March 31, 2014
As a new child care program director, I immediately inherited five low-income after-school programs with one in particular located in almost exclusive African-American community. Being, white, male in my twenties, I’m sure I stood out amongst all the various shades of everything but Caucasian.
Its not that I felt uncomfortable in such a situation, but to say I felt all the children’s eyes were on me, as they never saw someone as white as myself. I felt over one hundred pairs of eyes just glued to my every move with the exception of this one fair-haired and even more white-skinned than me girl about seven that was in a corner of the cafetorium, all alone. As I approached her, I frustrated myself in the whole thirty second walk over to her, how am I going to ask her why she’s there all alone and not playing with the other children. In all my years of experience (at the time about ten years) I find it best just to be upfront with them, as they can smell bogus sincerity of adults like a polar bear smelling food miles away on the bare artic tundra.
After a few moments with the girl, whose name is Rebecca but likes to go by Becca (she made sure pronounced it for me as Ba Kah) and told me her wary, shy way that she is new to the school, and is seven (got that right!), doesn’t have any friends in the after-care program and feels very different from everyone. I asked her if she would like me to walk over with her to the other children her age, she quietly declined. I went over to her group leader, and Ms Thompson and she told me “she’s just like that” and “doesn’t want to be with the other children.” I was rather annoyed at Ms Thompson so readily to give up on Becca, but my heart knew she didn’t give up on her as much as was frustrated that she just couldn’t get Becca to come around. I said my good-byes to my staff and Becca too and made a promise that I would see her soon and assured her that she will have new friends to tell me about when I come back.
As I drove home that evening, I racked my brain how to help Becca assimilate into her new school and make friends. As a painfully, shy child myself, this made the challenge all that much greater for me to help her overcome. As I stopped at the local grocery store on the way home and allowed my nose to wonder past the bakeries I smelled fresh baked cookies. Then the idea light bulb shone down on so brightly that it nearly blinded me. Children of all ages love chocolate chip cookies and especially hot, gooey, chewy fresh out of the oven. So my brief stop to pick up dinner for myself became a nothing short of a project. Mind you, this was the days before the internet and world wide web let alone having smart phones to check the recipe, so to double check the ingredient list, I had to get to a pay phone and call my Mom. I managed to get everything Mom told me to have on my list and multiplied it by six – one for each of my five staff members there and one for me. This site was fortunate the cafeteria manager allowed the after-care staff full access and use of the cafeteria. The cafeteria manager more often than not stayed late and often helped our staff use her equipment. So need to find, pack and drag to the site baking sheets, mixing spoons and bowls, just bring on surprise and the numerous bags of ingredients.
After ample sitting time of the batter, I had to make sure Becca was in my group along with other boys and girls her age – so I had mainly seven year-olds filled with excitement, chatter and restlessness as school was done for the day. After getting settled at their designated table, I explained today’s snack will be homemade chocolate chip cookies and we will be making them as a group. Its not going to be prepackaged nor bakery store bought but we will use our own hands to make this. After passing out food preparation gloves, I deliberately had each child come to the front of the room and add an ingredient (the flour, the sugar, the brown sugar, the eggs, the chocolate chips, the baking power err…was it the baking soda) and allowed them each a turn to mix and stir. Once it was all mixed in well and allowed time for it to sit, I used the time for them to share what they liked best about the process of making the cookies. To my surprise Becca was the first to raise her hand and shared she enjoyed doing this as a group and the game we played while we put the ingredients together. I asked the children to say their name and share their favorite food, sport, TV show, game or book while they helped prepare the batter.
I put down a place setting consisting of a generous amount of parchment paper for each child and put a quarter baking sheet in the middle of the table within hands reach of four small hands. After having set about twenty table settings, I went around to each child, one-by-one, allowed them to reach in the mixing bowl and take two handfuls of batter and put in on their parchment place settings. Bad idea, “she took too much”, “my hands aren’t as big as his”, “he cheated”, “I didn’t get any” shrieked by all, these were definitely not the words I wanted to hear, I assured them I have enough batter to allow everyone to make their cookies.
Once the children made all the cookies, we placed their cookies on the baking sheets provided by Ms Allen and allowed her to bake them for us. The delicious aromas of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies filled the entire room as the closer they became to being done. The children’s excitement to see the product of their process was contagious amongst us adults. However, since the cookies took almost two hours to finish baking all of the trays, the adults decided it would be best to allow the children to enjoy them the next day when we have almost everyone in attendance.
So, today’s the fruits of our labor will be shared with our cookie makers. As we asked each child to reach with a napkin and take one cookie from one sheet and wait until everyone had one and they can take seconds. I made sure as staff went around to give seconds they focused on a different group of children there first go around. Once all children had their cookies, we asked them to not eat the cookies and share with their group leader how the cookies were the same but also different. As I walked around the room, I heard “one’s fatter”, “that one is lighter than that one”, “this doesn’t have as many chocolate chips”, “this one is crunchier”, “mine’s looks burnt” and every opposite and in between variation of explanations for each of the children in the program.
We gathered all the children in front of the stage and had our daily announcements. Today’s theme was to talk about the cookies. I explained to them no matter how different the cookies looked from each other they all tasted the same. Some just baked better than others, some were thin and crispy while others were fat and chewy and then allowed them to share other differences they noticed. Some told how one of their cookies had more chocolate chips than the other one, others shared how some cookies looked like certain animals, but regardless of their differences they all still tasted the same.
As the children were eating their cookies, I read them a book called “We're Different, We're the Same” and if my memory serves me right, it was through the same people who brought us Sesame Street. In total developmentally appropriate language and pictures, it shared the point I tried to make baking chocolate chip cookies. I can’t ever promise that Becca ever fit in with the rest of the children, nor can I promise I helped stop racism but I left my little part of the world just slightly more compassionate through the tummies of an entire after school program.
Its not that I felt uncomfortable in such a situation, but to say I felt all the children’s eyes were on me, as they never saw someone as white as myself. I felt over one hundred pairs of eyes just glued to my every move with the exception of this one fair-haired and even more white-skinned than me girl about seven that was in a corner of the cafetorium, all alone. As I approached her, I frustrated myself in the whole thirty second walk over to her, how am I going to ask her why she’s there all alone and not playing with the other children. In all my years of experience (at the time about ten years) I find it best just to be upfront with them, as they can smell bogus sincerity of adults like a polar bear smelling food miles away on the bare artic tundra.
After a few moments with the girl, whose name is Rebecca but likes to go by Becca (she made sure pronounced it for me as Ba Kah) and told me her wary, shy way that she is new to the school, and is seven (got that right!), doesn’t have any friends in the after-care program and feels very different from everyone. I asked her if she would like me to walk over with her to the other children her age, she quietly declined. I went over to her group leader, and Ms Thompson and she told me “she’s just like that” and “doesn’t want to be with the other children.” I was rather annoyed at Ms Thompson so readily to give up on Becca, but my heart knew she didn’t give up on her as much as was frustrated that she just couldn’t get Becca to come around. I said my good-byes to my staff and Becca too and made a promise that I would see her soon and assured her that she will have new friends to tell me about when I come back.
As I drove home that evening, I racked my brain how to help Becca assimilate into her new school and make friends. As a painfully, shy child myself, this made the challenge all that much greater for me to help her overcome. As I stopped at the local grocery store on the way home and allowed my nose to wonder past the bakeries I smelled fresh baked cookies. Then the idea light bulb shone down on so brightly that it nearly blinded me. Children of all ages love chocolate chip cookies and especially hot, gooey, chewy fresh out of the oven. So my brief stop to pick up dinner for myself became a nothing short of a project. Mind you, this was the days before the internet and world wide web let alone having smart phones to check the recipe, so to double check the ingredient list, I had to get to a pay phone and call my Mom. I managed to get everything Mom told me to have on my list and multiplied it by six – one for each of my five staff members there and one for me. This site was fortunate the cafeteria manager allowed the after-care staff full access and use of the cafeteria. The cafeteria manager more often than not stayed late and often helped our staff use her equipment. So need to find, pack and drag to the site baking sheets, mixing spoons and bowls, just bring on surprise and the numerous bags of ingredients.
After ample sitting time of the batter, I had to make sure Becca was in my group along with other boys and girls her age – so I had mainly seven year-olds filled with excitement, chatter and restlessness as school was done for the day. After getting settled at their designated table, I explained today’s snack will be homemade chocolate chip cookies and we will be making them as a group. Its not going to be prepackaged nor bakery store bought but we will use our own hands to make this. After passing out food preparation gloves, I deliberately had each child come to the front of the room and add an ingredient (the flour, the sugar, the brown sugar, the eggs, the chocolate chips, the baking power err…was it the baking soda) and allowed them each a turn to mix and stir. Once it was all mixed in well and allowed time for it to sit, I used the time for them to share what they liked best about the process of making the cookies. To my surprise Becca was the first to raise her hand and shared she enjoyed doing this as a group and the game we played while we put the ingredients together. I asked the children to say their name and share their favorite food, sport, TV show, game or book while they helped prepare the batter.
I put down a place setting consisting of a generous amount of parchment paper for each child and put a quarter baking sheet in the middle of the table within hands reach of four small hands. After having set about twenty table settings, I went around to each child, one-by-one, allowed them to reach in the mixing bowl and take two handfuls of batter and put in on their parchment place settings. Bad idea, “she took too much”, “my hands aren’t as big as his”, “he cheated”, “I didn’t get any” shrieked by all, these were definitely not the words I wanted to hear, I assured them I have enough batter to allow everyone to make their cookies.
Once the children made all the cookies, we placed their cookies on the baking sheets provided by Ms Allen and allowed her to bake them for us. The delicious aromas of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies filled the entire room as the closer they became to being done. The children’s excitement to see the product of their process was contagious amongst us adults. However, since the cookies took almost two hours to finish baking all of the trays, the adults decided it would be best to allow the children to enjoy them the next day when we have almost everyone in attendance.
So, today’s the fruits of our labor will be shared with our cookie makers. As we asked each child to reach with a napkin and take one cookie from one sheet and wait until everyone had one and they can take seconds. I made sure as staff went around to give seconds they focused on a different group of children there first go around. Once all children had their cookies, we asked them to not eat the cookies and share with their group leader how the cookies were the same but also different. As I walked around the room, I heard “one’s fatter”, “that one is lighter than that one”, “this doesn’t have as many chocolate chips”, “this one is crunchier”, “mine’s looks burnt” and every opposite and in between variation of explanations for each of the children in the program.
We gathered all the children in front of the stage and had our daily announcements. Today’s theme was to talk about the cookies. I explained to them no matter how different the cookies looked from each other they all tasted the same. Some just baked better than others, some were thin and crispy while others were fat and chewy and then allowed them to share other differences they noticed. Some told how one of their cookies had more chocolate chips than the other one, others shared how some cookies looked like certain animals, but regardless of their differences they all still tasted the same.
As the children were eating their cookies, I read them a book called “We're Different, We're the Same” and if my memory serves me right, it was through the same people who brought us Sesame Street. In total developmentally appropriate language and pictures, it shared the point I tried to make baking chocolate chip cookies. I can’t ever promise that Becca ever fit in with the rest of the children, nor can I promise I helped stop racism but I left my little part of the world just slightly more compassionate through the tummies of an entire after school program.
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