Family members would often visit and share photos of the birthday child as the child was growing up. At first I was puzzled why not with us, with whom he spends six hours a day? Children seemed to like our birthday celebrations. I remembered earlier in the year that William’s mom told me her son didn’t want to celebrate his birthday at school - only in after-school. That interaction at breakfast stayed with me for days. Later, he told me he wanted to sing this song to me for my birthday.
“Thank you for telling me!” William finished eating breakfast. When I was growing up, that was the birthday song my white, English-speaking family sang it was what I knew. It sounded joyous - more joyous than the staid birthday song I had led children in singing every time we celebrated a student’s birthday: “Happy Birthday to You,” written by sisters Patty and Mildred Hill in the early 1900s. Of course, this isn’t a generic birthday song, it’s a happy birthday song for Martin Luther King Jr., arguing that his birthday should be a national holiday. Later, I learned it was “Happy Birthday” by Stevie Wonder. The song was familiar, but I couldn’t remember who wrote it. “ Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthdaaaaaay - happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthdaaaaaay!” they sang, smiling and clapping to the beat. A student named William remembered this information and turning away from his bagel with cream cheese, he said, “Kerry, we sing a different birthday song in our after-school.” He began singing it and two of his after-school classmates, Derrick and Fatima, joined in. We often talk about birthdays in class, and in one of our discussions I shared that my birthday was coming up - a way to help us bond over a shared experience (“I have a birthday, too!”). and the kids were eating cereal and bagels before we went upstairs to the classroom. I work with a paraprofessional named Vesna, who was also at the table.
I teach kindergarten and 1st grade - looping, with the same class for two years - at Central Park East 2, a public school in East Harlem, New York. One morning last April, I was with my kindergarten students in our school’s cafeteria.
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