- 10-year old rapping Eminem's song from 8-mile before the obstacle course at Wednesday's improv class. He then continued to rap the entire next verse before I asked him if he was ready to race.
His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy
There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti
He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready
Teaching the improv class at Kids in Sync is supposed to be an opportunity for the kids to work on their social skills, such as reading emotions and listening to others ideas, but I find I learn a lot from it, too. Rosie, who last week taught me about "fun math", gave me a great lesson in vulnerability this week.
While most of the kids were tearing around the room, throwing balls and swinging on stuff, Rosie was sitting off to the side, furiously coloring on a white board. After a few minutes, she came up to me and said, "I made you this." It was a drawing of the two of us, holding hands, surrounded by an enormous heart. On the left side it said "Friends" and on the right, "Best." There were arrows labeled "You" and "Me." She pointed to each one and said, "That's you" and "That's me." I melted. I told her I liked it very much, thanked her for making it, and took her picture holding it.
What I admire so much is how she didn't worry that saying "We're best friends" was presumptuous. She didn't preface it with, "I don't know if you feel like this..." or over think it. She felt like we were best friends and she let me know. It was easy.
As I've gotten older, I've become so cautious. An emotion will rise, followed by a desire to express myself, and then my emotional filter pipes up: "Don't say anything! If they don't feel the same way, you're going to look stupid!" The past few weeks I've been trying to be less cautious and run toward the fear instead of away from it. In SPEED, Keanu Reeves doesn't wave goodbye as sexy female hostage Sandra Bullock pull away in a subway car. He runs after her. He gets on top of the train, dodges a few bullets, wrestles and decapitates a crazed bomber, and gets the girl.
A "broken heart" is a stupid phrase because a heart doesn't snap in two. It aches and changes shape at time, but eventually returns to it's natural state. So go ahead and put it out there. Ask someone on a date. Be the first to say 'I love you." Make a huge card for your best friend. The potential gain is worth the risk. And if it doesn't turn out how you wanted, your heart -and ego- will bounce back.
There's a Rilo Kiley song called "More Adventurous" that has one of my favorite lyrics of all time: "With each broken heart, we should become more adventurous."
I teach an improv class on Wednesdays to kids age 6-8 at Kids in Sync, an occupational therapy school that helps kids with developmental issues (i.e. autism spectrum). In addition to the class, I work with one girl for about 30 minutes before the actual class starts so she can warm up. In the past we've done activites such as a putting together a puzzle, playing on the swings, and competing in various ball games that I sometimes let myself win because children need to learn to lose gracefully and I can't lose ALL THE TIME. But today, we did something totally new: Rosie taught me about math. And how math is fun nowadays.
This is how the conversation unraveled:
Rosie: Oh, I know what 9x9 is! Me: Me too. Rosie: It's 91. Me: No, it's not. Rosie: No, wait. It's 76. Me: Is it? Rosie: Yeah. Me: No, it's not. It's 81. Rosie: Oh yeah. It is. Now I remember.
At this point, I'm thinking, that's a tough one and I'll lob her a softball question with some low numbers and she'll knock it out of the park.
Me: Here's an easy one. What's 3x3? Rosie: 11? Me: No... try again. Rosie: I know 3x2 is 6! Me: Okay, so 3x2 is 6... so one more 3 would make it... Rosie: 12? Me: 9. Three 3's make 9. Rosie: Oh! I did know that because there's a fun math story for it. Me: Fun math? Rosie: We only learn fun math in my school. It's math but fun. Here's the story to help you remember. So there's a woman and she wants to have kids like her cousin. Her cousin's kids are special because they each have three tails. So if there's three kids, and each has three tails, that's nine tails total. 3x3=9. The woman wants to have kids with nine tails total. Me: Oh. That makes sense.
I like the idea that each calculation has a story behind it, but it seems incredibly inefficient to memorize entire stories instead of a simple calculation. This became more apparent as I continued to quiz Rosie and she struggled to remember if 7x3 was the story of the caterpillar becoming a butterfly or if it was the double decker bus that rides an elevator. But in the end, she -almost- always got them right.
I'm glad math has finally been packaged in a way that kids think they're having fun when they're doing math. I wish someone had tricked me that math was fun so I wouldn't have had to cheat my way through college stat class to earn a C and graduate by the skin of my teeth. And I wouldn't have had to write this blog post on an calculator.
Congratulations on making a come-back, math! You're doing it!
