Innocence

My student, Lexi, is a truly extraordinary girl. She comes in every week, tired from soccer practice, still in her cleats. She's the kind of kid who looks straight at you when she's talking to you, with deep, intellegent eyes. She wants to listen to what you say, as well, she listens with all her might. She's eager to please in the best way - she sees the world as a place where she can learn and grow, and her teachers as people she can learn from. She respects authority because she wants to know what you know. Unafraid of work, she asks for extra assignments and pursues her own independent ideas. She had to write her own music last week, and she carefully composed a piece more interesting than the one she was modelling in her book.

With most of my solo students, I don't really have to make lesson plans - we start off from where we left off last week - often repeating a lot of material that the student didn't practice. With Lexi, I have to plan out a lesson, because she'll likely get some of the concepts much faster than I can throw them out, and because she needs creative twists on the basics to keep her busy mind satisfied. It's an almost scary combination - she's totally confident and totally guileless.

She makes me wonder: was I ever like that? Were any of my friends? Most of my kids her age have been beaten down by the world a little - somebody or something has taught them not to trust.
I think I once was like that, I think we all were. If I try really hard, I can remember. Remember when we were joyful and kind, without needing a reason or a motivation to be either? Remember when we saw possibilities, not limits? Remember when we felt comfortable in our own respective skin, not wanting to be something or somebody else? When did we change? How and why did we let it happen?