Think Pink

Long before we wore pink ribbons or kitty hats, I had a group of 4th grade girls who wore pink every Wednesday.

The class was small by 21st century American public school standards: under 25 students. But this class had personality. Not too much, because classes with too much personality can exhaust you. Not too little, because they exhaust you in a completely different way. This class had just the right amount of personality because they energized me.

It didn’t surprise me when I saw the girls wearing pink. Elementary girls wear a lot of pink, though by 4th grade other hues start taking over. First purple, then baby blue, lime green, sunshine yellow…. and on it goes. The girls in this class, however, still loved pink.

One day, I noticed a significant amount of pink and said something funny about it. That is when they told me they wore pink every Wednesday. I thought about that for a while, puzzled . Why had I only noticed it today? There was no particular reason for it, they explained, except that they liked pink. And that’s when it happened. I decided there and then that I would wear pink next Wednesday.

I  didn’t tell them, of course. Where’s the fun in that? You can probably imagine how surprised and pleased they looked the following Wednesday, when I, too, was wearing pink.

I did so every Wednesday that year. Yes, the boys thought we were all weird, but I think wearing pink helped me build a stronger classroom community with everyone.