"In This Light and Shadow, Monsters Arise

The old world is dying. The new one is slow in appearing. In this light and shadow, monsters arise. ~Fiamma Montezemolo

May you live in interesting times. It's an Ancient Chinese curse. Likewise it's a blessing, in the same sense that "May all your dreams come true" can go either way. As adults, we look around and see monsters: bigotry, technology, billionaires, corruption, war, alienation, mental illness. If you're inclined to see monsters, there has never been more light and shadow from which they can arise.

The fact that they are the same monsters, albeit in different clothing, that humans throughout history have always perceived is cold comfort, although it does provide perspective.

I've often bemoaned the loss of my own childhood, not for myself, of course. I already have a good on under my belt, one anchored by lots of unsupervised play, outdoors, with other children, full of wonder, conflict, risk, and triumph. No, I find myself worried that it's the "kids these days" who are really getting ripped off. Recently, however, my own daughter, a child of the 90's, expressed her concern for the younger people she's encountering, largely because they didn't have the childhood opportunities she did . . . and it shows. 

And so it goes.

The old world is always dying and the new one is always struggling to be born. As adults we have the perspective to see it happening even if we don't fully understand it. We know of the "before times", when we were . . . happier? 

Aristotle argued that "happiness" is an emotion that we can really only fully experience upon reflection, when we cast our minds back over the past and see that, yes, then I was happy. He pointed out that the moment we name our happiness in the present it tends to disappear. I'm sure my own mother worried about the world in which I was growing up, a world that was dying while the new one was struggling to be born. Yet, I was happy.

It's tempting, in our dark moments, to give in to the monsters, to convince ourselves that we are, this time, really in the end times. But this, I think, is the only real monster: despair.  

Yesterday, I watched a documentary about the rise of funk music -- James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, George Clinton. The world in which these Black artists produced this joyful music was chaotic, politically, socially, and culturally. Monsters were everywhere. MLK was assassinated, the Civil Rights Movement was in full voice, the Vietnam War and the specter of nuclear war hung over everything. This was the time of my own childhood as well. The old world was dying and a new one was slow in appearing. The filmmaker interviewed old men (and it was mostly old men) who clearly remembered those times has happy, like I do, despite growing up in that time when monsters lurked.

From the perspective of childhood, there is only the world of now. The children in our classrooms will one day, as we all do, see their moment, this moment, as an old world that is dying while they glimpse monsters in the light and shadow. But for today, there is only today, the only world they have.

The gift of working with young children is that they, if we allow them, can share their perspective with us. It's a place in which the old world isn't dying: it simply doesn't exist. They are living in a place of happiness, even if it won't be fully recognized for decades. Of course, there is pain, grief, and failure, but a life without these monsters is no life at all. Perhaps wishing someone a life without pain, grief, and failure is another curse disguised as a blessing.

And one day, as adults, these children will worry about the monsters in the light and shadow, monsters that you and I will never perceive. And I am motivated to ensure that they will at least recall their time with me as happy.

The old world is dying. The new one is struggling to be born. When we drop to our knees amongst young children, humbly, entering their world, we find ourselves amidst the midwives charged with bringing the new world to life.

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Books have a way of transforming us unlike any other media out there. Be it fiction or non-fiction, a books has the power to fully immerse us into a world in ways that makes us come out the other side a changed -- and better -- person. I've put together this list of 16 books that have done that for me. They are intentionally not early childhood books, although each one has, in one way or another, profoundly transformed my work with young children. Maybe you'll find a few new ones here that will do the same for you. To download the list, click here.

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