Longhouse School

We had a long, long talk in the hammock last night. Kitten has always told me about how much she hated the girls’ private school she attended for preschool, elementary, and middle school. I always took it as the typical “I hate school” refrain from kids. But I see it goes much deeper.

She talked about bullying by “prim and prissy” girls and overcontrolling teachers who acted “real nice.” The head of school was an Agatha Trunchbull in Matilda but nice, nice, nice on the outside. Racism? Kitten was one of just a few Jewish children there in a sea of blue-eyed blond straight hair girls. She never found a Miss Honey to protect her.

We talked so much. During her time at that school, she adopted a coping strategy. She was nice and non-confrontational on the inside. But she raged and became disengaged inside. She “ice-skated” through the grades, getting unquestionably good–but not outstanding—grades, and wouldn’t let anything of passion emerge. Not a poem, not a piece of artwork. She hid in plain sight.

In Ninth Grade she escaped to LaGuardia and then she met me. And do you know that the whole thing of “I love to read” was a lie to impress me? But she really did enjoy reading with mne Anna Karenina and Les Misérables even if was just a guise. And her work with Julie, Arturo, and Leonard opened up for her a safe new world, “the Great American Songbook.”

“But don’t you see, Kitten? That’s why we need to dig deeper into Longhouse Elem for our final week or two–so other children don’t go through the same inner deadening that you experienced?”

We went inside to our room and I pulled up Sukhomlynsky:

The emotional richness of perception provides the spiritual energy for children’s creativity. I am deeply convinced that without emotional stimulation the normal development of a child’s brain cells is impossible… The thinking processes of children in the primary classes are inseparable from their feelings and emotions. The process of instruction, and especially children’s perception of the surrounding world, should be charged with emotion. The laws of development of a child’s thought processes demand this (p. 52).

It’s a very long passage but I insisted that we read it slowly aloud, heartbeat to heartbeat. It’s a warm autumn day in the Ukranian village and Uncle Vasyl takes his young students on a walk.

Not far from our little hill was a grove of trees, on the edge of which grew many briar bushes. We admired the bead-like, purple berries, and the silver webs hanging from the branches. The outline of each bush was engraved in our memories, and we gazed at the orchards and rows of tall poplars on the edge of the village. Each day the children discovered something new. Before our very eyes the green grove clothed itself in crimson, the leaves displaying an amazing array of colours. These discoveries brought the children great joy.

Here the wellsprings of living language and creative thought were so rich and abundant that had we made one discovery each hour there would have been enough to last for many years. In front of us was a briar bush, laden with bunches of purple berries. From berry to berry were strung silver webs, sparkling with trembling drops of morning dew. The dew drops seemed to be made of amber. Spellbound, we stood by a bush and witnessed amazing things. From the edges of the webs drops of dew were moving, as if alive, crawling to the sagging centres and merging with each other; but why did they not get bigger and fall to the ground? We were completely absorbed in our observations. It turned out that the dewdrops quickly evaporated, diminishing in size as we watched and then disappearing completely.

‘The sun is drinking the dewdrops’, whispered Larisa. The image created by Larisa’s imagination caught the children’s interest and a new story was born. Here, beside the briar bush, at one of the wellsprings of living language, a new stream began to flow. Perhaps it was just chance, but it had to happen sooner or later. Larisa noticed the similarity between the rhyming words *rosinki *(dewdrops), *pautinki *(spider webs) and businki (beads). This striking coincidence seemed to light up the children’s minds. Until now they had only heard poems from older brothers and sisters who had read them in books, but suddenly verse was born from living words, from the surrounding world. Her eyes sparkling with joy, Larisa said: *‘Dewdrops fell at night, On the silver spider webs.’ *

Everyone was silent but I could see that each child’s thoughts had taken flight like a bird, with a feeling of wonder at the power of words.

‘And began to shake and tremble, like amber beads‘ continued Yura.

This is what happens when we approach the original source of all things, when a word incorporates not only the designation of an object, but the aroma of flowers, the scent of the earth, the music of our native steppe and forests, and our own feelings and emotions (p. 52).

Kitten sleepily told me that she “got it.” I know she did because I saw a couple of teary eyes. She asked me to listen to Frank’s cover of Day In, Day Out. Such a beautiful song and arrangement, especially the ending!