I received a thank you Thursday that I will treasure for a while. It came from four sixth grade boys who are not generally known for their politeness. I supposedly received it for answering their questions but I suspect I received it for taking them seriously. They seemed surprised to be taken seriously, especially after one of them had tried asking a question during a talk-back after the play that did not come out right and made him sound like a clown. But when the subject is serious, I assume children�s questions are serious, even if they appear off-the-wall or mocking.

Thursday, I went with Day-Hay�s grade to see the play �The Witch of Blackbird Pond.� The play, based on a children�s novel, concerns Kit who comes from Barbados to Puritan Connecticut in the 1600s and cannot fit in. She wears colorful clothes, attracts a lot of male attention, befriends a Quaker, and, worst of all, swims. As everyone knows, one of the tests of whether one is a witch is whether one can float. If you sink and drown, you are not a witch. If you float, you are a witch and put to death.

The teachers had done some preparation for the play but a little less than I would like to see. They had talked about Salem and the witch trials. But that still left a lot of room for questions, both factual and philosophical. What is the difference between Quakers and Puritans? Why were they so afraid of witches? Why would they believe that a smallpox epidemic suggested the presence of witchcraft? And, most of all, why would some of her relatives and friends fail to stand up for her?

At the play, I was strategically seated behind the four usually wiggly boys and wiggly they were�until the play started. Something about this play about a girl, of all things, caught them totally. I�ve never seen them so intent. Softly, they asked questions about the things beyond their experience, ignoring the no-talking rule. As I long ago decided that one of the differences between a good parent (or teacher) and an excellent one was knowing when to bend the rules, I didn�t shush them. No one around was giving us dirty looks and they needed to know.

They were so intent that, when the talkback came, I encouraged one of them to ask one of his questions at it. When he asked me whether some Quakers really were witches, I encouraged him to ask it of the actors. He asked the woman playing the Quaker. Unfortunately, it came out as �are you really a witch?� which prompted hoots of laughter and withering looks from some of the teachers.*

I watched as this kid went from clearly humiliated into living up to the persona that he was the clown. I watched his face as he decided it was better to look like a clown than someone who had gotten nervous with all eyes on him and had flubbed his question. I watched him (and his friends) retreat to the safe position that the play was silly. But I wasn�t buying.

At lunch, I went over to sit with the guys continue the discussion about the play but the moment was gone. Taking things seriously had become too risky. It would have been easy to assume that I had imagined their interest and their willingness to think. And then, as I was about to walk away to sit with other kids, each one of these wiggly, supposedly non-studious kids, thanked me for answering their questions.

I�m not a particularly good listener but I do take children�s questions seriously�and I�m very glad I did.

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* I did manage to get to the teachers later and clue them in on what had happened to the question.

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