When you tell them (the grown-ups) that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collec butterflies?" Instead, they demand: "How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?" Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.
If you were to say to the grown-ups: "I saw a beautiful house made of rosy brick, with geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof," they would not be able to get any idea of that house at all. You would have to say to them: "I saw a house that cost $20,000." Then they would exclaim: "Oh, what a pretty house that is!"
I do admit that I am a terrible grown-up sometimes when I forget about what is actually "essential" to them; when I teach, there must be moments when I speak to them about things are totally irrelevant and ignoring their relevant observations.
Once in music class, after we finished a listening activity (it was a brief exerpt from Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliette", I chose to briefly told them the year when the piece was written, and a bit about the composer. Then a boy raised his hand and asked, "but what is the story behind this song?" I felt ashamed that moment - out of all things that I could tell them about the piece, I actually picked the most irrelevant information to share with my students. They wouldn't remember who wrote the piece or what year it's written; they wanted to know why the song sounded so serious and solemn - it'd surely be more interesting to them if I tell them about the conflict betweeen the Montagues and the Capulets.
Sometimes, when we put ourselves into children's shoes, we can easily define what matters and what doesn't.
