Fresh out of first-year university, Joe worked at a summer camp, teaching children camp craft skills, such as how to make a fire, chop wood, build a lean-to, and, the favourite of most children, how to make chocolate-chip bannock. The program was organized in such a way that the group leaders – usually teenaged girls and boys – would bring their groups of ten or twelve children to the various educational stations.
Spending about an hour at each station, the children would make crafts, learn how to swim, paddle canoes, perform on stage, sing songs, and develop skills. The youngest children were aged five to six, although there was the occasional four-year-old that was accepted into the camp program. Joe would see these children a couple of times per week.
One blisteringly hot afternoon, the youngest children arrived. Their group leader said the children were exhausted from the heat and weren’t really up for camp craft activities. She wondered if there was something the children could do while sitting in the shade and drinking water. After some discussion with the children, they opted to play Duck, Duck, Goose.
“Does everybody remember how to play?” Joe asked.
There were nods everywhere.
“Well, maybe I’ll just reiterate the rules before we begin.”
A hand popped up. It was Cindy, the youngest of the group, still just four years old.
“Yes, Cindy?”
“Mr. Joe, what does that word mean?”
“What word are you talking about, Cindy?”
“The word riterit. What does it mean?”
“Oh, you mean the word reiterate. Well, it means to, um, restate the rules, or to review them. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I know what the word review means.”
“All right. So here are the rules. One of you will stand up, walk around the outside of the group, in a clockwise direction. Does anybody here know which direction is clockwise?”
Cindy threw up her hand. “It’s the same direction that the clock moves.” And she indicated the direction with her finger. Cindy was a clever one.
“That’s right. The person walking clockwise taps each child on the head and says the word duck. If you are sitting and you are tapped on the head and hear the word duck, you must remain seated. But when the person walking clockwise taps one of you on the head and says the word goose, you have to stand up and race the person around the group in the opposite direction and try to be the first to sit back down in your spot. The person who arrives last is declared it and then takes a turn tapping the others on the head: duck, duck, duck, duck, goose.”
It was a popular children’s game. By rights, the child who walks clockwise tapping the heads of the others should always win the race because he or she is already standing, while the opponent is seated. Frequently, however, the child who was it would want to remain it and would try to let the seated person win the race so that he could continue to play. Being the experienced duck-duck-goose supervisor that Joe was, he didn’t allow such shenanigans on his watch. He made sure everybody got a turn.
The game got off to a poor start for the simple fact that nobody volunteered to start. The children just sat there in their pools of sweat, sipping their glasses of iced water. Joe selected a child at random to begin the game.
The first couple of rounds were uninspiring. The first boy only tapped a few children on the head before he said goose and then simply walked around the group.
“Run, run, RUN, Jeremy,” Joe said, trying to cheer him on. But Jeremy just walked at his own leisurely pace.
Thomas tapped one child on the head. “Duck.” He tapped the next person on the head. “Goose.” Duck, goose! That had to be a first. Normally, the kids would say the word duck as many times as they could get away with it, sometimes skipping around the group two or three times, before the supervisor told them that if they didn’t say the word goose soon, like in the next five seconds, they would have to sit down.
But the group was weary from the heat and probably bored to death of this game. Joe had to do something, and quickly too. Some of the kids seemed to be nodding off.
“OK you little rascals. Time for us to put on our thinking caps. Instead of saying duck, duck, goose, let’s use our imagination and think of other sets of words, like police car, police car, fire engine, or tiger, tiger, lion, or some other opposites.”
Cindy threw up her hand. “Mr. Joe, a tiger and a lion are not opposites. They are actually two different kinds of cats. Front and back are opposites, but tiger and lion are not.”
“Thank you, Cindy for the clarification. Did all the rest of you understand that? You can either use opposites or any two different words. Your choice.”
The children started to sit up and pay more attention to the game. They were really getting into it. Cereal, cereal, milk was followed by sister, sister, brother. Then came wash, wash, dry trailed by taxi, taxi, bicycle. And then a couple of odd ones: elephant, elephant, piano was immediately challenged with piano, piano, elephant. All of the children were laughing and clapping by the time the camp horn sounded to indicate a change in activities.
“Time to wrap it up,” Joe said.
Cindy threw up her hand. “Mr. Joe, I’m the only one who didn’t have a turn yet. Can I do it before we go?”
“I’m so sorry. Of course, you can go, Cindy. Everybody sit down, please, and we’ll let Cindy finish before you go to your next activity.”
Cindy stood up, smiled, and skipped clockwise around the group. She tapped the first child on the head. “Penis.”
Joe glanced at the group leader questioningly. She shrugged.
Cindy tapped the next child on the head. “Penis.”
Joe looked at the group leader again and they both nodded. Yes, they had heard Cindy correctly.
Cindy skipped merrily around the group, tapping the other children on the head. “Penis, penis, penis, penis.”
And then, “VAGINA.”
Cindy screamed hysterically and sprinted around the group as fast as her little legs would take her.
Truthful, sincere, and genuine – all the things one looks for in an authentic individual. Joe hoped Cindy wouldn’t lose that on her way to adulthood.
As the children stood to leave, little Mark put up his hand.
“Mr. Joe, what’s a vagina?”