I Wanted to Teach a Geography Class

I wanted to teach a children’s geography class.

This just might be the silliest idea I’ve ever come up with, and I’ve had some whoppers.

Adrienne had been in school for a year when I thought up the idea. I didn’t exactly miss homeschooling– I certainly didn’t miss English and Math lessons, at least. I didn’t miss the loneliness or the constant feeling that I was doing something wrong. But I missed social studies. I just loved making up a little curriculum to teach about a different interesting country every week, reading stories from that culture, learning a bit of the languages, the music and the dances. I liked to look up the capital city on Google Maps and show a street view of the places we’d read about. I liked seeing that look of excitement, and realizing I’d connected with somebody in such a special way. Adrienne was fascinated by something that fascinated me. That was gone now. I moped around the house feeling elderly and depressed.

There’s a church outreach near here that gives underprivileged children free after school lessons, in whatever subject they can find a teacher to teach: martial arts, dancing, gardening, story time. I talked to the pastor and asked if there was an empty slot for me to have a geography club– while conscious that it was one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever had. What child would look at an activity list and choose a class called “geography,” when they could go to story time?

To my surprise, the pastor took me up on the offer, for the beginning of the next school year.

I spent the few weeks before that day planning my lessons picking out countries that fascinated me and studying all about them. I dusted off the books from the homeschooling cupboard. I found fun videos, and Adrienne helped make slideshows on the laptop. I ordered a set of pretend passports that were blank inside, and a big paper map. The first day of classes, I stood in a Sunday school classroom right out of a storybook complete with a colorful stained glass window, wearing my very best dress and good shoes, equal parts excited and terrified.

There were only three students, one of whom blurted out within the first minute that he was only there because the pastor offered him a snack as a bribe.

“That’s okay,” I said, handing him a blue booklet with “PASSPORT” written on it. “We’re going to have a good time. Here’s your passport for taking notes.”

“We get to learn about passports?” said the boy in awe.

“Something like that.” I handed out the lollipops I’d brought as well. “Now, before we become world travelers, I’m going to teach you about the seven continents. Let’s play a game. I want you to pretend that this map is really the earth, and we’re up in space trying to land a rocket.”

We played the game. We successfully landed the rocket. I read the picture book “How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World.” I showed them the Google Map with the church on it and how we could zoom around to other continents on the computer. We danced to the video of Yakko the Animaniac naming the countries of the world. By the end of the class, the children were beaming.

“Tell your friends,” I said as they left for the next thirty-minute session. “Next week we’re going to Ghana.”

The next week, none of the original three children were there, but I had five new children. I showed them the map of Africa and a silly vintage Sesame Street sketch about what Africa looks like. I read them a story about Anansi the Spiderman and then watched a scene from the Marvel Comics’ Spider-Man so they could see that both kinds of Spider Stories are about a clever little man who defeats enemies much stronger than he is. We learned to sing and dance “Funga Alafia Ashe Ashe.” When that class was over, my new students were beaming.

The third week, as I was coming in, I saw the little boy who had been bribed to sit through my original session. His face lit up when he saw me. “Oh! You’re the class I wanted to take! Can I bring my friends?”

Next thing I knew, more than ten children were piling into the classroom.

“I’m so glad you’re here! Today we are going to go to TANZINIA and meet a group of people called the MAASAI,” I said, annunciating the new words carefully like an old-fashioned teacher from a movie.

“You sound like an old-fashioned teacher from a movie!” said one girl in the front row.

As I opened up the map, and helped them find Tanszinia, I glanced around at twenty pairs of eyes.

I saw it again: the excitement. I’d connected with twenty other people in that special way. A whole roomful of children were fascinated by something that had fascinated me.

I felt happy, for the first time in a long while.