My great-nephew attends pre-K at a public school out west. He'll enter kindergarten in September. He's already bilingual. In addition to having lessons in foreign language at his pre-K school, his maternal grandparents are Salvadorian. He's also a pretty good artist too. I sometimes call him Picasso Logan.
In recent class assignments, students were instructed to make something from trash. In steps, design engineer Logan took empty soda cans and created cars with faces that actually roll.
Then there's Logan the entomologist who mapped out the metamorphosis cycle of the butterfly from caterpillar to the molten stage to finally coming out of its cocoon to become a beautiful butterfly.
And there's Logan, the foreign language professor.
Logan the farmer. His grandpa teaches at a farming school for autistic children, and his granny sometimes take him and his younger brother, Kennedy, to the school to hang out with grandpa and the animals. Logan recently got to shear his first sheep. He loved it after overcoming any fears he might hurt the sheep, and wanted to sheer another one. Mr. Kennedy ran away.
All in all, under the right guidance, children are eager to learn, but we adults must leave any and all personal baggage and gripes at the schoolhouse door in order for students to thrive. It doesn't matter who they are, what zip code they live, if they're recent arrivals or have been here all along. They're ready. Are we?
Brenda Washington