The Magic Word~

There are two words guaranteed to send a classroom full of kindergarten students into gales of laughter. I am talking about 'horse laughing,' often accompanied by falling over and the clutching of bodies. Ask any teacher of young children and they will agree. These words are "naked" and "underwear." The fact that they all came into the world naked and hopefully WEAR underwear is superflous. The words evoke early childhood hysteria. (The other thing you can do as a teacher to provoke this same reaction is to drop something. But that is not germane to this topic.)

I tend to adore the quirky ones and this child fit the bill. She was later diagnosed autistic, but high functioning. She had a lot of repetitious behavior and often mimicked me to a degree of authenticity that gave me shivers. During large group discussions, she would sit aside from the group and rock back and forth, to keep herself calm. Sometimes a single word would evoke a response and she kept things lively by throwing a monkey wrench into my best laid plans and intentions. I loved this child.

On this particular day, I had a parent volunteer named Lori who knew the girl's mother well. During my lesson, she was taking down a bulletin board. Lori was drinking coffee, but listening with interest to our lesson.

I had been working with the kids on a book called, The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree. It illustrated the changing seasons very well and the children were engaged in a multiple-day project to create a piece of artwork that reflected the change of seasons. We'd drawn the 'winter' tree previously and discussed how the trees were bare - no leaves. This, of course, led to one of my boys (Michael!) declaring that the tree was NAKED and the entire class erupting in gut-wrenching laughter. So on this, the following day, I tried to quickly review the winter tree before introducing the tree in spring. I quickly sketched the winter tree and one of the kids called out that this was the winter tree and another one said that it had no leaves and then....... of course....... somebody (Michael!) loudly declared that this tree was NAKED.

I worked quickly to add leaves to the tree, praying that their attention would stay on the tree and not the fact that the somebody (Michael!) had said the word, NAKED in front of God and everyone. It almost worked.

There were a few little laughs but I was adept and quickly drawing and talking and keeping their attention. But then... my little special girl suddenly stopped rocking and shouted out, spurred on by the word.

"YES! Mommy and daddy... they were in the van... and they were.....NAKED!"

I was shocked and tried to keep working. Marisa loudly declared "that's disgusting" and poor Lori had to bolt from the room because she was choking on coffee and spewing it everywhere. (Seriously. Everywhere.)

The kids collapsed in laughter and I did my best to restore order. Since I was using my "teacher look," most of them (except MICHAEL!) calmed down right away. I continued the lesson and frantically drew leaves on the spring tree. But my special little girl wasn't finished. Apparently, this word had layers of meaning.

"Yes! Mommy and daddy were NAKED! I kept seeing mommy's..........elbows!"

At this point I put down my marker and had to get up. Lori had re-entered the room at this point and was trying to maintain her composure. The kids were slapping their shins and my little special girl was happily rocking back and forth.

Lori and I were locked in a head-to-head embrace while Lori whispered, "Her mother would be so proud."

This of course, got US laughing which got the kids going into Round 2. But I had to step out when Lori continued, ".......kind of makes you wonder what she thinks 'elbows' are......."

The rest of the day is a blur. We must have completed the spring tree at some point and the spewed coffee got cleaned up and I couldn't look my little girl's mother in the face for several days after that.

I bolted to the other side of the room when my girl was dropped off my her mother. I wanted to shout, "THE VAN? Are you kidding me? You couldn't WAIT?" The VAN?"

But I didn't. I just laugh about it periodically again and again, especially when I hear the word, "naked."