The last few days have been great. The Jewish holiday of Shavuot (marking when we received the 10 commandments) was celebrated on Monday and Tuesday, so I had a few days off from work. For me, these days off can only mean one thing - swimming!
We have a wonderful pool area in our community and there are no less then 3000 small children in there at any given moment. Kids in the pool and parents on their chaises....it was an ECE observer's petrie dish!
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not some 24/7 kid voyeure. I don't seek opportunities in my free time to stare at kids. I TRIED to just lay there and get a tan. I TRIED to read my summer novel. I TRIED to swim laps and ignore the little guys. I even talked to a few grown ups in order to keep occupied. But it didn't work. My little eye and my third ear kept listening for and watching for something interesting, something that could give me new insight on children.
What do you think was at the pool? There were children splashing and kicking and playing. There were children screaming and laughing, one was running incessantly (completely disregaring the lifeguard) and others were simply standing in the water, goggles on their heads, staring.
What I saw was a little girl who was excited to see that she could kick her feet and make the water splash. She had no interest in stopping this new activity, even if it meant that she kicked other kids, or splashed another adult. She kicked me on accident. I look up at her, and she stared at me, not knowing what to do. I said, "was that an accident?" she said "uh huh", I said, "well then that's OK keep kicking!" So she did. But I noticed that she kept looking at me while she did it. And she wouldn't stop. It was getting a bit eery. Stop staring at me! What? Do I have something on my face? I got out of the water, just a little freaked out. She followed me with her eyes. What was it that had her attention? If she keeps staring at me I can't observe her anymore. Stop it, kid. That's it, I am going to watch someone else.
The boy who was standing in the water (the shallow end), with his goggles on his eyes, face down in the water. {Actually this reminded my of my friend Ronya's little girl who had her "gobbles" over her eyes, and could not see at all, so she kept crossing her eyes trying to look at us, or would rock her head back and forth like Ray Charles, trying to focus on something. She had us laughing so hard and had no idea why!} Anyway, this guy was staring, face down, into the water. WHAT was he looking at? I had to know. So I swam near him and looked down at the bottom of the pool. Nothing. I went under and opened my eyes. Nothing. The chlorine was really high and my eyes started to burn, but I couldn't stop. I needed to see what he saw. I tried it one more time, and had to stop because my eyes were burning. I looked up. This little guy was looking at me like I had 3 heads. What? I am looking at the pool just like you. Stop looking at me. I was just playing. You don't need to stare at me...
This happened often. Kids in the pool, without their parents, were very active, then when I started to observe them, they would stare me down until I stopped. Fascinating. They don't do that in a preschool. But in school they know their teacher is just a few feet away. At school I am introduced as a friend. But here I am a stalker. Is this an innate defense mechanism? Like a skunk with his smell, these kids offend their predator by staring at them silently until they leave. If they were those dinosaur birds they would have probably spit on me.
So what did I learn? I learned that I really need to be more creative when I observe children. I also learned that there is something on the bottom of the pool...
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