by Rebecca
A little girl looks up from her work.
She is four, maybe five.
Old enough to have learned already
that some children are acceptable
and some are not.
Old enough to have learned
the language of exclusion,
the language of labels,
the language that sorts and separates and names.
She looks at the boy.
She looks at the water on the floor.
And she says,
as if she is reporting the weather,
as if she is stating a simple fact:
"I have one of those in my class."
Not a child.
Not a boy.
Not a person with a name and a life and a mind that works beautifully
in ways that are his own.
One of those.
A category.
A type.
A problem to be managed.
She is four years old
and she has already learned
to see another human being
as one of those.
They tell the child:
Sit still when stillness is not the language you speak.
Be quiet when your questions are louder than the lesson plan.
Follow the plan even when the plan makes no sense,
even when the plan is smaller than your mind,
even when the plan requires you to pretend
that you are less than you are.
They tell the child:
The water on the floor is a problem.
The mess is a mistake.
The discovery is misbehavior.
Your curiosity is disruptive.
Your joy is inappropriate.
Your wholeness is difficult.
They tell the child:
You are too much,
and also not enough.
We will fix you.
And they start.
This is how wholeness dies.
Not all at once.
Not with violence or force—
though sometimes, yes,
there is violence and force.
But often it is quieter than that.
Often it is just:
a world that sees water on the floor
and calls it mess
instead of discovery.
A world that sees a body in motion
and calls it difficult
instead of learning.
A world that sees a child
who speaks the language of hands,
the language of movement,
the language of exploration—
and says:
That language is not allowed here.
Here, we sit still.
Here, we follow directions.
Here, we do what we are told.
And the child,
who came to this world fluent in a hundred languages—
the language of water and light,
the language of cause and effect,
the language of his own body moving through space,
the language of questions asked with hands instead of words,
the language of discovery that feels like joy—
the child begins to forget.
Begins to believe
that there is only one language that matters,
only one way to learn,
only one way to be.
Begins to believe
that he is the problem.
He doesn't know
that the label they are writing for him—
difficult, challenging, needs help—
will become the story he tells about himself.
He doesn't know
that in ten years,
in twenty years,
he might look back and say:
I was always difficult.
I was never good at school.
I was one of those kids.
He doesn't know any of this.
He only knows:
The water moved.
His hands made it happen.
The light was beautiful.
He has a hundred languages.
A hundred ways of thinking.
A hundred ways of learning.
A hundred ways of being fully, completely, beautifully himself.
And they are taking them.
One by one.
Word by word.
Redirection by redirection.
Label by label.
Until he has only the language they allow.
Until he speaks only in the voice they approve.
Until he is small enough,
quiet enough,
still enough
to fit in the space they have made for him.