A Humorous Moment

Two weeks ago, I was teaching my Monday 2nd graders about the African American spiritual. We talked about the form and meaning of “Free At Last,” and then we wrote a class ‘song’ about our dreams—in spiritual form.

Somewhere along the way, one of my students associated “Free At Last” to Harriet Tubman. He asked something about Tubman and the underground railroad and I told him that if he reminded me when he came to music today then I would play his class a recording of a poem about Harriet Tubman.

Sure enough, shortly after my 2nd grade class came into my room this afternoon, I found myself being reminded that I was supposed to play them a poem about Harriet Tubman. Had I remembered anything about the conversation that had promised a poem presentation? Nope. But did I play his class the poem anyway? Yep. I figured that if a second grader reminded me of something two weeks later, then it must be important to him. So we listened to the poem. And the class liked it. And then we moved on. Away from the spiritual. To Africa. Because 2nd grade has been in Africa in art class for the past couple of weeks, and I wanted to take them there, too.

So we went to South Africa. We watched an elephant drink from a watering hole via live camera feed from South Africa and we found South Africa on the map. We followed the music for the Bantu lullaby “Abiyoyo.” We listened to a folk tale about Abiyoyo. We discussed the characters and plot and setting of the story, and the kids sang the words of the song in their Harnett County Bantu dialects, and we had a really good class.

“Wait. So Harriet Tubman was from Africa?” I heard the above-mentioned student ask as we were preparing to leave class.

“No, sweetheart,” I chuckled, shaking my head, and thinking, ‘Oops. This is what happens when I try to throw something into the lesson really quick.’ “Harriet Tubman was from America. We finished in America and moved to South Africa.”

“Oh,” he said, smiling. “We were just moving so fast!”

I smiled back at him and deep within my heart, and I said a silent prayer of thanksgiving for simple, humorous moments like this that add light to my days.