Raw Pasta and Addition

There is a light tapping on my door. I look through the window and I can see a few tiny heads bobbing up and down on the steps of my porch. It’s been a long day and I’m tired and now the children want my last spurt of energy.

I woke early this morning. Another volunteer came by to look at my kitchen wall – a wall full of charts and drawings and information formatted in a timeline of history about Saint Lucia. I was quite anxious to talk with him because he’s been here longer than me and will have another perspective on the subject. This is a subject I’ve become passionate about. Eric stayed for a couple of hours and the conversation was easy, interesting and illuminating.

Later I went to the Village Council to submit some paperwork and then ran up to the Village Library to poke around. Egbert, the Librarian, is always happy to see me and likes to spend time telling me stories about what he knows of Saint Lucian history. As I walked home I realized that I was “intellectually” exhausted from the day….and now, as I sit here on my living room chair, I want to ignore the little tapping on my door and bobbing small heads that are seen through my window.

I open the door and the oldest, Yvette, asks “Can we come in?” I motion for them to enter and see two small children following her with paper and pencils in hand; two more boys follow them. My house, just five minutes ago, a quiet sanctuary, is now buzzing with the laughter and excitement of five small children.

Yvette looks at me and says, “These two girls are in Kindergarten. Will you please teach them?”

Now, I am not a Kindergarten teacher, nor a primary school teacher, or a secondary school teacher. I teach college level courses. I know nothing about teaching children, but the little girls are sitting on my sofa with their paper notebooks open and a pencil in their little hands ready to write. I realize I need to quickly transfer my skills and react to this request.

First, I try to assess what they know. I ask a few questions. “Show me how you write your name. Let’s sing the ABC song. Can you count to ten?” Alright, they know that stuff so I decide to teach them simple math.

I look in my cupboard and find a bag of pasta. I begin teaching them how to solve the problem 1+1 using the pasta. After a few minutes I realize I’m a very bad Kindergarten teacher. This conclusion is validated as I watch the little boy eating the raw pasta.

As they are sitting on my floor, eating raw pasta and looking at me with blank looks on their faces, they hear the bread truck honking outside and rush out my door and to their house across the street. I watched them from my balcony as they emptied coins from a box onto the table on their patio. They are scraping twenty-five cents together to buy freshly baked bread rolls at a discount price from the truck. It was then that I made a decision. I will design my next kindergarten tutoring session using freshly baked bread rather than raw pasta so they have something easier to eat during the next math demonstration.