Itoi Elementary School    October 2, 1999

My daughter is a foreigner.  In this room she looks like a ghost,
with sunlight reflecting on braids of the King`s finest gold.
Her classmates rush to us and crowd around,
helping her with her bookbag, inviting her to play ``hide a boy in the locker``
and pointing to show that her name plate is upside-down.
Our glances meet in agreement.  We shrug in unison;
the kanji looks about the same either way.
Then the bell rings and students go directly to their desks;
in a fraction of the time, at a fraction of the noise it takes
for their peers in my country�c
even those twice their age.
A child stands in front, a commanding nine-year-old.
They commence a meeting in relative silence
reminding me of the one in my staff room every morning.
Another child starts a tape recording and they sing.
A song in Portuguese, I think, and I stand there
astonished as I listen to them sing and all the while
there is no teacher present.
I hear distant voices raising and know other classes are
acting likewise. I can stand it no longer.  I must see it.
So I leave and wander the school, gaping awkwardly
at class after autonomous class in complete wonder of
disciplined children.
Children who smile and wave and sometimes shout hello to me,
in my language, foreign to them.
Children who do not fight, and who share easily with their neighbors.
Children who serve lunch to one another, and who know when to be quiet.
Children who clean the school every day.
I wander to the lunchroom and sit at the tiny clean table to wait.
A class enters so quietly I did not hear them.  There`s my girl waving!
We look out the window and see a group returning from a field trip,
little yellow hats bobbing in two straight lines.
The teacher is smiling.  So am I.


(copyright 1999-2000 Lynley Asay)