During a spring storm, a group of
fourth-graders are considering how their lives will change.
I’ve asked them to think about anything that might be
different for them tomorrow, or even 30 years down the road. A
bunch of hands go up, and the first student I call on looks out the
window and says, “The drought will end.”
The next boy
says, “Grandpa will give me the ranch.”
Like a lot of
people I work with at South Routt Elementary in Yampa, Colo., these
children live close to the land. They’re growing up with the
weight of a ranching ethic; they know more than I ever will about
cattle, hay and weather.
My job is to teach them how to
write. I try to get them to feel, analyze and communicate. I try to
get them to think lyrically. I believe it’s an important job.
Some of the parents in our tiny district worry about the limited
number of programs an elementary school with just 172 students can
provide. The principal and superintendent worry about disappearing
funds and declining enrollment.
Next year, the sixth
grade, which used to be part of the middle school in the next town
over, will be moving into our building. Our district is losing one
of only four administrators, as well as two teaching positions. We
all worry about the budget and what is best for our kids.
So I teach poetry, lessons on “writerly” voice, figurative
language, sentence fluency. One girl reads about her ranch, where
there is “a sweet smell of fresh stacked hay” and “where hills and
fields are covered in hungry cows.” She tells how the piglet thinks
he’s a dog. Another girl writes, “I dream of snowflakes being
worlds we don’t know about.” A boy writes, “I think of my hands
being as swift as the wind.”
Sometimes when the children
read what they’ve written, I feel jealous. They are so sure
about the earth and the elements, so naturally devoted to
observation. I want to be able to speak as intelligently about the
makings of a good laying hen as Sarajane Rossi does.
I
can’t say that every child in my school is salt of the earth.
Our little town is situated just off a state highway between two of
the biggest ski resorts in Colorado. There is a large ranching
community; there are also students whose parents work for the
railroad or in construction, or who drive every day to work service
jobs in the neighboring resorts. But the size of the district draws
the students together. On average, two-thirds of the children who
start kindergarten in a class of 25 will graduate from high school
with the same kids, 13 years later.
When the 10-year-olds
read their work, troubles, faults and fears vault onto the page.
Children listening nod; they identify with a dog dying, having a
parent leave home, having no breakfast in the house, having a hay
crop fail because of no rain.
Will these same students do
well on a high-stakes standardized test? In the process of
expressing themselves, will they remember how to punctuate
correctly? Probably. Our little school scores better than average
on Colorado’s test. Most of our kids will be deemed “proficient.”
But trying to measure their capacity for compassion or
knowledge is like trying to lasso a thunderstorm or put a yardstick
against the sky. Writing about twilight in town where he lives, a
third-grade boy says, “Above Blue Star Hill, the white from the
snow on the Flattop Mountains hits the pinks of the sunset that
make it look so beautiful. I look up at the sky and see the tiny
bit of fading blue retiring from a busy day. I see the crescent
moon just coming up from the other side of the world.”
Sometimes, when the students read, I stop worrying for a while and
just listen. The kids make me imagine a season without drought.
They make me imagine what kind of readers, writers and thinkers
they could be given a few school years with full funding for
programs and enough staff.
Even with budget cuts, they’ll
go on expressing gratitude and awe about their mountain home. I
love the way they look getting on the school bus at the end of the
day — some in hip-huggers and platform sandals, some in
Carhartts and cowboy hats — chucking one another on the
shoulders, talking about what happens when it rains.
Kate Krautkramer is a contributor to Writers on the
Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She lives and
writes in Yampa, in western Colorado.
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