I read this book aloud to a class of 2nd graders yesterday... 2nd graders that I had loved on all of last year and now hang off of me like monkeys and I am their tree every time I see them in the hallway. Imagine their surprise when I showed up as their former English teacher masquerading as their French teacher for the afternoon.
Picking up the book standing in front of the rows of the library books on a Friday afternoon and recognizing the author, I figured it would be a good read-aloud to end our day together. It ended up being one of those stories that probably resonated more with me than with the kids. Here I am, 26 years old, trying to teach 7 and 8-year-olds about how not to let what other people think of them affect them. The same lesson that I've been trying to learn myself lately- I want to be respected and affirmed by the teachers at my school, the students in my class, the kids in youth group, my professors, my friends and roommates. It's like Pavlov's theory of conditioned responses- I've become conditioned to responding that way. But in trying so hard to please others, I, like Camilla, am losing a part of myself and blending into whatever the people around me want me to be. Camilla doesn't return to her normal self until she realizes that she likes lima beans and is confident in her decision to eat them, despite getting teased and made fun of. I've got to figure out what my lima beans are.
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