WJ and I were together at school today. Our school year starts very late and we were there for teacher planning meetings. I teach in the preschool he attends.
WJ had a lovely reunion with his teachers this morning and stopped for a long conversation with one of them. As they talked, one of WJ’s Two Best Friends passed by. She and her family were headed down the hall for their before-the-start-of-school peek at the kindergarten classroom and her first opportunity to meet the kindergarten teacher.
WJ spends about seventy percent of the time attached to reality. The other thirty percent are moments when his diesel-fueled preschool imagination takes over and he slips away into a life-size, real-time daydream. Sometimes I think of these imaginary moments as Doggie World, as his stuffed pal Doggie figures prominently in these dreams.
After realizing he was not invited to join his Best Friend down the hall, WJ slid into Doggie World and told his teacher, “I am teaching a new class this year.”
“You are teaching a new class?” she inquired.
“Yes,” he said with authority, “I am the teacher. Doggie is in my class.”
“I see.” Doggie World School featuring WJ as the teacher is a place about which this teacher has heard before.
“There are some students in my new class who are a little sad. Their friends are going to a new school. They are not going to be in the class this year.”
WJ’s teacher responded with grace and wisdom. “You are a very good teacher. You must know how to help these children who are sad. What will help them feel better about going to school without their friends?”
WJ replied, “Well, I know you probably can’t do this in your classroom but in my classroom, I just give them chocolate milk.”
The processing of this decision to keep WJ in preschool another year, despite his chronological age, continues. Kindergarten starts tomorrow without him. Moments of sadness persist. But the big picture of a child ready for school, feeling confident, operating out of a place of strength is the shelter under which we stand, knowing our decision is the right one for this imaginative child.