Aida: A Crappy Little Operetta

The Dirty Work of Teaching Kindergarten

She had a big, operatic name, but Aida looked extremely small for her age.

Her enrollment paperwork claimed she just arrived from El Salvador and was supposedly five years old, but I swear she didn’t look a day over three-and-a-half.

I realize El Salvador doesn’t make the biggest people in the world, but Aida seemed unusually diminutive and dwarfish. She was terribly cute with more eyes than face—or hands and legs for that matter. I don’t know if she was legally a “small person,” but she seemed near the qualification. In fact, I don’t even know if she was legal, period.

I had a guilty suspicion that her mother needed childcare more than schooling for her youngest daughter. I didn’t put it past the family to try and play Aida off as a five-year-old, enroll her in all-day kindergarten, and basically gain a free four hours of child care. For all we knew, Aida was an undocumented three-year-old trying to front as a legitimate kindergartener. But all she had to do was giggle and flash her huge dark eyes and all subterfuge was forgotten and forgiven.

Aida hated me from the very second she laid eyes on me. To her maybe-toddler eyes I must’ve looked like a giant walking nose and mustache, sinister and comic at the same time. Fortunate for her, I was not assigned as her direct kindergarten teacher. Instead, she was assigned to my classroom partner, Ms. R. I would often catch Aida stealing glances in my direction—probably trying to figure out how a giant nose and mustache could talk or walk.

Ms. R and I soon discovered that Aida was about as ready for kindergarten as a premature puppy. She exhibited behavior between that of human toddlers and laboratory chimpanzees before they learn American Sign Language. She was kind of like a mild Helen Keller but without the excuses, because Aida could see, hear, and talk—or kind of talk, anyway.

She had no readiness skills. Asking her to draw a circle was like asking her to copy the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. Scissors, it seemed, were the most advanced machine she had ever come in contact with. When Ms. R or I handed her pencils and asked for her to write her name, she acted like they were twigs thrown in her way. Obviously, this little child needed extra attention, but whenever I approached her, she would run away and hide from me like we were playing tag. I left most of the work to Ms. R.

What I didn’t understand about this whole situation was how Aida’s mother didn’t ever see what Ms. R and I were noticing about Aida’s behavior and slow development. Did no one notice for the supposed first five years of Aida’s life that she acted like a baby koala bear? Child couldn’t name colors, didn’t know her full name or age, spoke in a giggle-scream dialect. We would have referred her for immediate testing, but English language learners need a sufficient amount of time in school before being referred to special education in order to avoid misdiagnosing a language learning issue as a learning disorder—plus, we needed the consent and participation of her mama. But when we approached her mother about Aida’s issues it was met with a big “so what” lack of urgency.

Then came the day that, for us, Aida became more than just an adorable animated plush toy.

Ms. R had her class engaged and silent, writing in their daily journals. Aida sat calmly re-drawing Picassos or mapping out the Universe or whatever she did in her journal. No one really knew what she did in between those pages except her. I was sitting nearby engaged in some paperwork when I inhaled deeply—then paused. Then I took another breath, this time with kindergarten teacher olfactory awareness. With the second inhalation, I caught the smell exactly. I stopped my work and looked at Ms. R with wide eyes and raised eyebrows and I sniffed the air loudly. This was teacher code. And Ms. R immediately understood.

Feces patrol had begun. Careful not to call out or target any children, we began cruising around separate parts of the classroom taking light, cautious sniffs above the heads of all the students. Both our noses settled on Aida. Placidly sitting in her seat, Aida was engaged in her “work.”

“Aida, do you have to go to the restroom?” Ms. R inquired nonchalantly.

Aida looked up with her black marble eyes, smiled the cutest smile, and nodded her head emphatically without a sound. However, with Aida you could never tell if she understood what was asked of her. I could have asked her, “Aida, do you like Madonna’s latest album?” and she would’ve answered yes with the same smile and emphatic nod. But this time she seemed to understand. She got up from her seat and moseyed out the door to the restroom, presumably.

Five minutes passed.

Ten minutes passed.

Fifteen minutes passed.

Finally, she returned, all smiles.

“Oh, Aida,” Ms. R and I sighed almost simultaneously.

It looked like she had wrestled a giant melting chocolate bunny. She had given him a run for his money but he got in some good licks. Streaks slid across her chin, on her forearm, and caked in the small of her small back with her uniform blouse half tucked in was all this….well…shit.

“Aida, what happened?”

It was a stupid, useless question for so many reasons. We knew what happened, sort of, and she didn’t understand us anyway. Besides, I’m sure she could never really explain it to us completely anyhow. She stood there, shit-streaked and smiling, as us two adults scrambled like excited hens trying to figure out how to take her to the nurse’s office to call her mom without touching her or getting the audience of kindergarten kids riled up. I was just glad she didn’t like to get near me.

Ms. R had her escorted to the nurse’s office and Mama came to change her. Later we got Aida tested and qualified for special education. She flunked kindergarten but that was alright because then she is just about the right size the following year.