Salut NaBloPoMo 2007

The university research project I work in helps teachers and students (grade 1-13) the creative and constructive use of digital media for indoor and outdoor learning. 

Yesterday, I worked with a 5th grade class. The learning material concerns identity and orientation. German high schools start in the 5th grade. That means the 5th graders are struggling for a position with 18- or 19-year-old seniors. 

As you can imagine, this is often an intimidating process. The goal of the 5th grade project is, first, for the student to get to know their follow classmates better. Secondly, everyone should become better acquainted with the school as a whole and the surrounding neighbourhood in particular. Many of the students come from outlying areas. 

 The children are working on a “Who am I” collage. They use film, photos, drawings, and text to create an aesthetic biography (pedagogical term, don’t know if they use this in English). There is a long list of items they can/should choose from: place of birth, names (mother, father, siblings, house pet): favourite stuff (foods, friend, colour, pastime, sport): likes & dislikes. Most of the information in the biographies is predictable: nearly all the girls favourite colour is pink: the boys favourite pastime is to play jump and run computer games.

I walk around the classroom glancing at their portraits. Jenny likes spaghetti. Robert hates doing homework. Gradually, I am lulled into the rosy-tainted world of their childhoods, their child-like enthusiasms, and their childish grievances. 

Then I glance down at Darwin’s portrait: Likes: pizza, computer games, Dislikes: when people call me nigger or other bad names. My rosy-tainted glasses crack and then shatter. Inside, my heart cramps, and I wonder at the tragedy of these words, and the nonchalance with which Darwin writes them. 

Darwin is not the only child confronting such realities on a day-to-day basis. Next to Jenny’s father’s name, she writes, “don’t know”. If you scratch ever so gently below the surface of various children’s lives, there are some heartrending facts there. 

Even though I have reached an age where I should be accustomed to such things, I still don’t understand why any child should be called bad names because of the colour of his skin. Why can’t all children (at least) know the names of their fathers? It can’t be so difficult, can it? 

All the best to those of you who have participated in NaBloPoMo this month. It has been fun to write for you and to read your entries as well. For those of you who randomly stumbled upon this blog, thank you for dropping by. I hope you will stay around a while longer.