Oh yes! Children believe in magic!
According to the Oxford dictionary, magic is a conjuring trick or illusion performed to give the appearance of supernatural phenomena or powers.
On a bright school day, the kids all came in with so much excitement to school and were all ready to learn, except for a child who came in and was looking all gloomy and had a different gist for me.
So this conversation took place between us:
Gab: good morning, Ms. Dee!
Ms. Dee: Good morning honeycomb, how’re you today?
Gab: I’m not fineeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! (with face really gloomy).
Ms. Dee: what happened?
Gab: I forgot my lunchbox at home.
Ms. Dee: Oh! Wow! You ain’t having lunch today then.
Gab: Oh no! how am I going to survive today?
Ms. Dee: Oh well, I don’t know either and you’d remain hungry for the whole of today.
Ms. Dee: just settle in and let’s begin our activities for today.
I quickly placed a call to the child’s mum and she promised to get it across to me.
A couple of minutes later, I was called by the front desk officer to come pick-up Gab’s lunch box.
However, Gab hadn’t really been himself and had walked up to me a couple of times to call up his mum and ask her to get his lunchbox which I’d told him I wouldn’t do.
Soon enough, it was time for lunch! Every other child had brought out their lunch to feast on and Gab ‘’hadn’t’’ a lunchbox. So, I told him he was going to eat from everyone’s left over and that we were going to all donate our leftover water for him as well.
Gab: Oh no! you ain’t going to do such a thing, Ms. Dee!
Ms. Dee: Oh yes! That’s exactly what I’m going to do.
I brought out my plate and was pretending to move from table to table asking for a little of everyone’s food for Gab. Gab literarily pounced on me not to do such a thing! He held me so tightly to stop me from moving. I insisted that I must get from everyone’s food for him to eat since he’d left his lunchbox at home.
We both were going back and forth until we got to the front desk. I had signaled the front desk office to hide the lunchbox and so Gab had no clue it was there.
At this point, I was feeling like a superwoman. I asked him to close his eyes that I was going to perform a magic trick for his lunchbox to appear.
Gab immediately closed his eyes and I went down with all my ‘’abracadabrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaa,” and in a twinkle on a eye, ‘’appeared’’ the lunchbox!
Oh my gosh! The smile on Gab’s face was priceless! The hugs and air kisses he showered on me. This act literarily melted my heart, seeing the innocence and the beauty of a child’s heart.
He thanked me so much and immediately took the lunchbox and ran to the class to spread the good news of how his teacher is a magician!
This act redefined my purpose with kids: I ain’t only a teacher, a mother, a nurse, a playmate, a motivator, a counsellor, I am also a magician!
We create magic daily in the children’s life. As teachers, parents, guardians, let’s be deliberate in creating magic in the lives of the kids under our care/tutelage.
Author: Ms. Doris Amadi