Mysteries, Truths and Elephants

Teaching 4th grade, I've found that there is more to all of us at any age than we like to let on. We are like the Little Prince's drawing of the boa constrictor...or is it a hat? We look at something and we think we've got it pegged until we look again. We realize that questions abound when full-bellied boa constrictors could be hats, but most of us don't stare long enough or question hard enough to figure out whether it is a boa constrictor or a hat. All this talk of boa constrictors and hats has my head rattled (see what I did there?), to which most would give it up and go on questioning whether it is in fact a boa constrictor or a hat. But I'm not most people and I demand to know whether this boa constrictor has swallowed something large, say, an elephant, or whether it is a simple hat. Could it be both? Or is the boa constrictor more than just a stuffed snake? Is it filled with more than just an elephant? Is there more to this simple creature? My students are boa constrictors, and I look at each of them as being filled with more than a simple explanation, like an elephant, could do justice. They are filled with mystery and truths that age has hidden from me, and I, unlike many they encounter in their lives, bother to look for them. Children do not acknowledge their mysteries but the magic in their eyes is a subconscious acknowledgement, and I only seek to give them that benefit of acknowledgement. Like the Little Prince, they merely wish their mysteries to be acknowledged, not figured out.

from Antione St. Exupery's classic, The Little Prince.