This memory is written and shared by Peter:
Emma adored her fifth grade teacher and so did we. Emma loved Mrs. C because she loved science (they hatched chicks) and she loved technology (she knew how to do cool stuff on the computers). Mostly, Emma loved that Mrs. C was her own person. She didn’t care much about staying in step with the crowd. We loved her because she seemed to understand Emma.
In December, Mrs. C showed the kids how to make snowflake designs on the computer using AppleWorks (remember that?). The process involved some creativity, quite a bit of geometry, and many, many steps. When Emma got home, she couldn’t wait to show me how to create snowflakes. “I think your class will like this, Dad.” I was often stealing ideas from Mrs. C that year. Emma walked me through the steps. Using the paint tool, we created a shape, cut sections away, duplicated, rotated by degrees, flipped (the shape, that is), and connected. Then rinse and repeat. Emma repeated the steps patiently for me, though she was probably frustrated by how many repetitions I required before mastering the process. I’m guessing it took Emma a few moments to learn. It took me more like an hour, and that was with one-on-one tutoring.
When I finally could create a snowflake independently, I was hooked. Together we printed a blizzard of snowflakes, but I was worried that I’d forget the process by the time I got to school. So Emma and I typed up a handy set of directions. We titled it “Painting a Snowflake with Appleworks in 29 Easy Steps.”
To me, those snowflakes were pure Emma, beautiful…and complicated.
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