Many moons ago, I was a cold-hearted bastard.

I once believed children should be seen and not heard. I shared the sentiment present in Victorian England. The noise, the utter chaos caused by the little beasts, used to drive me to the brink of insanity.

During my university summers I worked at a children’s summer camp. Given my statement above this seems more than a little anomalous. Thinking back I am unsure why. Probably the camaraderie. I forged life-long bonds those Julys and Augusts with people whom I count among my closest friends. The campers were secondary. They were filthy little creatures that enjoyed showing me captured snakes and insects. They rolled in mud and shrieked so loud I feared my ear drums would rupture. But, it was a paycheck.

When I started my first career I didn’t see children. Huddled in an office before a computer I was driven by money and the useless need for success and promotion. My dog adopted my attitude towards children. Upon encountering young ones she growled and her hackles rose until she looked more like a porcupine than a member of the canine species.

My sister gave birth to a daughter in 2002, which may have been the point my narrow-minded outlook started to change. I was in rapture of the small creature. As she grew and crawled, then talked, I felt blood return to a long-stunted heart. We would spend long days playing “Where’s Sydney?” a hide-and-seek type game that involved her standing in a closet and looking through the louvered doors as I searched the playroom for her.

Children are now my life. My wife and I have no biological offspring (and according to her contract can’t until 2009), but we have children ‘o’ plenty. Every day and I am blessed with 40 young, smiley faces outside my classroom door. As I walk around the campus I hear, “Sti Fu! Sti Fu!” called from classroom and dormitory windows (Sti Fu, being some bizarre mixture of my English and Chinese names, as pronounced by Grade 1 students.)

One little rascal has captured my reinvigorated heart. The first day the Grade 1 students filed into my classroom they were scared. Before them was a big and scary foreigner. A peep did not escape their lips. None of them had English names and our first class together consisted of my co-teacher and I bestowing monikers on the new students.

Rick was the only one that showed any signs of life. He had an infectious smile and an evil glint in his brown eyes (the type of glint only possessed by six-year-olds). Naming an entire class is not as easy as it sounds. Some co-workers resort to themes. While I considered naming my charges after WKRP and Munsters characters I was thinking of Bogart when I stood at Rick’s desk. For a six-year-old he was fairly cool and the name of Bogart’s classic Casablanca character seemed apropos.

He is just like his North American counterparts. He can’t sit still and has an attention span that can be measured in seconds. When I turn my back he is out of his seat, as if propelled by a slingshot. I have eyes on the back of my head, like all good teachers do. He’ll tear over to a friend’s desk and engage in any number of 6-year-old-type behaviors. As aggravating as his transgressions are I remind myself that he is in fact only six.

Question: Which student is Rick?

His smile melts ice. He has managed to remove the last layer of frozen water that surrounded my heart. I am not adept enough a writer to describe Rick’s smile with any justice. It’s like staring into a white light of total and profound innocence. Maybe it’s my desire to get back to that, that place of childish optimism and freshness, that has made this lad my favorite.

One evening he left his jacket in the classroom. Ten minutes after his classmates had left he stood in front of my office, dancing from foot to foot. I thought he had to pee.

“Sti Fu,” he said, pointing down the hall.

Language doesn’t matter when you have experience under your belt. Another student stood in front of my office in tears because he had left his raincoat in class. Rick danced. I showed him my key ring. He nodded.

I threw his very small body over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He squealed with delight and jabbered at the last few students in the hall as he viewed the world from a different angle. He retrieved his jacket and took off like a benevolent tornado, back to his classmates, and then the dorm.

Rick is both seen and heard. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.