Ice Cream Party

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” –Dr. Seuss

Spilled ice cream. Giggles. Wrappers blowing away in the wind. Pride. These were all themes of the day today in a small 2nd grade classroom in Commerce City. Twenty-one little 7 year olds took a writing test last week and every single child scored 80% or higher on it. Take a moment and think about that. Every single child was able to write a paragraph with a coherent beginning, middle, and end. In my 9 years of teaching, that has never happened. There’s always one or two kiddos who forget a capital, misplace the period, or whose spelling is so atrocious, they have to read it to me for me to even begin to comprehend what they were trying to say. In my little classroom today: every single child felt the glow of pride that they had worked hard, learned, and tried their best. Without fear of failure or without fear of judgment.

So we had an ice cream party outside to celebrate. Of course I forgot to buy it over the weekend like I had promised and I had a split second thought this morning that consisted of, “I don’t need to keep my promise for ice cream: I’m a busy single mom and I don’t have the time or the money to run to the store for this. I’ll just give them some extra recess and it will be fine.”

But then I stopped and thought about fear and expectations and letting go. Some of my students have only been in the United States for a few months. For them to really apply themselves and write a grade-level paragraph in English and score 80% or above…means they let go of their fear of failure. They made a decision that they were going to add the hard words, even though they couldn’t spell them properly. They decided that they would rather go down in flames trying the best they could even though they have never scored above a 50% all year. They sat there and wrote their little hearts out hoping that this time, after the hundreds of hours of practice, that this time would be the time they nail it.

 I asked my little Isela today how she was able to finally (and when I say finally, I mean FINALLY) able to produce such good writing after we had been working to the point of tears for weeks. She gave me a little proud smile. I could tell she was searching for the words in English. I waited. Then she responded, “You tell me and of all the class all of the days to do the best of we can do. I was scared to be wrong and I know that it is best to be wrong but you tell me to try anyway. Being wrong you circle what I did wrong and then I don’t do that wrong again. So I get better. I can do the writing now.”

I sat there in silence. How is it that at 37 years old, a MA under my belt, working towards my doctorate literacy endorsement, time teaching abroad, 9 years of teaching and coaching completed...that a little 7 year old fresh from Mexico could be so astute about fear of success and remind me of something that I may have forgotten? How is it possible that she was able to teach me that not trying is the real failure? How scared and uncomfortable she must have been searching desperately for the words to come in English and the wacky way we spell things but she was able to push through that fear because she knew that she would learn from her perceived mistakes and failures. She knows somehow that this may be the most scary, uncomfortable, and frankly terrifying thing she is going to accomplish today, but what is scarier…is giving up. Surrendering to the fear of failure and not trying at all. There’s something in her that knows that you regret more the things you were too scared to try than the things you failed at and then had to admit you were wrong. With trying comes knowledge, power, and awareness. With fear comes...more fear. More of the same. She realized that wasn’t going to serve her. So she wrote a very clear introduction, she used the topic sentence appropriately, she used voice and clarity in her details, and she restated the topic in her conclusion. In English. She scored 100% for the first time in anything all year long.

I wonder about how she’s going to feel when she gets home tonight and shows Mama and Papa her paper. I wonder the discussion they will have about taking risks and jumping off the cliff before you’re certain you can fly. I wonder if this will help her when she’s faced with algebra equations, and Shakespeare, and college applications. Maybe this one small lesson in not being afraid of failure and taking hold of your fear will get her through all the hard things in her life that are sure to come and shake her up. I hope so.

 In the meantime…we had ice cream outside today. In the midst of the golden trees, the breeze carrying away our wrappers, while the kids all laughed and chased after them. As I helped them clean up and I listened to their chatter about how proud they were of themselves for scoring so high on their tests, I realized that this was a reminder and a lesson for me as well. This stuff called life and decisions and choices are scary as hell. I’m not certain I can fly as I jump off the cliff. I don’t have the faith that everything will be okay because there are so many times it hasn’t been. However…the fear of “what might happen” will never be as strong as the fear that “I was too afraid to even try.” That is a regret I will never, ever have to live with.

It was the best ice cream party ever.