I have a poster by my classroom door that pictures a bunch of famous artists. The other day a third grader in line turned to me and said, “Mr. Roth, you’re like Picasso.”
I stroked my chin. “Yes? How so?”
“He doesn’t have any hair.”
Before I could speak, another student stepped forward to defend me. “No, look, you’re wrong,” he said to the other student. “Picasso has hair on the sides.”
They studied the picture again. “Oh, yeah.”
They’re lucky I just handed in grades.
I like to write funny kids’ books. I’d even like to publish one someday. But no matter how funny I am, it’s humbling to know that nothing can ever top the humor of this simple line: “Wooshee gaga.”
“Wooshee gaga” comes on page 20, paragraph two of Ian Falconer’s brilliant picture book, Olivia and the Missing Toy. It is Olivia’s baby brother William’s reply to her query, “WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY TOY?” He earnestly delivers it with a wide smile.
If you’d like to test just how funny this is, read it to a class of kindergarteners. No matter how much classic literature I introduce to these discerning young scholars – Scieszka, Pilkey, Shannon – “Wooshee gaga” remains the one line that sends them rolling on the floor. Class after class. Year after year. They ask me to repeat it, and I do. And again. And again. Until I’m Wooshee Gaga blue in the face.
Oh, that it would end there. But then, for weeks, months and even years later, I see these same students in the hall or at the bus circle, and a select few always call out to me, “Wooshee gaga! Wooshee gaga!”
I turn and force a smile. “Wooshee gaga,” I’ve learned, is the proper response. They nod and walk on, secure in some secret knowledge.
It really does crack them up like nothing else. I just pray I haven’t started a cult.
Kids are from Mars. And I mean that in a good way.
I’ve been teaching art to young students (3-11 years old) for the past fifteen years, and almost every kid rushes enthusiastically into the art room. Is it my ample charm? The well written curriculum objectives? The reason they love art so much, I’ve concluded, is that art, for them, is about building and owning their very own worlds.
I may look at one of their paper sculptures and say, “You have deomonstrated a very good understanding of folding techniques,” but what that seven-year-old then says to me is, “This is where the guy slides in and boings off of this and then climbs over here to fight the ninjas who come through here!” I smile. “Oh, right, so then the ninjas escape down this accordian fold.” “NO, MR. ROTH. They get shot out of here!”
Actually, Mars is probably too bland a place for these busy thinkers. Whatever planet they’re from, I’d sure like to go there. But not dressed as a ninja…
