In Minds of Innocents, Days of Miracle and Wonder

It was a little after 8:30 a.m. and Shirley La Croix, a teacher of 25 years, was taking roll. “When you hear your name, raise your hand,” she says.

“Steven Reyes,” La Croix says.

The dark-haired boy near the back of the room raises his hand.

Continuing on down the list, she reads a few other names, then says, “Steven Umana.”

Again, the boy near the back raises his hand.

Welcome to the first day of first grade at Killybrooke Elementary School in Costa Mesa, where it’s better to be counted twice than not at all and where an adult seeking solace from a cynical world can find the perfect haven--full of laughs and poignant moments and other brilliant inventions that come out from the mouths and minds of 6-year-olds.

It’s a world of blue crayons and fish and the alphabet and lunch pails and remembering to raise your hand before talking. It’s a guileless age where just making the trek from 1 to 10 or from A to Z can be a thrilling journey. It’s a place where Natasha shows up 20 minutes late and Brandon, sitting across the aisle, leans over and says, “I’ll be your friend today.”

A plastic basket containing a box of eight crayons, scissors and a pencil awaited the children as they got to their desks. It seemed like a natural starting point for conversation.

“Alex, what’s in your basket?” La Croix says to the husky boy in Row 5.

“Carrots,” he replies.

It seems he was referring to a basket he had at home.

La Croix began talking and Alex raised his hand. “Is it important?” La Croix asks.

Yes, Alex says. “My brother was taking a bath, and when he got out of the water, the fish died.”

La Croix laments the fish’s passing and moves on. She starts talking but has to “shh” one of the girls; within moments, the girl is crying.

“I’m a bad girl,” she says.

“No, you’re not,” La Croix says reassuringly. The girl spends much of the rest of the morning lying in the aisle between the rows with her thumb in her mouth.

“You know what?” Alex says.

“What?” La Croix says.

“I have a flattop,” Alex says.

Curtis in Row 6 raises his hand to speak.

“Yes, Curtis,” La Croix says.

“These two are talking,” he says, pointing to the two girls behind him.

La Croix has the children copy three sentences from the blackboard. It’s an interesting object lesson in the head start that some kids get at home. Kim-anh, who was brought to school by a grandparent and who La Croix thinks has been in the country just a few months, apparently can’t speak any English, yet she copies the sentences in flawless penmanship. You picture a valedictorian in 12 years.

La Croix reads from a book about friends. “Do you have friends who make you laugh?”

“I make my mom laugh,” Brandon says.

La Croix talks about people in the book, referring to a picture of a school custodian. “He’s your friend,” she says, noting that, among other things, “he fills up the balls with air.”

A few minutes later, new principal Ned Hall sticks his head in to say hello to the students. “This is Mr. Hall,” La Croix says. “He’s your friend. Do you know what he does?”

“Fills up the balls with air?” Brandon says.

After 10 o’clock recess, La Croix asks for reports on the experience.

Ashley: “My friend and I were skipping together and she fell and got mud on her leg so we went into the bathroom and washed it off.”

Curtis: “When are we going to have lunch?”

La Croix shows the class an oversize bag of peanuts to gauge their sense of numbers. She asks the children to guess how many are in the bag, which must contain hundreds. The guesses ventured are 20, 60, 1,000 and 111.

At 11:30, La Croix says: “Who can tell me about something special that’s going to happen today?” Curtis raises his hand, and La Croix calls on him.

“Lunch,” he says.

It just so happens that this time he’s right.

It goes on like this until 2:13, when school’s out. Along the way, momentous things happen, things that should be caught on film, like at 1 o’clock when La Croix hands out the books that will teach these kids to read. Or, when Curtis raises his hand and says he’s thirsty. La Croix asks whether it’s an emergency, and he assures her it is, so he walks over and gets a drink.

As a visitor, you spend a day with these kids, and you realize the effect that teachers can have on young minds. You find yourself hoping veteran teachers like La Croix--strict enough to have rules, tough enough to enforce them and smart enough to know when to look the other way--never get burned out.

You see a class like this one--a melting pot of black, Asian, Latino and white children--and think this is what American public school classrooms should look like.

To borrow from songwriter Paul Simon, who coined the phrase for a different context, these are the days of miracle and wonder for these kids.

You make a silent wish that their days of miracle and wonder will continue long after they’ve grown tired of counting to 10 and saying the alphabet.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.