Listen to thisWith glowing cheeks and warmth in the heart I made my way to the
assembly hall of my children's school to watch the annual school
Christmas play. Two of my three kids were involved in the
production; one in the choir and the other as the drummer for the school
band. Holding hands with my beautiful daughter, we sat in the
middle of the crowd somewhere, filled with anticipation and looking
forward to the show. About an hour later we politely applauded,
and along with other parents and siblings pretending to have been
impressed we proceeded to the exit. Once I had retrieved my two
boys, we walked home, slightly irritated by the cold but overall
committed to the cause of getting there; my kids because they were
tired, and I because I knew I had a stash of red wine and something else
that goes well with it waiting for consumption once the kids were
confirmed asleep.
Much effort goes into the production of Christmas plays. Teachers
work hard to get the kids organized, find costumes, create the play
itself and inform parents of the event. The band rehearses, the
kids practice their lines, the stage is set up. Chairs have to be
brought in from the classrooms, the lost and found box is prominently
displayed at the entrance so that it might be relieved from its
overflowing condition and the principal is busy greeting and taking
credit for the welcoming, progressive and all-around fantastic school
spirit on display this night. All over town battery chargers are
humming for hours prior to the event in anticipation of getting a
serious workout during the show; capturing the memory of children being
ever so cute by feeding energy to cameras depending on the blood-mined
Colton from the decidedly un-Democratic Republic of Congo.
At the risk of offending, let me attempt a review of the play on this
wonderful, wintery, holiday-spirited night. It is not easy to find
the appropriate words; my language repertoire seems oddly under-equipped
to label, nay, characterize the proceedings. I want to give credit
where credit is due, find words to express my appreciation for the
efforts of so many, words that may capture the cuteness and wonders of
childhood. In some way, I find myself pressed to capture the
goodness, the wondrous, magical, indeed wunderbar experience unfolding
in front of my very eyes. Perhaps it is best to use imagery to do
justice to the sounds and sights of the play, so here it goes:
Picture Mozart having a bowel movement; Tolstoy spilling ink on his
nearly completed War and Peace; England participating in an
international soccer tournament, Richard Dawkins at the Gates of Heaven,
Colin Powel proving the existence of WMDs in Iraq, Steven Segal starring
in the remake of Gone with the Wind, Thom without the h– ...
Just to clarify; the kids involved in the play did everything they were
supposed to do. They sang when prompted, recited their
mono-syllable lines when asked to, moved from one side of the stage to
the other as scripted and dutifully wore their costumes designed by a
distant cousin of Liberace. The play itself, however, was about as
exciting and meaningful as a colorblind parrot searching for a mate: “yep, you look good I guess, so to keep Charles happy, let’s get this
done”. My happiest thought throughout the performance was the
realization that my next CYC-net column was being created as I endured
the pain and suffering associated with imagining Segal moving in on the
lips of the stunning Vivian Leigh.
So how do I get from Amadeus” toilet habits to Child and Youth Care
practice? Well, it is all about expectations. The
apocalyptic nature of the performance was not the result of a lack of
effort on the part of those who created it; nor was it the outcome of
poor implementation on the part of the kids. Everyone did exactly
what was expected of them, and that was precisely the problem. The
planning for the performance went something like this:
Meeting expectations is only a good thing if the expectations themselves
are impressive, grand, shoot for the stars, seek the extraordinary, aim
to change, rebel against the norm, create and re-create the
possibilities, reflect the infinity of opportunity. Anything less
is mundane, boring, affirming of mediocrity, limitations and
never-ending logistical meandering. Kids certainly have the
capacity to live up to enormous expectations. Far from being taxed
to the limit when asked to memorize five-word lines for a stupid play,
they can accurately and effortlessly memorize the Japanese names of 200
Pokemon or Yugio characters; they can pick up a stick and imagine a war
in which no one dies and they still get to be the hero; some can endure
the tragedy of child soldiers and then speak out to the world about the
associated horrors; others can stand in front of the General Assembly of
the United Nations and implore world leaders to take action on behalf of
Children's Rights.
All children can do far more than what we ask of them; all children
imagine themselves doing far more than what they are actually doing.
All children, including those living in institutional care, those
condemned in youth justice bureaucracies, those abused and neglected by
family or others, those finding themselves wandering the streets with
nowhere to go, those living in desperate poverty and those affected by
mental health or developmental challenges hold deep within their hearts
and minds the secret of their very own and very special greatness.
We will not unleash the power of these secrets by presenting our
children with expectations that carry one message only: you are
small and stupid, and therefore I expect of you to perform as small and
stupid.
It’s 2011. Another year, another chance at turning the tide.
So to everyone involved with children I say this: don’t aim for the
banal. Aim for the incredible. Whatever you are doing, do it
better. Whatever gear you might be in, shift up. Have
expectations of yourself and others that seem ridiculous, impossible,
laughably out of touch with reality. Because reality is just an
artifact. Every moment, every activity, every expectation ought to
be extraordinary. And everything ought to be memorable. And
children and youth everywhere ought to go to bed each night believing
they were part of something special, something great, something awesome.
Expect miracles – nothing less.
