Neptune

"Madam Natacha, how far was Neptune?" 

 Our teachers' meeting starts with the same teasing question that has been asked a dozen times today, because this staff knows that you don't waste a good tease by only using it once. 

 Neptune was far. Out the gate and down the road and around the corner. Carefully counted out with three different classes of children. Three steps between the sun and Mercurcy. Six between Mercury and Venus. Two hundred sixty-nine between Uranus and Neptune. And, for once, we are glad that Pluto is no longer a planet. 

 As they go, they mark each spot with flat orange cones, balancing a rock on top from the planets set that our last set of World Racers painted for us. Counting slowly, carefully, heel to toe, heel to toe, the kindergarten boys running circles around their group and falling to the ground to wrestle somewhere near Mars. 

 We've done coloring pages and watched awesome videos put out by the European Space Agency, spent two weeks talking about stars and planets and convincing them that there is so much more to the story than simply, "God made them." Let's discover together how very incredible this universe is. 

The day that Natacha marks out the solar system with them, we spend our staff meeting talking about planets and orbits and rotations and seasons. How do you get from Earth to Mars? Why are days and years different on different planets? Did you know that they found a planet made of X? Notebooks become planets on the floor, because we have teachers who genuinely love to learn and to discover and to share. 

 And, everyone know how far Neptune is. 

 Because, ya know, why not get super excited about things? Why not trust the five year olds with oil pastels and let the art teacher give watercolors to the three year olds, even though we don't have paint smocks yet? Why not read stories and more stories and more stories? 

 Why not take the time to be gentle with kids who are at an age where so few things are gentle? 

 The 2nd graders start their Mondays with paints and brushes and then move to the other side of the wall to cluster up into tight huddles and take turns reading stories out loud. History means sitting on the cool floor of our largest classroom, and, if they are lucky, being read another story. 

 Recess. Lunch, where yet another teacher reads yet another story. Writing, sprawled out on their stomachs, brand new notebooks in hand. Math with ten students and half as many teachers. French and the hope for a few minutes to play soccer or frisbee before the bus comes. 

 The youngest of this class is eleven. The oldest sixteen. Outside of these walls, they are fully aware of the complications of the world. Inside, even the boys can join in on competitive hopscotch games with their classmates and their teachers. 

 Here, they are kids. 

Sometimes sassy, feisty, impulsive kids. Sometimes super responsible ones. 

 Here, they are artists and readers, jokesters and math magicians. Here, they sometimes have grumpy teachers and sometimes are grumpy themselves. Here, they occasionally have to be reminded that it isn't worth it to fight the nine year old girl. Here, they occasionally have to be reminded that it isn't worth it to fight each other. 

 Here, we circle up each morning to remind each other that we are good listeners, that we are kind, that we are intelligent, and that we are the hardest workers in all of Haiti. 

 And, here, we know that, if the sun were the size of this rock, Neptune would be down the road and around the corner.