Chronicles of Chaos

April 17, 2007 | Print

School Stories

Wyatt regularly calls me into his room after bedtime. We have a don’t get out of bed after you’re tucked in policy (which I’m not sure how we created), but the side effect is repeated “MOMMYYY!!”’s on those nights he’s taking some time to settle in for sleep.

Usually when I get to his door he asks, “Mommy….(thinking of something to say) what…what are you doing downstairs?”

Or, “When…(thinking) when are you going to bed?”

Last night he tells me, “Mommy….Mommy…Miss Leya (his preschool teacher) found some bottle tops so she brought them to school with yarn and we glued them together and we made something.”

His eyes light up like they do when he’s excited and proud.

As I’m walking downstairs I realize that Amelia never tells me about how she makes things at school. She’ll show me her tissue paper flowers and plastic bag jellyfish, but she doesn’t share the play by play like Wyatt (“and then I put the toothpick in the glue and…”).

Amelia tells me about the Continental army and the songs they sang about the Yankees (interesting sensation to learn history from your kindergartner) and she talks a lot about her classmates. Since three years old she’s always talked about school in the context of stories–the social context.

Wyatt’s all about the physical work, maybe there are other kids around, maybe not, I don’t hear about classmates unless he and River are digging a hole together in the play yard.

Wyatt and Amelia are almost textbook versions of learning styles–the physical boy and the social girl.

It’s one thing to read the books about learning styles and gender differences, but seeing it in my kids gives me such a bigger perspective of who they are, of what they get from school.

I feel like someone turned the light on a little brighter. I could see what was happening, but now it’s so much clearer.

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