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| Need a Hand? |
| By Suzanne Boyce |
| Teaching can be a challenging profession. Some days there just doesn't seem to be enough of you to go around. |
| Each little face is so eager, so trusting and so worthy of your attention. How can you reach them all? |
| There just aren't enough minutes in the day especially when the little faces come from kindergarten. |
| Kindergartners walk into a school ready to say "Wow!" to the world. They are excited by everything from the |
| chalk dust on your elbow to the bug crawling across their desk. They are loving, energetic, excited, energetic, |
| intrigued, energetic, motivated, energetic, eager to learn and did I mention they are also energetic? |
| Working with kindergartners is like trying to keep a room full of ping-pong balls all underwater at the same time. |
| But there are also those moments that make it all worthwhile. And Lucy created one of those moments. |
| Little Lucy (at least that's what we'll call her) had never been to kindergarten before. She was thrilled by the |
| activities, the children, the classroom and the noise. Lucy especially liked the noise. At her house things weren't |
| very noisy. When her family talked, there wasn't a sound. Her parents were deaf, and every conversation was conducted |
| in sign language. Now Lucy was experiencing the excitement of a second language she was getting to talk! |
| As the school year progressed, Lucy thrived. Her parents came in for conferences, they wrote notes, and the school even |
| helped them get a special telephone so they could call the school with concerns about Lucy. All of this communication |
| was wonderful, and Lucy benefited from it all! |
| Halloween came with pumpkins and costumes. Thanksgiving turkeys sported multi-colored feathers. But then came Christmas, |
| the best of all. Santa was coming very soon, and the kindergartners were creating a Santa of their own to make him |
| feel welcome. Dozens of tiny hands were traced onto colorful paper. Hundreds of tiny fingers were cut with blunt-tipped |
| scissors. Proudly, the children brought their handprints to the teacher, who taped them on the door. There were red |
| ones for Santa's suit, white ones for his beard, and even black hands to shape his boots. It was beautiful! |
| Lucy was thrilled. She loved the tracing and cutting. It had been so much fun, she went home that night and traced and |
| cut and traced and cut. When she finished, she chose the best hand of all to take to her teacher. |
| The next morning Lucy could hardly wait. As soon as she reached the classroom she reached into her book bag and dug out |
| her gift. Proudly, she presented her very best hand to her teacher. Her teacher bent down and gave Lucy a hug, but she |
| was puzzled by the gift. The day before, Lucy had done such a wonderful job. Her tracing, her cutting, had been |
| well within the skill level of her age group. But today's effort well, it just wasn't Lucy's best work. |
| "Do you like it?" Lucy asked eagerly. |
| The teacher smiled. |
| "Yes, honey," she replied. "But Lucy, there are some fingers missing. Did something happen?" |
| There were some fingers missing it was obvious as soon as you looked at the hand. The thumb, the index |
| finger and the pinky finger had been cut with perfection. The other two fingers, however, had been cut off |
| at the palm. |
| "Yes, Teacher," Lucy said happily. "I wanted to give you my best hand the one that says 'I love you.'" |
| And that's exactly what it did say in sign language "I love you." |