11

School Days and Preschool Days, Too:
A treasury of anecdotes culled from my work and play as a preschool worker and an elementary school after- school activities supervisor
______

("The Ice Cream Man Cometh", continued)

       Retrieving a box of bomb pops from my freezer so as to be able to quickly service customers, I misstepped, somehow. The box fell and all twenty bomb pops tumbled out onto the blacktop.
      Instantly, it seemed, everyone on the playground froze. If there is such thing as absolute silence, that is what prevailed as awareness of what had happened dawned on the group's mind.
      Then, just as suddenly, total havoc burst forth from that silence. The line in front of my jeep dissolved. Children came running from basketball, baseball, and jump-rope, pouncing on the popsicles like locusts stripping a field.
      Gone was any sign of camaraderie or even recognition. Within a minute nothing was left on the ground but the empty box and a few wrappers. Children roamed the field laughing, brightly-colored popsicles in their hands and mouths. Not a single child acknowledged us in any way as, shaken, I drove away.
      Later that year our high school literary magazine published a short story David had written about the incident—about my illusion that the Elmwood School children were really my friends, and the shattering of that illusion. "It's not the bomb pops, " I kept saying at the end of the story, as I had in real life.

      My mind came back to our group of children, in aftercare, in 2002 in California. I didn't know how to handle this situation. Our Teacher's Handbook didn't speak to it.
      I knew it wasn't safe to let little boys and girls run down to the street. But what if just older ones went? And what if I went, too? There were really only a few children left at aftercare, and I could easily protect everyone.
     After awhile, I yielded. I let a trustworthy, older child go down. As soon as I did, I realized my decision had shown poor judgment. The younger children clamored all the more. I went down with the few of them who had money. Those who had none, and who didn't get any ice cream at all that day, complained bitterly. I realized that I'd had allowed my mature judgment to be enchanted by young, pleading voices.
      The pied piper of ice cream finally drove away for the day, but I was left with the residue of forlorn souls amid the satisfied ones. I confessed to my supervisor what I had done, and the next day brought ice cream for all the aftercare children. Though I intended to foot that bill, the principal insisted on the school picking up the tab. I was left with a heightened awareness of the need to be able to say "no"—something I continue to see dramatized before me almost every day.

*****
continued   back    contents   title page

 "What Remains Is the Essence", the home pages of Max Reif:
poetry, children's stories, "The Hall of Famous Jokes", whimsical prose, paintings, spiritual recollection,  and much more!

Enjoy the stories? Have any of your own ?
Please introduce yourself:
send an e-mail my way
or
sign my Guestbook