She Was Meant for Life

Many young children arrive on our doorsteps ready to attend to us, to what we point out to them, to sing our songs, to play our games, and to follow our lead. In standard preschool classrooms, these are our teacher's pets.

But then there are those other kids. These are the ones with their own agendas.

Miranda had no interest in toys. Dolls, blocks, and puzzles were in her way. Other children were interesting unless they wanted to "pretend." She had little patience for pretending. She preferred real things. 

As a two-year-old, she hunted out light switches, then pulled furniture over so she could climb up to reach them, flashing the lights off and on until someone helped her find something else to do.

Our vacuum cleaner was aces. 

She was so fascinated with our pencil sharpener that I wound up purchasing a whole collection of different types of sharpeners for her to explore. 

She liked tools of all sorts and would make a beeline for the workbench whenever we were outdoors -- she was particularly fond of screwdrivers and pliers. 

Indoors, she would sometimes engage with art-making tools like brushes, brayers, and scissors, but she was most often found in the kitchen where she insisted on helping with snack prep.

She would not sit for circle time. She played with the other children when they played with real things, but otherwise she was content to play on her own.

Our junkyard playground was her favorite place because, well, that's where we kept most of our junk.

The naturalist and author Joseph Wood Krutch was writing about the Sonoran Desert, but I believe his words apply likewise to every "natural" place, including those places like our preschool where humans provide the habitat:

"Perhaps the mind is not merely a blank slate upon which anything may be written. Perhaps it reaches out spontaneously toward what can nourish either intelligence or imagination. Perhaps it is part of nature and, without being taught, shares nature’s intentions."

Miranda could be a handful, but she was not necessarily meant for standard school. She was meant for life.

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