The Wisdom of Children: Happy Place, Environment Club, Living Now, Mandarins and Ghost Horses
I have been listening to my niece Bella and been amazed at the wisdom coming out of her mouth. I have done a double take. We haven’t seen each other that much but I recognise instantly that she is a peacemaker and is a person who will make a difference. I think children will teach us and certainly there are wise ones around. So here are a few stories that Bella has shared with me. I have typed them word for word with little prompting. You will notice she is very articulate. Enjoy and listen to children, as they know more than we realise.
BELLA’S STORIES
My name is Bella and I am going to talk about being a 10 year old at school and some stories of my life.
Story: Happy Place
There are bullies at school and they all bully other children. When two people get mad at each other there is this place that we like to call the ‘happy place’. Where both people that are fighting come together and talk about what happened. (who came up with this idea?) My friend Clayton came up with this idea (why?) because him and one of my friends was fighting and he felt guilty. When him and my other friend went into the ‘happy place’ they came out and gave each other a hug and said ‘sorry’ because they had talked about it. There is a girl at my school who finds it hard to control her temper and I am trying to help her because she hardly has any friends, her friends abandoned her because she is mean. (in what way is she mean?) She bullies other kids sometimes hurts them by punching and kicking and if she doesn’t get her way she starts swearing. So in the middle of the day she will be screaming, swearing, attacking and hurting people. The next morning she will be happy and going around and giving people hugs and saying sorry. (why does she do that?) because she has an anger problem, she can’t control her emotions. She can’t say or talk about what has happened. She talks by attacking, that is her way of telling you she is angry. So i try to help her (how?). By being a good friend to her and getting her used to having good friends. There are two other people that are trying to help her and they are both boys and they are my best friends too.
Story: Living in the Now and Not Worrying about Anything
I have another best friend she had a cloak that her grandma made for her, her grandma died. When she spilt a bit of yoghurt on it she got very sad. She was sitting on the oval for the whole of lunch crying. I told her instead of crying why don’t you have some fun and spend time having fun with your friends. Then she came over and she sat somewhere else away from us. At the end of the day she looked sad, she got sadder because she spent of the whole of her lunch sobbing. So I was trying to tell her if she sits there sobbing she isn’t living a fun life, having fun with her friends while she can, she can worry about it when it actually happens if she gets home and her mum get’s mad, it may not have happened (getting in trouble), you never know. She came back the next day and looked happier because it didn’t actually happen. So she worried about it but it didn’t actually happen, so she was worrying about nothing.
Story: Save The Environment Club
Me and my friend who like spent the whole of lunch sobbing, we made a club called Save the Environment Club because we felt sorry for all the animals being killed by people, and the trees being cut down and the plants being stomped on. So we went out in front of the class and announced we have started a class to save the environment, 10 people came in and tried to help. I do the classes of first aid (plants and trees) and then my friend teaches people about the environment and why we have to save it. Another thing I teach about is the animals and why they have to be free and safe and not shot. My topic for class C.H.A.D. which stands for car hit and dead. It is learning about animals being killed crossing roads and cars hitting them that is one of the most deaths for animals, trying to get across the road and getting hit. When we announced it a second time the teacher was getting very happy with us (proud) and we were talking to the teacher after and she said she was very glad and would tell other teachers about what we were doing. Then the teacher proudly announced a few weeks later that she had joined a thing for teachers to save the environment, because she had learned from us to save the environment. So we are trying to teach all those other kids are learning really well from it. One of them is my best friend, and she has moved up to be like a second leader, me and my best friend we were both the first leaders, and made it up together. My other friend she became the second leader, she announces when we are going to have a meeting and stuff. A club meeting. So Clayton has turned into the First Aid teacher, because I’ve been teaching him most of the time. Oscar is on his way to be a First Aid teacher. We are really happy that we can make a change, if we grow up and go out and help the environment. The club only started up as a Save The Trees Club because me and my best pal thought of the trees being chopped up and being carved into by people and I said to my best friend ‘more things need to be saved then just trees’. So we turned it into Save the Environment Club. (why do you think that?) Because everything deserves to live, everything has a life to live, people don’t care, if they feel like killing something they will go out and kill a roo (kangaroo), a rabbit or a fox because they don’t care, they like to have fun. Sometimes at the property I hear gun shots in the distance and my favourite wallaby is called lucky because he has a hole in his ear from nearly being shot. He comes around and we give him apples and he is very very tame. So we hope to make a difference in the future to help people understand what they are doing.
Story: The Mandarin Junkyards
Me and my friend Clayton I was talking about earlier, we love mandarins so much that people call us the Mandarin Junkyards, because we sit at recess, if people don’t want their mandarins they chuck them at us and we will eat them for them. Because most people don’t like their mandarins for some reason we will eat heaps of them. One time Clayton got 5 and I got 6 or 7 and he got a giant one from Anthony. So me and Clayton are well known around recess because people run by and chuck mandarins at us and we eat them all because they are so yummy. It is very weird people don’t like mandarins anymore, it is not fair, but it is yummy. My mum doesn’t like all the mandarin peelings in my lunchbox when I get home because she has to clean them out and I bet Clayton’s mum is the same. So eat your fruit please or we will be overlowing with mandarins (haha).
Story: Ghost Horse
Me and my friend the one I talked about earlier who had anger problems. We found a ghost horse on the property and we found cart seats, a horse skeleton and a buried farm. So the ghost comes out sometimes and runs around this little area on the property. If it doesn’t do that you can see it glow in the distance over the mountains. It is white with black spots and its hair is the colour of smoke. (how often?) Every time I am there I see it at least once or twice. That would be every second weekend. Me and my friend we are trying to cover up (uncover) the mystery, we have a method for what is actually happening. The horse, the man that owned the farm has some barrels of wine that he was carrying up somewhere in his cart with the horse, when they got to a rocky bit, the horse tripped over and broke its leg and died. The skeleton has a broken front leg, its hoof has twisted around. So the man on the cart crashed into trenches and the cart seats were left there, the rest probably rotted away. The man and the woman went back to the house and we have uncovered the house, you can see the outline of it in bricks, some of the bricks have initials on them, it is H.W. or M.H. (turn bricks upside down).