"I had a dream"

A day late maybe but better late than never. Yesterday, with all five kiddos home from school because of the holiday, our tot school just didn't happen. Which is ok.... I honestly didn't think that it was going to. But I didn't want Martin Luther King Jr day to go by unremarked either. Three or not, its important for SweetPea to learn who he was and what he fought for. So we did that today. A short lesson for our first day back of the week but an important one.

SweetPea's "dreams"

We started out with all our regular work. But then I told SweetPea that we were going to change things up today. I told her to sit on one side of the table and put PorkChop on the other. I told her that they couldn't sit together anymore because she was wearing "black" and he was wearing "white". SweetPea looked at me like I had lost my mind. I then gave PorkChop his morning snack and sat back down. This time, SweetPea spoke up, wanting to know where her snack was. I told her that she was on the "wrong side" of the table so she couldn't have one. Her face fell and she hung her head, not arguing, just in shocked silence. I brought over her bowl and sat it down in front of her asking how she felt. "Sad", she told me. I asked her how I could make it all better.... "I just want to sit with Porker and have a snack too. That's fair, right?"

Ah! Fair.... equal.... no favorites, no slights. I knew that this would work.

Without getting into the heavy words like civil rights, segregation, racism.... I explained to her in smaller words who Martin Luther King Jr was and what he wanted while she colored a picture of him. I explained a little how he was treated as a child and why. And I explained to her how some people feared what he wanted so much that the took his life away from him. We discussed how skin color doesn't matter.... that "Gangam style" should be allowed to eat at McDonald's with her. How "Asia" should be allowed to ride the bus with her. How Pochantos should be allowed to walk down the street and hold her hand. 

I read to her from the speech "I had a dream" and while I am sure that most of it sailed over her head, I was shocked at what she did walk away with. I loved hearing her tell me how everyone SHOULD be equal, that everyone SHOULD get to learn at school, that everyone SHOULD have the right to marry anyone that they wanted to. I was speechless when she chose many of those things for her own "dreams".

We finished up today but finger painting. Starting with all our colors separate, we talked about how pretty they looked. Then slowly, one by one, the colors began getting mixed together. And SweetPea, unprompted, told me how they all looked the same "on the inside". That all the colors were pretty apart, but in the end, they were still all the same. What wisdom from a child.