This week my daughter is learning about Martin Luther King Jr. in her preschool class. I was curious what she actually understands about the man and his legacy so I quizzed her yesterday.
“Who was Martin Luther King Jr.?” I asked H.
“He died a long long time ago, Mom,” she said.
“What did he do?” I asked.
“He didn’t want people to be separated. He had a dream that everyone could shake hands with each other,” H. replied.
“What else did you learn about him?” I prodded.
“He said everyone should be the same even if they had skin that was brown or pink,” she explained.
H’s lead teacher asked the children to talk and create a painting about THEIR dreams. H. made a colorful picture and told the class that she had a dream about rainbows.
I’m proud of my little girl for being able to simply and (fairly) accurately summarize what Martin Luther King epitomized.
My mother came over yesterday and told H. that as a girl growing up in New York City, she hadn’t experienced the separation of people with different skin colors until she was 10. Her parents took her on a trip to Williamsburg, VA and she was stunned and confused to see separate drinking fountains for different races. H.’s eyes widened as she couldn’t believe that her grandmother had witnessed this first hand.
I hope that H. and her generation; children for whom Obama will be the first president they will remember; don’t lose sight of how far the world has come in regard to race relations over, in retrospect, a very short period of time. I hope that in the way my generation learned firsthand about the Great Depression and the Cold War from our grandparents, H. will learn from and appreciate the living history lessons that her grandparents have to share. They were alive during the dawning of rock and roll, JFK’s assassination, the first moon landing and the Vietnam War and can share their own personal experiences and perspectives with her.
And lastly, I hope that she continues to dream about rainbows.......
Lovely.
ReplyDelete