Henrietta Hay's Column

Third graders live in a world of their own, and it is a completely mysterious one to me. When I was asked to talk to a class full of them, my first reaction was an absolute No. I am scared of kids en masse. But when my favorite eight year old said "please" and batted her coal black eight-inch long eyelashes at me, what could I possibly do?

A friend of mine, who had recently talked to third graders about what it is like to be a judge, assured me that kids of this age are lots of fun, are wonderful listeners - for a little while - and that they are curious about just about everything. After all, I realized, I'm bigger than any three of them put together, and why should I be afraid of talking to them?

But what could I possibly have to say to them? I decided to try comparing their school to the one I went to back in the dark ages in Englewood. Their schoolroom is big and bright and airy. The front half of the room has movable seats in rows, but there is room in back for non-sitting activities. Mine was square with seats bolted to the floor and, in effect, the kids bolted to the seats. It did have windows, but they were high enough that we had trouble gazing out.

We did not dash in or out when the bell rang, but marched sedately, two by two, to Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" on a scratchy phonograph. I never hear that song without suddenly finding myself in wool pleated skirt, a middy blouse and knee socks. The kids giggled at that image.

They were really startled to find that in my youth if a teacher got married she got fired. All my teachers were "Miss." I had to explain that women were expected to stay home and care for their husbands and children. Only the brave were allowed to work and those only so long as they stayed single. Teachers, who were role models for innocent youth, were not expected to be complete human beings, but that is another story.

And then I discovered that these kids are very much interested in newspapers. There is a program in District 51 in which subscriptions to the Sentinel are made available to various classes.

I am sure third graders don't read the daily paper in detail, but they understand what a newspaper is and a little bit about what it does and what its value is. They do have a surprisingly good idea of what is going on in the world and their own community.

Among other things, they know who the President is, more or less where and what Russia is, and that the Broncos are not going to the Super Bowl. That is probably more than I knew in the third grade, although I hope I knew that the Warren Harding was President.

The kids had written out questions that made me feel as though I were giving a White House Press Conference. Their spelling was somewhat creative, but their questions were sharp. "Is it hard to make newspapers?" Very. But since I'm not a journalist we talked about the difference between a news story and a column.

"Is it fun being a riter?" Oh yes. It's wonderful, but terribly hard work. "How many day dase it take to rite a paragraf?" A bad one, two minutes. A good one, maybe a week. That jolted them.

They thought it was easy. "How long does it take you to rite your artakuls?" A lifetime. That bit of wisdom startled him. "Who do you get the infermashon from?" That's where the fun comes in, kids. Reading and listening and remembering some of the silly things you have done. "Where do you work?" At home, but you can write anyplace. "Could you write in a tree?" Yes, but you couldn't use your computer. "How do you figere out what to rite about in one week?" Sorry, I can't answer that in less than a week.

It turned out that I could visit their world after all. I urged them to learn to write a good sentence and read their newspaper. They encouraged me to go on riting. I think it was an even exchange.