He Likes To Dance!

The other day, I was teaching a kindergarten class about the friendship problem of getting left out. There were two main points I was making. First, it hurts to be excluded, so let everybody play. Second, getting left out will happen to all of us at one time or another, so we need to know how to handle it. I taught them the chant, "If you get left out, have fun anyway!", and we stood up and bounced to its rhythm. I encouraged the children to either go play with someone else who IS being nice or go play alone, as there are lots of ways to cheer ourselves up! I advised them not to pout and not to fight about it. Anyway, at one point in the lesson I asked the kids to tell me some examples of what they'd do to have fun anyway if they should get left out. Hands flew up, and answers included playing with pets, finding a different friend onthe playground, reading, playing video games, playing with brothers and sisters, swinging, etc. As my eyes scanned the room, I noticed a handsome dark-haired boy with his hand up in the air. When I called on him, he hesitated, and his friends explained that he doesn't speak English well. Noticing what was happening, his teacher asked a long-haired girl on the back row to translate for him. Crawling up to her friend who needed help, she whispered in his ear. He whispered something back to her, and she announced in English, "He likes to dance!" With a big old grin, he nodded his head at me, and his sweet classmates spontaneously burst into applause. His teacher went on to ask him to tell us how to say dance in Spanish, and we tried it out. I'm continually touched and gratified by the loving, inclusive spirit of young children, and I realize fully that I and other adults have so much to learn from them! What a privilege it is to work with this age group day in and day out!