Handcuff Me, Too!

IN OUR STEADY diet of shocking daily news stories, one item I saw recently was particularly shocking. A 5-year-old kindergarten child just "lost it" in her classroom, went a little berserk, threw violent fits, and had to be restrained with handcuffs. Such an incident seems to beg for analysis, and countless columnists offered their insights and explanations for an event so rare and so frightening. I would like to add my thoughts on this situation. I don't know the child, her name, or anything about her life. I don't know the school, the girl's teacher, or her family relationships. I am creating a plausible scenario to contribute to our understanding. Five years old, full of life and fun; loves to play, loves stories, dress-up, making things out of clay, painting pictures, building with blocks, and playing house; loves climbing and digging in sand and water, adores dolls and stuffed animals, sings a lot, bounces and dances to all kinds of music and rhythms, is fascinated by butterflies, caterpillars, clouds, flowers, stones, trees; watches squirrels jump from limb to limb, feeds birds in the winter, notices shadows on sunny days and prints on snowy streets, plays forever with empty boxes and wrappings from gifts, can't wait to go to kindergarten . For weeks before kindergarten, she can hardly sleep. Kindergarten will be so exciting! Not a baby anymore, she'll learn how to read--she already knows most of her letters and lots of words. She'll learn more about counting. She already counts to 100! She hopes kindergarten will have big easels for big pictures, all the colors for painting and coloring, the clay that bakes the shapes you make, time for dress-up and make-believe and pretend. She's counting the days till kindergarten. Finally, K-Day arrives! Face shining, heart pounding, she joins the other children. They are greeted by a colorful welcome poster on the door with everyone's name in bright colors. She finds her name and bounces into the room, sitting at a table with her name tag displayed. A cheery bulletin board boasts images and words. She especially likes the picture of a clown. (After she went to the circus, she borrowed a bunch of cool books about clowns from the library.) Now she relaxes, waiting for the class to begin. Looking around the room, she notices shelves tightly packed with books and workbooks, packaged games, and cut-out shapes. "Where are the fun centers? " she wonders, almost whispering out loud. Now her teacher is explaining how the day will go. Just before lunch, they will have a 20-minute outside recess--if they finish their work. Although she still can't tell time perfectly, she knows that lunch is a long time away. Every day she and her classmates spend a lot of time sitting at tables doing worksheets. Circle this, put a line under that, color in something else. Every night she takes home her homework. Sometimes her mom helps her circle the right dots. She loves to listen to stories, but sometimes her teacher has no time to read stories to the kids. They have to finish their lessons on letters and sounds, double letters, and rhyming words. Then they have to do their worksheets. Sometimes she wishes there were some stuffed animals and dolls to hold while the teacher is telling them what to do. She would love to bring her best cuddly bear to school, but the teacher said that at the end of the school year all the children will have a day to bring in their special animals. Sometimes she whispers to her tablemate that they can play together at recess, but her teacher reminds her that there is no talking while they are having a lesson. Soon they will be having tests, the teacher reminds them, so they will want to do their very best work. When she forgets what the teacher is telling her to do on her worksheet, she starts drawing a bird's nest. She loves bird's nests and has been practicing circles, circles, circles, with scratchy lines so she can draw really good nests. …