It's All About Driving The Bus
First, I want to share with you a transcript from Linus's daycare class yesterday. They start each day with a group conversation, and then the teachers print this out so parents can get a sense of a part of their child's day.
Teacher-"Who remembers what we talked about yesterday, about MLK? What did he do?"
Deven-"Um, he died."
Teacher-"Yes, he did. But what did he do in his life?"
Benji-"He broke laws because they were bad laws."
Dominic-"He used his manners."
Teacher-"Yes, he did. He was a civil rights leader. Grace and her family brought a book in about his life that I will read to you now (read book about MLK). He drove out hate (referring to quote in the book), what does that mean?"
Grace-"It means he made hate go away."
Teacher-"Right. (Continues to read about Rosa Parks and the bus boycott.) Now, does anyone have anything to share about MLK?"
Emma-"Uh, he died."
Benji-"He was stabbed in the hand."
Sarah-"Yes, he was stabbed because some people were angry and didn't want change and didn't use their words."
Jacob-"Was he a policeman?"
Teacher-"No, he wasn't. He was a reverend and a civil rights leader."
Deven-"Why did MLK get shot?"
Teacher-"Because he made a lot of changes and some people were very mad."
Grace-"MLK was standing in the door and he was there."
Linus-"People were mad because he wanted to change things and they wanted things to stay the same."
Benji-"When MLK was standing there someone took a gun and shot him."
Claudia-"My mom told me Martin the King wanted to get on the bus and my mom wanted to look at my picture of Martin the King."
Whew. OK. Sorry for the long transcript. You will note the general sense of confusion about MLK that the kids have. Was he stabbed in the hand? Was he shot? One thing is for sure, they know he died. I put Linus's quote in bold because my eyes kept returning to his words over and over again. "Yes!", I thought to myself, my chest swelling with Liberal Pride. "He gets it. He remembered what we talked about in the car yesterday, and now he knows that there are forces in this world who would have us not change, not move forward, but that we can...no, we shall overcome them!" I was like Ned Flanders at Todd's violin recital. "My son! My son!"
During dinner, we asked him what he learned about Rosa Parks. He was like, "Who?" We refreshed his memory a bit: "You know, the lady on the bus." That got him going. "Oh, yeah. They didn't want her to sit on the bus." We asked, "Did she get in trouble?" He said that she had to go to jail, and as far as he was concerned, this part of our conversation was over.
But Jane and I persisted, just to make sure he understood why she went to jail. At least, that might be why Jane was asking. I was asking because I was ready to hear my Little Enlightened Man put forth his newly-formed views on equality and justice. Why, perhaps he was even ready to begin talking about civil disobedience as well?
Jane asked, "Why didn't they want Rosa Parks to sit at the front of the bus?"
Linus said, "They didn't want her to sit at the front of the bus because they wanted to drive the bus next, and they didn't want her to get in line to drive the bus."
Drive the bus? Perhaps he was speaking figuratively. We pressed further, and it turns out, the entire Rosa Parks story, for Linus, was a battle by people on the bus to get in line to see who would be next to drive the big bus. Because, you see, who wouldn't want to drive a big bus? Linus proceeded to tell us, in an earnest and matter-of-fact way, about how Rosa Parks got out of jail, then she ran after the bus and got back on it, but there was another woman who was already driving the bus, so she had to get in line again to wait her turn to drive the bus. Oh, and he also told us that MLK didn't help Rosa Parks, becaue he was dead.
At no point in the conversation did race or skin color enter Linus's depiction of events. Rosa Parks wanted to drive the bus, and since other people also wanted to drive the bus, they wanted her to go to the back of the line. This, of course, makes perfect sense in the mind of a four-year-old. It seems he will be color-blind for awhile longer. And that's not such a bad thing.
They are such imperfect little feedback loops. They get more than we can ever know, while simultaneously not even coming close to getting some of the things we assume they already have. We want so badly to usher him into the world, a world that we know will envelop him so much sooner than seems possible. Yet, despite our efforts to grow him up, he remains a four year old boy who can't fathom why anyone would make someone else go to the back of a bus for any other reason than that they want to drive that bus.
And I find myself occasionally remembering how wonderful it must be to be four years old, and reminding myself to let him be just that.
10:58:50 AM 
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