The Children Always Have a Better Idea

I had an unopened travel package of tissues that had been in my backpack for I don't know how long. It had gone with me to Khazakstan, Vietnam, and New York City. It's there because I have a tendency toward mild allergic reactions to dusts, pollens, and recirculated jet cabin air. Over the past year or so, I've blown and wiped my nose on napkins, paper towels, and even my sleeves, while that damned package has remained untouched.

What am I saving it for? An emergency, I suppose; for a moment when I have no other choice. What I've learned, I guess, is that there are no nose blowing/wiping emergencies that I can't handle from the world at hand. 

I recently travelled with my wife and almost the moment we left the house, she asked if I had a tissue. I hesitated for a moment -- after all, the pack I had by now been my companion for well over a year -- but then realized how idiotic it would sound to say it aloud. So I handed over that pack of tissues. By the end of the trip, they were all gone and I've now replaced it with another pack that had been in a storage cupboard for . . . I don't know how long.

This is a familiar phenomenon for many, if not most, preschool teachers. I've often been called a "middle class bag lady" for my propensity to save up stuff I think that children will some day want to incorporate into their play. At one point I had an entire spare bedroom at home stuffed with junk -- old and broken things; collections of spools and buttons and foreign currency; boxes and other containers that might be good for making art or constructing or storing other junk. I kept these things that might otherwise be garbage for the "proper moment," which quite often never came. The tissue scenario tells me that I still retain vestiges of this hoarder's habit, and I was in this a slow learner, but when it comes to the preschool one of the key things I've finally learned is that the absolute best time to turn any old (or treasured) thing over the children is right now.

What I was doing, I guess, was waiting until I had an idea for what something could be used for, but I've now learned that the children always have a better idea than I do, even if their idea is to drop it on the floor and reduce it to smithereens by jumping up and down on it. 

I recall my ephipany. That morning, my wife had needled me about my junk room, wondering when I was going to take it into the school. Coincidentally, that morning a parent brought a "new" junk donation to the classroom as we were assembling for circle time. Instead of asking her to stick it outside the storage room as was my habit, I needed her immediate help, so she put her boxes in the middle of our checkerboard rug. The children, faced with mystery boxes, weren't going to move forward with our day until they found out what was in those boxes.

That day, our circle time was spent going through the box of junk, playing with and talking about what we found in there. The children's engagement filled up the allotted time and beyond. Indeed, we were playing with that box of junk for the next several days. I didn't suggest anything for them to do, I didn't tell them the proper use for anything, I just made bland, informative comments when it seemed imperative to speak, like, "You're using that" and "You made this" and "I see what you're doing." The junk wound up as part of block constructions, works of art, and as props in their pretend play. Some of it went outside, some of it got squirreled away like treasure, a few things went home in pockets, and some of it got destroyed.

And when the children were finished with it all, they let me know by not playing with it any longer. I pitched most of it -- as junk it began, as junk it ends -- keeping a few of the more durable items to include in with future junk collections, my hoarder's instinct still evident.

Today, I remain a collector of junk, but I strive to no longer be a curator. 

What do you have in your storage closet right now that could and should be turned over to the children?

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