My mom arrived for a visit yesterday, and was an instant Rock Star with my kids. Someone they love who has no dishes to wash, or phone to answer, and who could not be more delighted to sit and read twenty-seven books in a row!

Now, Rock Star is not my mom’s most natural persona, but she adapted well and soaked in the love, and smiles, and hugs, and exuberant attention. Then, Princess Imagination decided that it was time to play her favorite game. The result gave me a new appreciation for ways to teach my driven little daughter.

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Teaching Class

 

When she grows up, my daughter wants to be a teacher

art

or maybe math

definitely grade school.

She likes to be in control.

She’s practicing already,

but her little brother is not a very willing student.

 

Gra’ma’s arrival means a happy partner in the practice classroom,

a student for her lessons,

who doesn’t bore the mini-teacher with distracting stories,

about the real-life classrooms she once taught,

or eight full years of teaching me at home.

Gra’ma is content to play the game.

 

Out comes the Easel, and the teacher-voice.

Perhaps she chooses math because this is Gra’ma’s subject,

or perhaps because her genes run true,

and numbers captivate her own well-structure mind.

 

Unfortunately, today she over-reaches

she can’t yet calculate below the zero line.

My eavesdropping ears tilt forward,

anxious for the sounds of six-year-old frustration,

when she cannot pretend to master all.

 

But somehow, there is only laughter

and a willing switch of teachers.

Gra’ma draws a number line,

begins a clear and helpful explanation

but

Princess Imagination doesn’t really want to learn

she wants to teach again.

 

So, a new lesson now: patterns

and Gra’ma sits and listens,

answers simple questions,

gives attention to the little teacher,

and as she does, teaches an important lesson by example.

The greatest teachers

are always ready

to learn.