The ego of man is like underwear on the floor.

There was a day when, if you had walked into our Kindergarten area, you might have thought we were running a literal s***show. Three steps inside the doorway there was a pair of white underwear laying on the floor, looking pretty dirty. A kid had walked in with their backpack unzipped and a spare pair of underwear had fallen on the floor and the kid had refused to pick it up. Teachers had asked them to pick it up several times, but they refused, not because it was underwear, but because they are defiant to almost all requests and directions. They leave their stuff everywhere and refuse to pick it up. It is a control and attention thing. The kid isn’t in my class, but I see them often enough. The underwear had been clean when it landed on the floor, but after it had been stepped on and kicked a few times, it looked soiled. We, the educators, decided that none of us were going to pick it up for the kid. We didn’t pick up their gloves when they tossed them on the ground, so we weren’t going to pick up the underwear either. At the end of the day, the underwear was swept up and thrown out. If the parents ask where they went, somebody will tell them how many times the student was asked to pick it up.

In my first two years of Kindergarten, I told my friends and family that some of my students were “ego monsters”. Everything had to be about them. They sought one-on-one attention at all times, by any means necessary, including violence. They had little to no patience. They were loud and defiant. They were quick to anger, loath to share, and difficult to deal with 98% of the time. Eventually, while taking a course online, I read about attachment theory and suddenly those kids made sense to me. (Basically, attachment theory says that if the primary care giver (usually the mom) is attentive and responsive to a child’s needs, is calm, kind, and caring, and is consistent and predictable, then the kid will feel secure in life and be able to handle stresses and disappointments. But if the primary care giver is inconsistent, unreliable, inattentive, preoccupied, emotionally unstable, unkind, too demanding, etc, then the kid is … well… going to be difficult for teachers to work with. Let’s just say that.) Once you learn what the rest of a kid’s life is like, their behaviour at school always makes sense. It is good to learn as much as you can about difficult children because it helps you to be more patient and compassionate with them.

Image taken from Ontario Counselling and Psychotherapy website. https://ocpsychotherapycentre.com/attachment-theory/

I often hear people talking about certain public figures as being narcissists, sociopaths, or megalomaniacs, etc. They talk about those people as if they are jerks who should know better. But I see those personality traits already manifesting in Kindergarteners. You can learn a lot about the human ego by working with kids. I have to look my own ego in the mirror every day as well. There have been times when I have pushed too hard for things to go my way, or for a kid to accomplish a certain task. I have inadvertently caused emotional meltdowns by being insensitive. Teaching kindergarten is a very humbling experience and, deep down, I am very grateful that my job does not permit me to be a jerk without consequences.

During my Novitiate (official year of training for life in a Roman Catholic religious order), I volunteered at a day center for adults with special needs. I really enjoyed my time with the clients. They were positive, gentle, warm, sincere, and humble. They were a tight knit group who loved and supported each other. It was great to hear them tease each other like family. Sure, they struggled with things like mental math and they were naïve in some ways. They all had disabilities which prevented them from being able to work or live independently. Many had down syndrome. One was severely autistic. One had been choked by the umbilical cord in the womb. One had suffered a head injury in a car accident. But I didn’t think of them as being less than I was. They were gentle, humble, loving, and peaceful. They had the qualities of greatness that I admire in a person.

One of the favourite activities of the clients was the bi-weekly trip to a local farm where they would help feed the animals, clear deadfall from the fields, and help the farmer however they could. I realized that the clients do not often get to feel useful, and contribute in concrete, practical ways. They were dependent on their families and the professionals at the center. They didn’t get the same feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that fully-able people get from working and being independent. I felt very sorry for the clients in that respect. At the time, I was also struggling with the feeling of uselessness, and guilt from not contributing to society.  

But with greater ability and greater accomplishments there is the risk of greater pride, and a bigger ego. And, what I observe with kindergarten students is that the ego, when running rampant, has a divisive, isolating effect. The ego pushes others away. It is unpleasant to be around an egotist. And, because they only care about themselves, they rarely develop true, deep connections with others. Egotists want to set themselves apart as being better than everyone else. I know that my ego caused me to close myself off from relationships for a long time.

Everyone has an ego. My Guru said that if the ego was stripped away, we would be one with God. So, the only reason we have our individual existence is because of our ego. He said that when God truly wants to bless someone, he humbles their pride.

Our society idolizes athletes, entertainers, influencers, and rich entrepreneurs. I think that the clients at the day center in Ireland are closer to God and are probably happier. They might not be able to reflect on their abilities, accomplishments, and possessions and say that they are satisfied. But it seemed to me that they had more peace and love in their hearts on a daily basis than most fully-able people. I can tell you that, in Kindergarten, the kids who try hardest to control everything and make everything go their way are the most miserable. It is a pitiable existence full of envy, jealousy, brooding, conflict, and disappointment. In that respect, when I see some of these ego maniacs in the news, I have less hate for them and more pity.  

Luckily in kindergarten we are getting them early. By being attentive, responsive, compassionate, firm, but always fair, we can help kids learn to think in new ways, and change their perspective on both the world and themselves. I’m not so sure about the 78-year-olds on TV though. It might be too late for them.

Flexibility, Forgiveness, and a Flying Starfish

“Mr Monk, watch this!” At first, I thought that she (one of my SK students) was going to do a cartwheel. She ran and jumped sideways into the air, her arms were out like a star fish, but she wasn’t quite rotating enough to do one of those hands-free cartwheels that the gymnasts do. She had gotten up into the air, and somehow her body had rotated to be upside down, but it had stopped rotating there, and I was now looking at a little girl, flying upside down, arms and legs out like starfish, smiling like a sea sponge. My heart lurched. Down she came on her neck, and when she hit the ground she bounced like a soccer ball before tumbling over into a seated position. I ran to comfort the now crying girl, who I assumed was gravely injured. I called for first aid, we got her inside and checked her out, and her mom came and picked her up to take her to the hospital. She was back at school the next day.

Little kids are remarkably tough and quick to recover. In the winter, I sometimes give a play-by-play commentary on the various slips and falls we see on the yard, except that I am commenting on what would happen to my colleagues and I if we fell the same way as the kids. “Broken wrist… broken hip… torn groin muscles… paralyzed… dead” I swear, some of the falls would kill me. A lot of it is that the kids are more flexible. But also, they don’t fall with as much weight as adults do.

Kids aren’t just physically flexible; they are mentally and emotionally flexible. I had a student who struggled to “enter play” with other kids. That means that if other kids were playing and he wanted to join, his approach was loud, abrasive, and often destructive. He wanted everything to be his way, and so he would smash what others made so he could take over the play area. If people were playing a game, he would rush in, yelling loud in their faces. He was brilliant, but obviously not “neurotypical” (meaning that he didn’t think like the majority of people think.) At a certain point in the year, he fixated on two girls and basically harassed them. Wherever they went, he ran around in front of them and got into their faces. He tried to grab them both in a bear hug, he tugged at their sleeves, he made loud nonsensical vocalizations in their faces. They tried to get away from him, they tried telling him to stop and leave them alone, but he kept following them. They came to educators for help, and we literally had to pull the guy away for the girls to get some peace. We couldn’t reason with him. His eyes never left the girls, and he didn’t stop trying to reach for them even as we pulled him away. It continued for days. At one point the guy hit one of the girls, hard, in the face, out of the frustration of being rejected. The girl’s parents were so mad that they threatened to call the police.

We, the educators, can’t lock kids in a cage. We couldn’t incarcerate the guy. In cases like that we have to stay close to the kid, monitor every situation, and try to guide/steer them towards appropriate behaviour. That is what we did with that guy. We kept him away from those two girls for a while. Often it meant that I had to shuffle my feet, like a basketball player on defense, to keep my body between him and them.

As expected, the girls were on alert anytime the guy was nearby. But over time, (not a very long time) they must have watched the guy enough to realize that he wasn’t truly malicious. Somehow, they saw innocence in him, even at a time when the educators were struggling to find compassion for him. If an adult man had behaved the same way towards an adult woman (let alone two), and there had been witnesses, the police would have been involved, and he would have been locked up. If there had not been witnesses, then it would have been harder to prove, but one thing is for sure: the woman would label the guy as a jerk (rightfully so), a creep (matches the description) and they probably would have avoided him for the rest of their life (with good cause.) But in this case, after only a week or two, the girls somehow got over their anger and fear, and they started giving the guy a chance. First, they tolerated him playing near them. Then they allowed him to play beside them. And then one day I saw the boy and the girl who had been hit in the face, playing together in the sandbox. They were actually working together, using bowls and kitchen utensils to make a structure out of the sand. I said, in surprise, “It is so nice to see you to working together so well!” The little girl looked at me and said, nonchalantly, “We’re friends now.”

My Guru said that children are closest to God. Yes, they are flexible. Not only are they physically flexible but their minds are still creating new neuropathways, allowing them to think in new ways all the time. They are not at all stuck in their ways like adults. I mentioned that they fall with less weight. That could be an analogy for the ego. With their egos being less established, they don’t take as much offense, and they get over things quicker. But maybe it is more than that. Maybe they are literally closer to God. Maybe their consciousness (their ways of thinking and feeling) more closely resembles the consciousness of God than our adult consciousness. Those two little girls forgave and accepted the guy faster than we, the educators, did. And we weren’t even the real victims of his behaviour.

A mini kindergarten miracle happened after that day. Once those girls forgave and accepted the guy, he dropped his fixation with them. I realized that he was fixated on them because he wanted to be accepted and approved by them, and he couldn’t get over the rejection. Over the course of that year, we realized that when at least some of the students accepted that guy and regarded him like a friend, he behaved well and was easy to work with. But when his behaviour wore out everyone’s nerves and they started telling him to go away all the time, he became extremely hard to work with, to the point that an adult had to literally be within arm’s length of him at all times, usually in a one-on-one setting*. It showed that the guy, deep down, just wanted to be accepted and loved. Yes, he wanted everything to be about him. He wanted it all to be his way, on his schedule, with him in control. But his strongest desire was to be loved and accepted. That is a comforting thought: the deepest and strongest desire in people is not for control, recognition, wealth, or anything else. The strongest desire, at the root of everything else, is the desire to be loved and accepted. And it took a pure hearted child to show me that.

* This is an example of “negative attention seeking”, where a kid will act out just because it gets them attention from an adult. Sometimes they go to extremes of noise/violence so that they end up in one-on-one situations with an adult, which, I think, is what they crave.

Getting fatter, yes… but there is growth to celebrate

“A hundred!” The kids were trying to guess how old I was. It was my birthday in my first year of teaching kindergarten, and I was turning 38. The ECE in the classroom, my teaching partner, was 52. “Try to guess who’s older, me or him!” she challenged the kids. “Oh, Mr. Monk is older for sure!” they said. The ECE grinned ear to ear. I didn’t take any offense. The first five months of kindergarten had taken years off my life. I started the year with a more-or-less full head of hair, with a normal hairstyle. But by December the top had thinned so much that when I went to a barber and said, “Do whatever you think will look best.” he gave me a comb-over. The next day I went somewhere else and got it buzzed off. Now my only choice for haircuts is between a 1 and a 1.5 adapter on the clippers.

Anyway, with the bald head and salt and pepper beard, I couldn’t blame the kids for assuming that I was the elder between myself and the E.C.E. When she told them that she was, in fact, 14 years older than me, they were dumbfounded. “But he is taller!” one boy yelled out.   

It makes sense that a kindergarten kid would assume that people keep getting taller as they age. In their families, the older you are, the taller you are. So, I explained to the kids that people only keep growing taller until they are about 17 years old and then they stop growing. While the kids were processing that, a little boy with big eyes and a frown on his face said, in a deadpan shout, “My dad’s not getting taller… he’s just getting fatter.”

I imagine that being in kindergarten must feel like a magical experience, where the world is full of endless possibilities. At that age there is constant growth. Day by day and week by week kindergarten students are getting bigger, stronger, smarter, and better at everything they do. Can’t print any letters? You will learn one today. Can’t hold scissors well enough to cut paper? By Christmas you will be cutting out shapes. Don’t have any friends? Give it three days. Don’t know how to wipe your own bum?... umm… ask your dad. I’m busy.

Kindergarten kids are constantly encountering new things, trying something for the first time, and seeing their skills develop before their eyes. It must be an age of optimism. A lot of kids retain that optimism as they get older. But by grade 8, I notice a lot more pessimism. Some kids have experienced too much personal failure.

Adults have optimism as they move “up the ladder” at work, build personal wealth, buy houses, have children, plan for retirement, etc. But I think that many people lose their optimism at certain points in their lives. I lost my optimism just when I had finally achieved long term stability at work and at home. I had everything that I wanted: an amazing wife, a stable and rewarding career, a house that we could kind-of afford and wasn’t completely collapsing. But my day-to-day life wasn’t balanced. We were watching too much TV (as an escape from thoughts of work), I was drinking too often (to reward myself), and I was suffering mental, emotional, and physical ill-effects. For 15 years I lived a life of prayer, abstinence, and discipline. I suppose that it was natural for the pendulum to eventually swing the other way. But the “fall from grace” was hard. Not only did I lose my peace of mind and positivity, I also lost a big part of my ego identity. The spiritual life has always had real benefits. But I also derived much pride and satisfaction from my efforts and progress. I thought of myself as a spiritual mountain climber. When all that crumbled, I had a mini crisis of identity, and I had to evaluate my purpose and goals in life. I was as special as I thought I was. I was a normal stressed-out guy, drinking craft beer and watching series on Netflix. It was very humbling.

It can be hard to sit before God, with your entire mind, heart, and history laid bare. I used to spend a good amount of time praying everyday. I never felt any shame before God because I truly believed that I was doing the very best that I could. Students are always eager to show someone their work when they are proud of what they did. But if they are ashamed of their work (or lack thereof) they avoid attention. When people are ashamed of themselves, it can be hard to talk to God. Some people would rather ‘fly under the radar’, and let God do his thing without bothering him. I eventually realized that I was in a rut and had to go back to prayer. I missed the peace of mind and natural positivity that comes from spending time with God. My need for peace eventually outweighed my shame. And, after I processed the humbling truth that I was not so special, I realized that I really missed God. So, I made up my mind and, with the support of my wife, I began sitting down in a quiet room to pray again. Once I did, I found that God ran out to embrace me just like the father does in the parable of the prodigal son.

AI made this image for me. Pretty cool, eh? I didn’t need the briefcase, but oh well.

For a kindergartener, there is always visible/tangible progress. I believe that if we examine our lives carefully, we will see that we continue to develop and progress all through life. Even my “fall from grace” was a necessary stage of development. At the time I felt like I was going backwards, but with God, no time is wasted. Wise and holy people have told me that everything in life is either a blessing or a lesson, and every lesson is a blessing. In my case, when I was humbled, I let go of some pride, and I learned to focus on what I truly wanted in life, which is peace and love, not pride and exaltation. I came out of it as a purer version of myself.

What aspects of your life are you ashamed of? Are there any changes that you want to make? Do you feel like you have already lost too much time? Try talking to God. Maybe everything in your life has helped prepare you for this moment.

“I didn’t go camping”

On Mondays in my first year in kindergarten, the ECE and I used to ask the kids what they had done the previous weekend. We would go around the room with a microphone so that each kid got the chance to speak and be heard. But after a December day when 9 kids in a row said that they had gone to the beach the previous weekend I realized that what we were doing wasn’t working. The nearby beach was wind-whipped and frigid in December. Nobody would have taken their kids there that weekend. The first kid to say it had obviously been thinking of a trip from the summer. Then the other kids just repeated what they had heard. They must not have been comfortable with the whole thing. Maybe they froze and just repeated what others had said because it was a safe answer that had worked for others. Either way, it wasn’t authentic and so I stopped putting the kids through it.

One day, while we were still doing the weekend recaps, a student said that they had gone camping. Given that it was November, I assume that they were actually recalling an event that happened in the summer. Nevertheless, a bunch of other kids picked up the idea and said that they too had gone camping. Afterwards, when the kids were busying themselves with other activities, a little boy came up to me with tears welling up in his eyes. He said to me, slowly, and with great sadness, “I didn’t go camping.” I tried to comfort him by saying, “That’s o.k. I didn’t go camping either! I’m sure you will get to go camping again one day.” He just stood there, bottom lip pushed out, staring off into deep memories. Then, suddenly there was a spark, his eyes widened, and his lips broke into a smile. He turned to me and said, “Hey! Marshmallows are good!”

I am far from an outdoorsman, but I really enjoy camping when the weather is nice. For a few years in a row, back when I was in the kitchen renovation business, I went camping once a year in the Adirondacks of upstate New York. On my first trip, I stayed the first night at Cranberry Lake. I remember the air. I am an asthmatic and when it is very humid, or the air quality is bad, I feel like I am willing a corpse into motion. I feel best when I am in the oxygenated air of a forest. At Cranberry Lake I remember the clean, dry late summer air, purified and filled with life by a hundred miles of forests in every direction. I felt the best that I have ever felt in my life. I travelled and camped at different sites for a few days, doing scenic hikes along the way, and then I drove through the green mountains of Vermont and then down to Boston where I visited a friend from university who I hadn’t seen in years. He took me to a game at Fenway Park (the Toronto Blue Jays happened to be visiting) and, when he and his wife had to go to work, I went to a beach and had what I am told is a classic New England experience. It was the hottest weekend of the year, 35 degrees Celsius, 95 degrees American (I know there is a proper word, but it is hard to spell), and not a cloud in the sky. But even though it was late August, the ocean off the coast of Boston was still very cold. So, I walked out until the water was around 3 feet deep and I alternated between standing up until I could no longer stand the heat and sitting down/swimming around until I could no longer stand the cold.

I do not have any photos from my trips to the Adirondacks, so I found this picture on Unsplash.com I hiked to this same spot and enjoyed this same view.

That was my first vacation in years, and even though I was only gone for 5 days, I felt like it lasted me the next 6 months, if not longer. By that I mean that for a long time I felt rejuvenated, as if I had just returned from vacation.

That is a happy memory. I sometimes have random flashbacks to happy memories of childhood. They just come on their own. They are usually memories of peaceful places and scenery. They make me realize that I am very blessed to have lived a mostly happy and peaceful life. Being a teacher, I know that isn’t the case for everyone. I fear that children who spend all their time on tablets won’t have so many foundational peaceful memories to lean on later in life.

One of my favourite happy vacation memories is from a trip to India. At the time, I was tired of waiting for my future. I had been working long hours at the kitchen business for years, dedicating all my time and energy to that, my prayer life, my health, and my spiritual disciplines. I was hoping that my Guru would tell me I was ready for whatever great thing I was destined to do. Maybe he would give me a mission. Maybe he would give me a challenge. Maybe he would invite me to stay in India and be a renunciate yogi like him for a few years before sending me back home in triumph. That had been my dream for a long time. But instead of that, there was nothing. He was happy to see me (he was always happy), and he was very good to me (he was good to everyone), but I didn’t receive any special attention. The trip was very good for me though. Each member of my family had gone to India with my dad at some point. My brother had been twice, and I was told that he made quite the impression. Everyone loved him there. They always asked my dad and I how my brother was doing. I could see how they smiled as they thought of him. One time I asked my dad if people in India ask about me when he is there, and I am not. My dad thought for a few seconds and simply said, “No.” in a way that didn’t hurt my feelings but made me think.

That’s me on the bench on the left.

When I had visited my Guru’s ashram in previous trips, it was with some pride. I thought of myself as another yogi, like him, in development. I never thought that I would be as pure, holy, and elevated as he was. But I definitely thought of myself as a future “somebody”. I probably carried myself an arrogant star of a junior hockey team who assumes that he is headed for the NHL. Add in the language barriers and my desire to keep to a meditation schedule and I guess I came off as cold. My brother, on the other hand, is just a warm, gentle, and humble guy who has no aspirations of being anything other than who and what he is. He was just grateful to be there.

On this particular trip I was by myself, without my dad. So, I decided that I would make an effort to be friendly and outgoing with the people who lived at or near my Guru’s ashram. I smiled more. When people waved me over, I went over and sat or stood with them, even though we couldn’t understand each other. Sometimes they wanted to give me some food or clothing or show me something. I found ways to still joke around even without words. I tried to just relax and give people my time, rather than always rushing back to make sure that I meditated for this or that length of time. One day I sat for a long time on a bench outside my Guru’s house while he was busy with some other guests. I had been hoping that he would finally invite me in and change my life somehow. But instead, I waited there for hours, just staring at the sky until, eventually, I was at peace. Instead of a life-changing event, I found the peace of a clear mind and an open heart. Eventually my Guru did invite me in. We just smiled and small talked a little bit and then he went off to his meditation chamber and I went out to walk around and see who would wave me over that day.

That is a happy memory.