Questions Kids Ask: Do you pick your clothes at random?

Luna and I had a great time at Oak Terrace.

This past Tuesday Seeing Eye dog Luna and I had the honor of visiting third-graders at Oak Terrace Elementary school in Highwood, Illinois to talk about what it’s like to be blind and how service dogs help us get around.

Oak Terrace is a Spanish dual language school: students there are provided daily instruction in both English and Spanish. I am no expert in the benefits of bilingual education, but based on some of the words the kids used when asking questions, I’d say it really helps with vocabulary! Some examples:

• • Did you just wake up one day and all you could see was black?
  • Did you have previous experience with any other dogs before you got your first Seeing Eye dog?
  • How do you eat, I mean, how do you use utensils?
  • Were you terrified when you woke up and all you could see was the color black?
  • How do you play video games?
  • How do you eat when your husband isn’t around to cook?
  • What if there’s a natural disaster?
  • How do you swim without running into the wall at the end of each lap?
  • How do you use the bathroom?
  • Do you choose what to wear, or do you just pick your clothes at random?
  • How do you drive?
  • What happens when your dog retires?

”At random?” “Terrified?” “Natural disaster?” “Previous experience?” “Utensils?” What sort of eight-year-olds use sophisticated language like that?

Eight-year-olds who go to dual-language schools, I guess. Hearing both languages spoken there was music to my ears. When it was time to leave, I leaned down to pick up Luna’s harness, stood back up and used one of the very few sentences I know in the Spanish language: “Mi perro es muy intelligente!” The cheers from the third-graders tell me I must have gotten it right.