In Defense of Stuffies

A few years ago, I took a group of nervous fifth graders to "Step Up Day" at the local middle school. After touring the beautiful, expansive school, and settling in to a meticulously organized classroom, one boy tentatively asked, "where do we keep our stuffed animals?"

"Oh." The teacher glanced at me, eyes wide. "Oh, dear. Oh no. We don't allow stuffed animals in sixth grade."

I teach sixth grade now in a lovely private elementary school. My students sometimes grumble that they are too old for 'baby school.' They are ready for the jumble of packed hallways, class schedules, and school lunches. Sometimes, watching them crash through first graders with the lurching, awkward grace of pre-adolescents, I think for a second that they may be right.

The feeling lasts until the next time I read aloud. Then my tall, mature, thoughtful group of eleven and twelves pile onto our rug. Tucking pillows and stuffed animals under their heads, they snuggle in close to each other. They are eager for the next chapter, even though every few days one of them falls asleep, and has to be gently woken by a friend. "Did I miss anything?" the child will blink. "What happened in the story?"

Technically, pillows and stuffed animals are a violation of the fire code. They are flammable; therefore, they are unsafe for elementary classrooms. I pointed out that if we are going to ban flammable items from the classroom, perhaps we should be more concerned about the 800 or so books adjacent to the heater. Would four pillows really be more dangerous than the two bins of "Post-Apocalyptic Fiction"? Yes says the Fire Marshall.

To be honest, I didn't intend to have stuffed animals. Pillows, yes, because who really loves reading while sitting at a desk? But something interesting came up during the first few days of school. In the middle of a discussion on creating a positive classroom community, a child tremulously raised his hand.

"Would people be teased if they brought stuffed animals to school?"

I looked around the room. "What do you think, group? Are we a community where people can bring stuffed animals?"

I held my breath. Sixth graders are wonderfully sensitive to anything that might be perceived as "babyish." Stuffed animals seemed very young to me.

Instead, wide eyes stared back at me. One whispered, "You mean ... we could bring in stuffies?"

Bo

A week later, a three foot stuffed penguin moved in. His name is Bo, like President Obama's dog. He was followed by a two foot penguin, a blue whale, gray leopard, dolphin, and a seal.

After seeing the menagerie, another teacher cautioned that the stuffed animals would prove to be too distracting. My response was to purchase a live animal, a soft, peach-hued hamster. She is significantly more distracting than the stuffed animals, as she periodically waddles out of her sleeping den to eat, yawn, and briefly spin on her wheel. These rare moments of activity can incite a full class riot as kids stampede towards her cage. Thankfully, she accepts her celebrity with aplomb.

Recently, I've been thinking about the stuffed animals as we wade through sex ed lessons. My class has learned about everything from gender identity to sexually transmitted diseases. Meanwhile, many are shooting up like sunflowers, growing nearly as tall as me. They are talking about crushes, and about being a little heart-broken when someone doesn't like you back. They are looking ahead to the day when they graduate. They are ready to fly out of the nest. Are they growing too old for stuffed penguins and fat hamsters?

Then I walk in the classroom bright and early to discover one of them arranged the stuffies into a diorama. The penguins are reading a book together; the leopard is peering into the hamster cage; the seal and dolphin are swimming over the supply shelf. When my students arrive later, they jostle and nudge, wheedle over late homework, shout about the game or the show last night. Then one by one, they drift to the reading area to find a stuffie and a pillow. The classroom grows quiet with the hum of children absorbed in books. It's a stillness like holding a sleeping baby.

When the fire marshall comes, we rush to hide the stuffed animals in the spare lockers outside. Otherwise, we're a sixth grade classroom full of stuffed animals. Childhood is short. Why not make it last as sweetly and as long as possible?