t have to come from outside.
i love watching them try to comprehend new information. i love seeing that moment of clarity as it sparks in their eyes, when something finally clicks. i love that even after that moment goes, they can recall it. they can remember: i once understood this, i have the capacity to understand this, i have the ability to understand anything.
most of all i love that children find dishonesty inherently difficult, and how most of the time when they try to tell a lie, they can’t fully go through with it. i love how children are still intimately so connected with the purity of their source. that’s why they ask the questions they do. because they recall things about that time before time, that we as adults have long since forgotten.
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