I work in a school and I received a few cards and presents from children, a lot of these had very touching personal motifs and elements that really reinforced the pleasure of my work and the relationships in it, that the kids had really thought about it.
None more so then a present by a kid I'm calling 'D'.
Now, D is a smart boy, he is short, very self-contained and with an inward self-confidence that is very rare in anybody. This is not to say he doesn't misbehave, nor to say that his work is not very often half-baked and rushed nonsense, but there is something in his attitude and mode that I find myself looking up to and wanting to emulate. In his own way he seems more mature then anyone else in the room - but at the same time is still very much an eight year old boy.
At the moment he is into the myth of the soldier, and when I tell the kids to line up or what have you he says in army style, 'sir, yes sir' with a salute. He even labelled a christmas present to me with that phrase.
The present itself was a box of walnut whip chocolates and a pure silk tie. Now, the tie must be an ultimate in masculine clothing, and I do wear a tie every day he sees me - as I find I can be as scruffy as you like, but if I have a tie, I pass the test of my bosses. This tie is, however a delicate shade of pink with beige spots - very popular with the city types, but not the sort of tie you'd expect the boy to choose.
Also, and most importantly, there was his card, it says;
"I wish you a merry chrismas and a happy new year. Hope presents are good and live a good life choose the wright path"
Then he has drawn an illustration of this, not offering a typical crossroads but a three pronged path resembling a 'w'.
These are then labelled with good at the far left, bad on the far right and normal in the middle... and I find that to show great perspicacity, a real grasp on the nature of things, there is good, bad and normal. That the 'wright' path is not necessarily the normal one.. it made me smile.
(It also made me smile that in the card he had drawn a present, then the equals side, then a tie, which he'd labelled 'tie' incase I couldn't work it out from his picture.)
