As I was Going to St. Ives

I was telling stories at one of Houston's Charter schools. They're an experiment at giving principles and communities more discretion in how to operate the school. Some have been successful in graduating high school classes that had one hundred percent college acceptance rate. Other have been boondoggles with administrators driving Mercedes and children failing their state-mandated exams.

This school was located in the southwest region of Houston. This area is possibly one of the most diverse. Many migrant families live here occupying the miles of apartment buildings. Professionals from India, Pakistan, Africa and other Asian countries also take up residence in the neighborhood homes that were built in the seventies.

The students in the program reflected this culture. The storytelling program was scheduled as an end of the week treat. They had a six inch stage with microphone. I arrived early to make sure the sound system was prepared.
Like many charter schools, the building reflected the uniqueness of the school. This building was located in one of the many business districts of Houston. It was probably erected in the seventies as an office building for manufacturing. No windows adorned the outside, only the vertical slabs of pebbled concrete. Only a yellow sign hanging from the chain-link fence around the asphalt parking lot indicated that this structure held children inside.

My contact person led me into the cafeteria. She was a tall, thin woman who's Spanish accent contrasted sharply with her blond hair, blue eyes, and tight lipped pale features. I asked her where she was from originally. She said, “Argentina” in her friendly but taciturn manner. Her last name sounded Polish, so it was unlikely that she was descended from the Germans who had fled to Argentina after WWII.

The drop down ceilings held fluorescent lights that show their pale glow on the worn carpets and shiny laminated images of flowers and bears on the pre-K classrooms. The cafeteria that she led me to had more of low ceilings and sterile light that failed to reach into the corners of the black stage at the extreme end. This stage had three black walls and rose all of six inches off the ground with a black wooden floor beneath it. Small stage lights hung from the drop down ceilings at intervals. Someone had been committed to creating a humble stage worth acting upon.

First the kindergärtners and first graders tumbled in. Slowly settling down on the cafeteria tables after much scolding by harried teachers. I showed them some string tricks as they waited for the next activity. They voiced their amazement with “oohs” and “aahs”. I moved around from table to table. Some kids snacked from bags of chips while others held on firmly to their backpacks.

My audience, the second graders and up, entered. Some ran in packs of giggles, while other strolled in with the sophistication that only a fifth grader can show. A few of the boys blatantly ignored their teachers directions and watched as I showed them “Man Climbing a Tree” and “Jacob's Ladder”. They eventually settled into their places at the tables. I returned to the stage at the front of the cafeteria.

My contact had introduced me to the after-school counselors. One was a stout man with dark skin, thick mustache that matched his full wavy hair. He was wearing a white martial arts clothes and was bare footed. The other man had a round face and full goatee with broad expressive features. The last one she introduced me to had set up the sound system. He was a young man with shiny, spiky hair who spoke with a heavy Spanish accent. I rarely saw so many men working at an after-school program.

Some of the teachers marched the younger kids to classrooms and the older kids filed in lines at the foot of the stage with much ado. The young man turned off the lights. The light pink stage lights cast a rosy glow across the room. The lights shown at the side of the stage, so I could still see in the audience. When the lights are directly in front, I can only see silhouettes. I showed the students some more tricks and they quieted down into the settling darkness. I was telling them riddle stories that day. We started with incantation of the classic “St. Ives”. I asked them to repeat after me and we began with line after line. No one knew the answer to “Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, how many were going to St. Ives?” It was only a warm-up though.

One boy near the front who wore blue slacks and a white button up shirt began whispering to his neighbor. The goateed man shined a flashlight onto him and gave him a loud “shhh!” I had thought that practice had died out with small town theaters. I was glad to see it returning to hold the sanctity of the performance.

I continued with the program. They listened intently to the dilemma of the farmer in “The White Dear”. Which would he choose for his one wish: gold, his mother's eyesight to return, or a child for his wife? I told some Nazrudin stories. They had some trouble following those, but they were short enough to keep from bogging the program down. I invited some of the students on the stage to act out the riddle of the farmer who crossed the river with a bag of grain, goose, and fox. One boy in the back solved the problem. I invited him up and he directed the actors on how to cross the river. He had longish, straight black hair and a Hawaiian print shirt on. It's always this type that are good with riddles; ones that just don't fit into the molds laid down for typical students. I followed up with “Juan and Jose”, my adaptation of an old riddle story about twins and a final examination that one of the brothers answers for the other.

At the end, I invited volunteers to read riddles out to the rest of the group. By this time, the audience had dwindled. Many parents had arrived to pick up their children for home. I have a wooden box a little bigger than my hand that I've painted red with yellow Celtic knot work pained on the top lid. In it, I have strips of paper that contain riddles and their answers. I open the lid and invite the volunteer to read the riddle to the audience. They do and the rest of the audience makes their guesses. Some answers are way off base, but others slow inch closer to the answer. Who ever answers correctly can draw the next one. We finish a few rounds, then I conclude the program with thanks for them listening so well and I ask them to give themselves a big hand.

The fluorescent lights snap on again. The students crowded onto the stage asking to see more string figures. I showed them some of the magic tricks. Others approached the microphone and began talking into it, cheerily hearing their voices echoing off the walls. The goatee man walked up to the microphone and started searching for the off switch. He persistently wrested it from the clenching hands that are eager to give their master a voice. The young man turned it off at the sound board and the children scurried to other diversions. I met the coordinator on my way out and told her that I thought the program went well. She scheduled me for next month. In the lobby, a few of the students were lounging on the leather sofa waiting for their rides home. An older girl said to me in a halting accent, “You were nice up there today.”

“Thank you.”

“Can I see the riddle box again?” a boy asked. He pulled one out and read it to the girl. She couldn't answer it but asked me for one as well. I said, “OK” and she pulled one out as well.

The boy asked, “Can I keep it?”

“Yes, can I keep mine?” the girl added in eager tones.

I had printed them on my home printer and cut them into thin slices the length of a letter's width. They'd been folded in half and were crumpled in spots from the hundreds of hands upon them. Why would they want them so badly?

“Yes, you can keep them.” They gave slight jumping motions and peered onto the pieces of paper.

Ancient Greek theater was a form of ritual, a magic, that transformed people into animals, gods, heroes.

On the black stage under the rosy lights through of the stark microphone, we'd made a magic. The red box under my arm was no longer a mere basswood box, but rather it had become a receptacle for secrets waiting to be revealed. They took tokens to remind them of the enchantment that comes from a raised stage and three black walls. Such a place has the power to sweep children away from the pebbled concrete walls of a refurbished office building to a place where kits, cats, sacks, and wives travel away from St. Ives.
- posted by Brian Herod @ 12:46 AM