Teachers like Jesus

Good teachers use what they know to show you a bigger, bolder, more expansive world. They help you find your right place in it, and they build you up in love. 

Read here, or listen here.

How do you educate an 'above-average' girl?

Sermons and study take all my words. You can always read a sermon! (Just click on a link in the sidebar.)But I have nothing new for the blog. Instead, here's a piece I wrote for Zadok Perspectives way back in March 2014. I thought of it again as we have recently filled out the forms for high school.

***

“Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above-average.” With these words, Garrison Keillor hit the nail on the head: I live in a suburb where most kids are treated as above-average!

We expect big things from these ‘above-average’ kids; and so we are regularly caught up in conversations about high school. For decades, Victorian state government policies have pushed middle class families into private schools, with the result that rough boys and troubled kids make up a disproportionate part of the public school population. Parents of above-average, quiet girls know this, and are running scared.

As the mother of a bright and gentle ten-year-old, I experience this fear all the time. Surely, say friends, you wouldn’t send her to the local high school? Surely you wouldn’t sacrifice your daughter to your principles? When are you doing the private school scholarship exams?

And I waver. Of course I want her to have the best education possible; of course I want to give her every opportunity to thrive – and in our system, that implies private school. I have no doubt that she would be pushed harder and further at an excellent private school than at the local high, and I am also worried that classes at the local high will be more about discipline and less about teaching – so I feel scared, too!

But Jesus asks us to live in love, not fear; and when I set my fear aside, I remember that I have other concerns, too. I am concerned about the deep injustice of a two-tier system, where those who are privileged have access to private school, and those who are not, get a lower-status education. I am concerned that friendships with children who have a sense of entitlement and an assumption of privilege will affect my daughter’s expectations, and her soul. And I acknowledge that my daughter is deeply grounded and resilient; she’s not going to let a few rough boys push her around. So, holding these things in mind, I am trying to make a decision that best coincides with our faith, our values, and my daughter’s needs. And several things occur to me.

First, all children are precious in God’s eyes, not just my own kids. I can’t level the playing field and guarantee equal opportunity for all kids, but I can choose not to prioritise my own child’s access to education. Using the public system feels fairer.

Second, my daughter is already salt, light and yeast in the world. She brings her qualities – keen intellect, calm self-assurance, warm hospitality, quiet maturity, a sense of fairness – into every classroom she enters. These gifts will be valuable anywhere, but especially in a place where they are in shorter supply. Instead of removing yet another bright, gentle girl from the public education system, what is needed is for her, and many others like her, to stay.

Finally, I want her to keep loving across boundaries in the particular, not in the abstract. I don’t want her to love ‘those refugees’ or ‘those poor people’ or ‘those indigenous kids’ out there somewhere. I want her to love like Jesus: to love her neighbour, and for her neighbour to be, quite often, unlike her. I want her to stay with her friend for whom she takes a piece of fruit every day; her buddy who doesn’t speak English; those kids she’s friendly with who have low IQs or Asperger’s syndrome or who otherwise make her classroom interesting. Our local high school includes upper middle class to sub working class kids; kids as thick as two planks and kids who are well above-average; kids from 52 nationalities; and kids with various mental health problems. I reckon it’s a pretty good place to practice being a Christian.

Private school may be able to provide a fast-track to university and access to those who will one day be powerful; private school may grant more opportunities for extension; private school may be both more empowering and kinder than the local high. On the other hand, the local high will grant my daughter more opportunities to be a Christian: to be salt, light and yeast in the world; to love across boundaries; to be closer to the margins.

And Jesus never asked us to maximise our opportunities or to race to the top of the ladder. Instead, he told us to love God and one another – from this, everything else flows. So if learning to love is the be all and end all of our life’s work and calling, the local high might be the better choice. Even for an above-average girl.

How to cut down a school tree

Before you cut it down, get two opinions. Ensure you can’t save it before arranging to have it felled.

While it’s still standing, visit each class. Explain what is going to happen, and why. Let the children ask questions. Answer them. Send a letter home to each family and let them know. Offer to answer their questions, too.

Hold a short ceremony at the base of the tree. Let the children tell stories. Honour the tree. Name the gifts of shade and clean air, and the place for birds and bugs and butterflies to rest. Acknowledge the countless times children have played among the roots, leaned against the trunk, and gazed into the branches. Say good-bye.

Have it felled. Have the branches sawn into six foot lengths, and scatter them around the grounds. The children will build them into cubbies. Have the trunk sawn into logs, and leave them in the schoolyard, too. Children will walk, climb, balance and sit on the logs, and watch the shadows dance.

Keep a special disc. Sand and polish it, and hang it in the front office for all to see.

Use a good arborist. He will leave a five foot trunk, and carve it into a throne.

***

A large old tree had to be removed from my daughters’ school recently. This is how it happened. Given the deep connections that many children form with special trees, it seemed just about right. Thanks Trevor and Chris and everyone else involved in the process.

Farewell to school reading

For nearly five years, I have spent a couple of hours each week reading with kids at a local primary school. Most of the kids at that school are from a refugee background; many of their parents had very little schooling themselves; and books and reading are rarely part of their home life. Many of the kids come from large families, and so even those parents who might be able to provide reading support in the classroom tend to be at home caring for younger children.

Yet children need assistance to learn to read, preferably one on one. A teacher in a classroom doesn’t have time to read with every student every day; this is where volunteers come into play. Most middle class schools have a host of parents who volunteer in the classroom. At this school, because of the family situations of the students, other adults step in.

We volunteers can’t provide the daily reading with each child that is recommended; and yet even our few hours are something. What, I’m not always sure. There are many weeks when the reading is the point – I see a kid make a leap in fluency, or really understand a concept. Other weeks, the relationship is the point, and I was given the bangle in the photograph to prove it! Still other weeks, the point might be nothing more than to show through our actions to a group of kids that not all Australians are hostile to refugees.

They are all good reasons to be there, and yet I feel like it’s time to wind up my involvement. Stop reading with these fantastic kids, stop traipsing down once a week for even that little while, and start doing something else with my time. The problem is, having once committed, I struggle to step away – especially since I have no pressing reason not to.

Moreover, I am aware that I am the powerful one in these relationships. I can choose to be involved, or to move on; whatever I do, people will still be grateful for the paltry efforts I have put in. Meanwhile, the kids turn up to school week after week without the educational consolidation that many other kids’ home lives provide; they have no choice in the matter. For several months now I have grappled with these entwined feelings – that I have had enough, and that I feel guilty about stopping – as I try to decide what I will commit to this year.

One morning late last year, as I was preparing to head down, I received a text from the school reminding me that it was mini-Eid. This meant that almost no kids were at school, and so there was no point in me going. I unexpectedly had the morning off. So I dropped my daughter at kinder, then basked in the freedom. I didn’t do anything amazing: I hung out the washing, wrote a blog post, checked my emails, read a chapter of a book, and picked up my daughter again. And it was fantastic – an unexpected gift, a few hours to centre down in what had been a busy week.

More, I felt deeply relieved. I was glad to be home, glad not to be negotiating books and behaviour, glad not to answer the same questions that I am asked every week. ‘Can I call you Alice?’ (No, my name is Alison); ‘Where’s your little daughter?’ (at kinder, you know that!); ‘How will she go on your bike?’ (on the trailer, which is parked at kinder); ‘Why you cut your hair short like a boy’s? Tsk, so ugly!’ (I like it that way); and so on.

The deep relief I experienced when I stayed home is a clue, I think, that my involvement in the school should come to an end. My low grade annoyance at the weekly questions is another. If I am tired by these kids and this situation, I am not giving them my best; there are many days when I struggle not to get cranky.

It’s not that there isn’t a pressing need; it’s just that, for whatever reason, I am no longer the one to meet it. In this world, there are billions of pressing needs, and billions of people to meet them. I am not indispensable. I have to trust that, if I let this go, someone else will step into my shoes – with any luck, someone more gentle, more humorous, and better with kids. And I have to trust that, if I let this go, something else will arise to which I can offer my time, and my self.

A letter to everyone who has asked about the new school

 

I am often asked about our new school. We've been there about a month and I'm enjoying the honeymoon period, even as I feel sad about the many parents and relationships I have left behind. I can't keep up with a schoolful of parents, and I miss saying hello, comparing shoes, sharing a joke or talking about the weather with people that I know.

But the new school! What a relief! It's like coming home.

What shall I describe? The welcome? The principal who warmly greets the students every morning at a short assembly, and revs them up for the day? The teachers who have invited me to visit their classroom any time; who have identified my daughters' strengths and weaknesses and gently pushed them already? The kids who have asked my girls to birthday parties, and who have quickly become friends? The parents who have come up to me in the playground and introduced themselves? The good conversations I've had, coffee in hand, with new acquaintances on the deck of the school canteen?

Should I describe the transformation in my children? Last year, school refusal; this year, eager anticipation? Last year, chicken scratch; this year, beautifully formed letters? Last year, constant daily squabbling; this year, quiet cheerfulness?

Should I write about the shift in me, from anxiety to confidence, from being overwhelmed by anger to being flooded by gratitude? By the end of last year I had nothing but scathing contempt for school, and felt sick with guilt when I had to leave my kids there; we took many days off. This year, I feel confident that they are in good hands. One friend, who moved with us from our old school to our new, looked appraisingly at me in the playground last week. 'There's something different,' she said, 'I haven't seen you smile in a school playground for a year, now you smile all the time.'

But I don't think I'll tell you about these things; I will write about the grounds, instead. The red brick school is built on a hilltop; the land slopes sharply down to chickens, veggies, and rambling gardens dotted with climbing frames, fruit trees, eucalypts and cubbies. At the bottom of the hill, the ground flattens into a wide oval. The breeze roars up from the south and dances in the treetops. Five miles from the city centre, a large freeway to the west: yet it feels like the middle of the country.

In the grounds stands an old windmill, mounted on a steel frame. My six-year-old climbed the frame the other day, to just below the blades. I was still in the grounds and saw her, so I went over and called her down, suggesting that getting her hair caught in a windmill blade was probably not a good idea. I was also a bit worried about the host of other kids who, inspired by her, were now trying to clamber up.

I've come from a school where control became the order of the day. Parents were allowed in the school in very limited capacities; the grounds were locked at nights and weekends; my daughter was constantly shouted at for climbing; almost everything was presented as an unacceptable risk. I mentioned my daughter's exploit to our new vice principal, to gauge her response. 'Hmm,' she said, 'perhaps suggest to her that she can climb it on the weekend, just not in school hours.'

'Sure,' I said. Inside I was turning cartwheels. Where once she would have been yelled at, here she has been given an appropriate time and an invitation. Here, she can be a kid and take good risks. Here, the gates are never locked. We are all welcome at any time, on any day.

I was expecting the transition to be long, slow and difficult, but it has been a dream. My nine-year-old is radiant; she frequently describes a school day as 'the best I've ever had'. My six-year-old has said the same thing. A cheeky active kid, she also said, 'I love this school. I don't get yelled at all day.' She is experiencing steady, calm discipline, and in its quiet predictability she has relaxed – and finds it easy to behave.

I am so grateful that, where last year I withdrew from everything, this year I am signing up for things: the canteen; reading in the classroom; and the chook roster. Next week, we will go in on Saturday and Sunday, let the chooks out, give them clean water, and have a long play. I can't wait to see my daughter up the windmill again then. And from that vantage point, maybe she can blow the old school a raspberry.

Though not at the people. We do miss you.

A short conversation which makes it abundantly clear why we need to spend time with different people

The kid: Not many Muslim teachers, in fact only one at this school.

Me: When you and your cousins and your friends grow up, some of you can become teachers and then there will be more Muslim teachers in the schools.

The kid: Yes! And then one day they will all be Muslim teachers inshallah.

Me: Well, that rules me out.

The kid (long pause as he cocks his head to one side and looks at me, then): Maybe we could work together.

Why I no longer draw with my children

 

So many children are easily discouraged about their creative abilities. Even my own.

I first realised this while drawing. I love to draw, but for all my resolutions, I rarely make the time to do it. Every now and then, however, when my kids were drawing and I had a few minutes, I would sit down at the end of the table, pull over a piece of paper, and begin to sketch. Within minutes they would stop, every time; and it took me years to notice.

Why are you stopping? I'd ask.

Because I can’t draw, they'd say.

And so I'd say useless things like, We all draw differently just as we all have different singing voices; what you’re doing is fantastic; and if you’re looking at mine you need to remember I’ve had 30 years’ more practice. But it was too late; they’d have shoved the paper away by then.

Worse still, they might then ask me to draw an elephant or whatever, because they ‘couldn’t’. Sometimes I did, but then I felt like I’d failed them; sometimes I didn’t, and they made me feel so mean. Yet I couldn't see how me doing their drawing helped them to develop a style or build confidence, so I finally solved the problem by refusing to draw with them at all.

 

I ran into a similar issue at school. I read and write with school kids in a one on one program. During first semester of this year, I thought we could play with journaling. Each week I read out a story, we asked wondering questions, then we sat side by side writing a response to the questions raised by the story. And week after week, despite the constraints of shaping my handwriting to Victorian standard cursive, I’d still fall into my own little world and get lost in a story; and the kid would look over at some stage and sigh. Yes? I’d say, Would you like to share what you’ve done?

Nah, the kid would say; and then sometimes they’d exclaim that they couldn’t write. No matter what I said, and no matter how much praise I lavished on them, if the kid looked at my page of neat handwriting, discouragement would set in. Yet I was so desperate to write with anyone, even a seven year old, that it took me a while to realise what was happening.

Finally, I began to wonder about how I related to people who were ‘better’ than me. I have a very competitive streak, held firmly in check, and so I have always found it difficult to make friends with people who are smarter / more qualified / better at everything. Because I know this about myself and have worked on it for years, most of my friends are indeed smarter / more qualified / better at everything and my life has been enormously enriched by this; but it has taken me a long time to get to this place.

Even now, I struggle to go out on a limb in front of anyone except a child. I can write, sketch, sing loudly and do a dance if there’s a child needing to be drawn out; but never, never for an adult. I wouldn’t want to draw in front of a ‘real’ artist or write in front of a ‘real’ writer, so how could I expect a child to?

So I began opting out at school just as I did at home. Because I hate the idea of sitting there idly or, worse, watching, while a kid dreams and writes awhile, I take in the cryptic crossword. Now we do the reading and wondering together, then the kid is cut loose to respond while I scratch my head and fill in a few clues. They glance over from time to time and see my pathetic scratchings, and the mistakes crossed out, and all the empty boxes, and grin to themselves, then stick their nose back into their own story. At the end of the session my puzzle is still only a quarter filled in while their story, about something in which they are the only expert, is an accomplished piece: something to be really proud of; and the only one left feeling like an idiot is, very happily, me.

PS - I came across this piece on *not* drawing for children; it clearly articulates that towards which I am fumbling.

Pictures show my oldest daughter's portrait of 'Sam' from Sam and the Tigers, a gorgeous Black reclamation of the story of Little Black Sambo by Julius Lester and Jerry Pinkney, drawn when she was three; and a spinning top, which she drew at 8 - the things she gets up to when I'm not looking!

Why every marriage proposal should be vetted by an 8 year old

I was sitting in a classroom reading with a kid. He's not a terrible reader, but he's much more interested in motorbikes and planes. As we tried to focus on a boring book about dogs, I happened to glance up and saw a skywriter working above us. I showed the kid, and we stopped and watched as the plane looped and turned.

M

A

What could he be writing, we wondered. Made? Match? Ma....

R

R

Marry?

Y

Yes.

M

E

Marry Me!

We wondered who.

E

L

Could it be the teacher, Ellie???? The kid was very excited for a minute.

A

Oh.

I

N

E

Marry Me Elaine

What sort of name is that? asked the kid.

I dunno, I said. But maybe a woman named Elaine is sitting in a fancy restaurant and some man is telling her to look out the window.

I

It keeps going!

*heart*

U

I *heart* you!!!

Wow.

Should she marry him?, I asked the kid. I reckon the skywriting cost as much as a second hand car.

Hmmm, he said as he rubbed his chin. That man's a show off. Maybe it would be better if she didn't marry him.

Then he shrugged, turned away from the window, and drew the plane.

Primary School Pentecost

 

The following piece appeared as a guest post on Communicating Across Boundaries, a lovely blog about faith, life and culture.

***

Every Tuesday I spend time in a classroom with kids from all over the world... Together, we read, write and tell stories; and this year, we are experimenting with journaling. On a recent Tuesday, we delved into a story about a ‘half’ birthday. Afterwards, a girl and I wondered. I wonder how the family crossed the busy road? I wonder why the birthday boy fell asleep? I wonder where their dog is running through the trees? I wonder why they celebrated a half birthday? I wonder why his sister took her dinosaur back? I wonder what we celebrate, and how?

To read more, click here.

Poems for all the Lovely People

 

When she's not cooking or cleaning or reading aloud or writing or singing, what on earth does a woman at home with kids do with her time? (Yes, I get asked this question occasionally.) Well, one of the other things I do each week is sit in a classroom reading and writing with a bunch of terrific kids, most of whom have a refugee background. It's great fun, and I freely admit I probably get more out of it than the kids do. You can read about one instance of 'more' here.

And just as, a year or two ago, I wrote a set of poems incorporating names from the classroom, over the last month I have again written a set of poems which include the class list, and collated the poems into a little illustrated book. It is no great poetic work, just a heap of lovin' fun to make some fantastic kids belly laugh. The book was debuted in class over the last two weeks; and each kid has taken home a copy to keep and read over the holidays. You, I am sure, have enough books to keep you occupied over the holidays, but here's a couple of the poems for the child in you.

***

Faiza (pronounced fay-zah)

Faiza plays a
Game of catch.
Away rolls the ball
Into a patch
Of shadow where the light grows dull.
Faiza runs and finds her ball.
Faiza gaze a-
cross the green.
Here comes a man with a mowing machine!
Faiza runs off with the ball
And bounces it against a wall.
Marbles, four square,
Hopscotch, hey!
Faiza plays the
Days away.

***

Ziad

Ziad's name means 'more than enough',
But enough of what? Well, that's a bit tough.
Is it dozens of smiles? An abundance of brains?
Plenty of sunshine? Or showers of rain?
Does he have a herd of elephants
To carry him through the streets?
A great big pile of umbrellas and hats
To shade him from the heat?
Outside his window perhaps he sees
A fleet of shining cars
Or looking up above at night
A universe of stars.

Or could this 'more' be what he gives
As he fills our lives with joy?
Whatever it is, however he lives,
Ziad is our abundant boy!

***

Jibreel

How does it feel, Jibreel, to be
Climbing the branches of a tree,
Pushing through leaves way up high,
Arms reaching out to touch the sky?

How does it feel, Jibreel, to run
Round the oval in the sun
Through the grass or kicking a ball
And hearing it thud against the wall?

How does it feel, Jibreel, to rest
Down in the shade with one of your best
Friends in the world, chatting away?
How do you feel, Jibreel, today?

***

Why did I start reading with these kids? Click here to find out.

Mortimer, Mohammed and Me

This piece appeared in Zadok Perspectives No. 111 (Winter 2011). The Spring edition is out now, with my reflection on praying into the night.

***

Mortimer, Mohammed and Me

Every Friday, I spend a few hours reading with kids at a local school. I listen to each child read their reader, and then I offer them a choice: they can go back to the classroom activity, or they can have a story read to them, which they choose from the books I bring in. Mostly, they want to listen to a story; and mostly, they choose a little book by Robert Munsch, called Mortimer.

Mortimer can’t sleep, so instead he sings loudly (‘Bang-bang, rattle-ding-bang, Gonna make my noise all day’) and drives his family crazy. Person after person comes upstairs to tell Mortimer to be quiet, but as soon as they reach the bottom of the stairs he starts singing again. Eventually, the family becomes so agitated that they start yelling at each other; and while Mortimer waits for someone else to come up, he falls fast asleep.

As you can imagine, it is a very loud book. I have to sing Mortimer’s song four times; and mimic the sound of lots of people coming upstairs and shouting at him; and evoke the noise of Mortimer’s mother and father and seventeen brothers and sisters and even the police yelling downstairs – this book is a riot.

Meanwhile the listening child sits, spellbound; sings Mortimer’s song along with me; and almost invariably gets the giggles.

I read Mortimer aloud fifteen to twenty times each week; and at times I find myself wanting to rush. They’ve all heard it before, many times. There are very few volunteers and lots of kids, and I would like to read with every child every week – but I can’t. I find myself thinking that if we hurry this story or read less of the reader or maybe even give up reading stories but focus on the readers instead, then I’ll get to one more, and one more, and one more, child.

Yet the whole point is to give these kids, mostly refugees with very few books at home, the opportunity to wallow in stories just as my own children have wallowed. We can’t do that in a rush.

So I work hard to breathe deep; to sit on the class list so it doesn’t catch my eye; to read fast when the story begs to be read fast; to read slow when the story begs to be drawn out; to make room for quiet spaces and expectant pauses; and to look at the face of each child and etch it onto my heart.

One Friday, I was reading Mortimer for perhaps the seventeenth time, as always achingly aware of the kids I wouldn’t get to and wrestling with the impulse to race. I glanced at Mohammed, listening with rapt attention, and I suddenly realised that we were on God’s time.

Between two words, I dropped into that great yawning space, that vast universe where there is more than enough time for love however long it takes; and in this spinning dizzying sense of the infinite I was surrounded by a great rumble of belly laughter, a deep chuckling, love wiping its eyes in hilarity at the story of Mortimer and at all the little boys and girls who drive their parents crazy, and at all the crazy adults who think that love can be scheduled or rushed.

And then I was back at school, where I found myself sitting on the carpet singing ‘Bang-bang, rattle-ding-bang, Gonna make my noise all day’ and beside me Mohammed was now singing, his face aglow, and I started to hoot and he got the giggles and a classmate joined in and another picked up the thread of song, and surrounding us all were the floating filaments, the echoes of heavenly laughter.

(The boy’s name has been changed. Robert Munsch has a fantastic website where you can look at his books and listen to stories; Mortimer is here.)

Racing cars and muddy puddles

Every week, I spend an hour or two at a local primary school listening to kids read.* All the kids are refugees, all from the Horn of Africa. All but one are Muslim. Elsewhere I have reflected that African and Muslim kids, in fact kids from anything other than white middle class backgrounds, are rarely represented in children's story books. Not only are most kids in stories white, but most families have mums AND dads, both parents are around whenever the story takes place, and everyone lives in a house. In contrast, of course, in the world of this school kids are black; families have one parent, two parents, several aunties, or an older sibling in charge; and everyone lives in a flat.

These kids don't look like the kids in storybooks. Not only that, but before I was given a copy of the class roll, I had never seen these kids' names in print. How will it affect these children, I wondered, to never see their own names in stories? Will the lack of familiar names or situations be a stumbling block to those who are struggling to read? Will they see stories as always being about 'other' children, white children with English names? Will it create in them a longing to assimilate, to make their names and their lives more English; or will it create a desire to hold back from the dominant culture?

With these questions and no answers in mind, I wrote a set of (really really bad) rhymes which incorporate the names of all the kids in the class. Two boys go for a ride in a racing car; four girls climb a tree; a group of boys slide and fall in a muddy puddle. I've tested the rhymes on my daughters, who asked me to read them over and again, so that counts as a pass in my book; I only hope they'll meet the classroom test, where the kids can't sit still and don't like to be impressed!

This class in particular is extremely high energy. I feel like I'm in a room with 19 rubber balls, all bouncing randomly. A few weeks ago they had an emergency teacher, and it was like watching a man carrying too many oranges. First one slipped, then the next, and before you knew it there were oranges rolling everywhere. It was total chaos; I found it hilarious. I'm riding the energy of these little kids, even as I set boundaries and demand certain behaviours. And I'm falling in love with the lot of them. One by one, these children have found the cracks in my heart and crept right in.

In this surprise development, this unlooked-for falling in love, I find myself tapping into a whole new source of energy. Bleary exhaustion is my usual state, what with three small children of my own who often ALL wake at night; and yet I have all sorts of small ideas for these kids, nudging my attention and demanding to be heard. Little things, anything, which may get one kid or another stuck into books.

A few weeks ago I took in a teddy dressed up as a character from a story they had read and re-told the story aloud. I fed them cake to congratulate them on their work so far and discovered they know how to be quiet if there's cake involved. One bright boy, slippery as an eel and as hard to draw close, refuses to get out his reader, so I make him read the first paragraph of whatever book is in my bag - Patrick O'Brian, William Gibson, whatever. Last week, to his disgust, he had to read the first paragraph of a book about marriage; this week I suspect he'll bring his own! I'm dreaming up short poems about giggling girls and boys peeking in cupboards; and I'm quietly, gratefully wondering what's next.

You see, the small act of reading with children has led to all sorts of playfulness, a minor blossoming. I get home each Friday and flop in a chair with a cup of tea. With any luck, my 1 and 3 year olds are both resting and I have twenty minutes to doze, and listen for the next prompt, the next nudge. After this story, this cake, these poems, what? I wait. Some new idea, some surprise is just around the corner; my job is simply to recognise it, accept it, however silly it seems, and put it into action.

*If you want to read about how I got myself into this, click here.

Searching for Small

Growing up in social-justice-y type circles, I thought that one day, I should save the world. Anything less would fall short of the mark. The only puzzle was who, or what, to focus on. After all, there are thousands of issues which need urgent attention: indigenous health, war games, Iraq, mandatory detention, water usage, expanding cities... the list is endless. But which was I to work for? Which would be my Big Cause?

These situations are desperately important, but none of them felt close to my heart. I volunteered with this organisation and that, and wrote lots of letters, and longed for a different world. But I never relaxed into any cause. Instead, I had kids.

The polar ice caps are melting, and overpopulation looms. Perhaps we shouldn't have had them. But for the most part I've delighted in them, positively wallowed in the experience. I love to watch them grow. And they've been the catalyst for my own growing up, my blossoming. I never published an essay until I had a baby; I never even thought to try. But with the shattered self, the re-building, and the newfound confidence that a baby engenders, I found myself attempting different things, asking more of myself and of life.

And also less. For at one level, I still feel niggles of doubt. Is raising kids really so important? Are small actions each week enough? Or should we all be leading great movements a la Martin Luther King Jr or Gandhi? I have often heard Buechner's suggestion that our call, or vocation, lies at the intersection of our greatest joy and the world's deepest need. But most of us struggle to name our greatest joy, let alone align it with the world's needs. And the world's needs are so big, so desperate, that it is impossible to see how we might have an impact. No one of us will be able to effect drastic change, but rather than think small, we give up.

Yet we are mortal. We are all of us little people, frail people. How else should we think, but small?

Surely, just as our lives are small but good, so might our deeds be small but good. Whether it's a moment's hospitality or graciousness, or something more intentional, perhaps there are little spaces where our happiness overlaps with the needs of others.

Let me tell you a story. Over the last few years, in reading to my own children, I have realised that reading children's stories gives me enormous pleasure. After a long time, it occurred to me that children other than my own might like having stories read with them. I wondered about school reading, but my daughter's class has so many parent volunteers, at least one of whom is working on her PhD, that I had no real interest in offering to help. I wondered about reading at other places, but nothing really worked out. I even thought about reading at another school, where most of the students are refugees. But I didn't know how to approach it, or who to ask. I sat on the idea, like a chicken with an egg, and waited.

One day, a friend forwarded me an email from this school. They were seeking new books for the kids, because most of the students had no books in their homes. I wept for these kids who had so little, and the egg began to crack. Then I contacted the coordinator, and told her about my idea. She was delighted, and so now I go in to listen to kids reading. The egg has hatched.

For an hour or so each week, I lie on the carpet at the back of a classroom and get quizzed on Harry Potter by boys with gappy teeth, and share naughty smiles with shy girls over the antics of the father Berenstein bear. We struggle to spell out long words, and talk about meaning, irony, irregular verbs and whatever else crops up - in very simple language, of course. Meanwhile my baby empties the classroom rubbish bin, eats pencil shavings, and is adored by 20 little kids.

It's small, very small, and so much fun that I can't believe it's useful. I get to listen to children's stories, and make jokes, and laugh. The kids get one on one attention with an odd lady in stripy socks, and a baby to play peekaboo with. My love of stories overlaps with the kids' need for someone to listen. It's not big. It won't make shockwaves or change the world. I'm not the only volunteer there; I'm not necessary. But if I can be just one link in a chain of people who welcome a young boy into the world of books, if it makes school just that little bit easier for a traumatised girl, then it is more than enough. I don't even need to know if it has these hoped-for effects; given the joy of the weekly encounter, the sheer fun of it, it must be good.

I figure that, all things considered, this is what I am called to do - on Friday mornings, at least. It's not much. But it meshes my love for books with a child's need for a reading partner. And it is particular, local, small.

I hope that in doing this one small thing, and seeing where it takes me, then I too might grow. And if, as they say, one thing leads to another, I reckon a thousand small things might lead to a life transformed. And who knows where a few lives transformed might lead? Perhaps... but that's another story.