I approach the first grade classroom down an endless hallway, the kind I recall from my youth at Maplewood Elementary School.  The green tile walls are anything but conducive to displaying childrens' work but there have been attempts to show third graders' drawings in the style of Matisse.  The vivid colors and dancing figures do bring to mind a recent Matisse exhibit at the Denver Art Museum; perhaps the children made a field trip there.   As I walk away from the budding Matisses, very little breaks the monotony of the hallway.
            I round the corner to another long hallway and everything changes.  Strung from the ceiling tiles someone has hung a scale model of the solar system in bright paper mache.  There are photographs of each first and second grader and a sample of their writing, neatly laminated and hung at jaunty angles, but at  eye level -- first graders' eye level.  I can't help myself and I pause to read some of their writing - an adult has translated the writing into somewhat more readable English just below the first grade script.  I'm delighted to find several rows of small bookshelves each perched on a garage sale rug with a sign inviting the visitor to the first and second grade "mini library".  Several children move among the shelves selecting books.   Their faces are serious and by the time I have approached, two of the three have selected a book and moved back into various classrooms.
           A small lamp on a tiny table glows at the entrance to the first grade classroom.  There is a placemat under the lamp -- simple black and white checks setting off the bright red base of the lamp.  The lampshade has been decorated with bright primary colored markers by eager first grade hands.  The scene on the shade seems to depict the first day of school.    There is a sweetness to this scene, no doubt, but it is far more than cute.  It feels inviting not only for children, but for adults.  I realize that this hallway actually beckons me as much as the children. 
            I enter the classroom I'm scheduled to observe that day to a smell that is at first indecipherable, but that I finally identify as vanilla.  The scent emanates from a candle, tucked safely away on the teacher's desk.  My eyes scan the empty room and my first impression surprises me.  Where is the clutter generally found in first grade classrooms, the piles of, well, first grade stuff?  The tables seat two children each and are clustered together so that six children face each other.  In the center of each group of tables are baskets with pencils, post it notes, small notebooks and markers.  There are two meeting areas; one that would accommodate the whole class seated on a rug bordered by bookcases, the other space smaller with a cozy, upholstered rocking chair and four or five bean bag chairs, also defined by low bookcases and cubbies.  The teacher's desk is tucked away in a corner.  I notice an extensive professional library on a nearby shelf.  There is a sense of order to this haven, not rigidity, but simplicity and warmth.
           The children return from music, and as they come in chatting, I notice that they go immediately to the little cubbies, remove stacks of 7 - 10 books and find places around the classroom where they settle in with their books.  I am aware that the teacher hasn't yet said a word.  Some of the children curl up on bean bags, others at their tables, two others share the rocking chair and read quietly to each other.  The teacher stands back, observes, records a few notes and pulls up next to a child to begin a conference.  There is a pervasive feeling of calm. 
           I greet the teacher and listen in on the conference she is having with a tiny girl who is holding a wordless picture book.  The teacher urges her gently to select a book from her pile that has words.  She reminds her that she has worked with wordless books for two days and now it is time to challenge herself with words! 
           "Clarissa, do you remember when I read this book to the whole class?"  Clarissa almost nods.  "Well, I just know that this is a book you will be able to read.  Shall we give it a go together?"  Another nod, this time noticeable.
           The teacher asks Clarissa to recall aloud everything she remembers that was important from the book.  The book is not, as we might imagine, a typical first grade book and I'm eager to see how Clarissa approaches Alan Say's Grandfather's Journey.   It is a sophisticated tale of immigration from and return to Japan that spans several decades.
           "I remember this book", Clarissa begins slowly, it's about when the author's grandfather couldn't decide where to live."
           "What else?" the teacher presses her.
           "I don't remember."
           The teacher smiles, almost to herself, and pauses.
           "I know you don't remember, but if you did remember, what else would you say is important?"
           "Oh! That the grandfather loves partly Japan and partly living here." 
           I exchange a glance with the teacher because the ambivalence of the central character is  indeed a very key theme in the story.  I expect the teacher to turn triple back flips, but her response is far more productive.  "Clarissa, I remember that too.  I remember that the grandfather in this book was happy in some ways here in the United States and happy in other ways when he was in his native Japan."  Clarissa nods gravely.
           "So, Clarissa, I guess you'll be reading this book." 
           Clarissa looks at her teacher with wide eyes.  "Isn't it too big for me?"
"          Well, let's see, you remember what is important about the book, let's see if you can read any of the words." Clarissa opens the book to the first page and runs her tiny fingers over the print.  "Yeah, I know a lot! I know when, it, the, grandfather, boat, wide, . . . . " The list went on.  "But there are a whole bunch I don't know." 
           I waited for the teacher to tell her the unknown words but she did something far more productive.  She encouraged Clarissa to try to read as much as she could recalling the key themes and using the words she knew to decide what the unknown words might be. 
           "Now, Clarissa, remind me what we do when we come to an unknown word."
           "Sound it out," were the first words out of Clarissa's mouth.
           "And what else?"
           Clarissa peeked up at a large chart on the wall.  Under the title "what we do when we come to an unknown word. . . " the children had brainstormed and the teacher listed a host of strategies including, but not limited to, sounding out words.
           As Clarissa told her teacher all the strategies she could use to identify an unknown word, I became distracted by the room around me.  There were numerous  charts hanging neatly on the walls, but none were commercially produced.  As I studied the charts, I became aware that all were records of the children's thinking. The charts included: What great readers do to make sure they understand; Topics we want to write about; Surprising language we found in books; Poetic language we discovered in books; Quotes we love (this one had two columns, one for quotes from books, one for quotes from each other); Book Recommendations (this chart included children's recommendations to other children); and Ways we use schema to better understand what we read. 
           My eyes were drawn back to the children.  Most were still reading intently, but a group of four had seated themselves at a little table in a far corner of the room.  It was lit softly by a floor lamp and covered with a tablecloth. As I approached to eavesdrop, the group was engrossed in a discussion about the book, Oliver Button is a Sissy.  They were helping themselves to a bowl of pretzels from the center of the table and, as I watched, one child rose and came back bearing four water bottles collected from the cubbies of those gathered at the table.  I began to wonder if I was dreaming.

           Is this a sequestered private school tucked neatly into the suburbs or some quaint Midwestern town?  Actually the school is a public school in one of Denver's most impoverished neighborhoods.  The children speak a variety of different languages and, sadly, many move before the end of each school year.  But, here in a school where the odds are stacked against the children, there is an oasis for the mind and spirit.   The children are treated with the deepest respect and expected to say and do brilliant things every day.  The environment and community is carefully crafted to be inviting and cozy for children as well as adults.  The lighting is soft, the room uncluttered, the books organized sensibly, every square inch of space used thoughtfully.   
           I realize only after I have left the school that classroom climate and environment isn't about having cute things on the wall, it isn't about spending countless hours preparing bulletin boards.  Classroom community means having a classroom that, visibly and invisibly, provokes intellectual development and does so in an intimate setting.  The spaces set aside for learning accommodate large group, small groups and individual work, there are lamps and scented candles, there are table cloths, placemats and decorated lampshades and there is easy access to materials and to other learners.  But there is an elusive quality, one that I sense is more important still.   
           Listening in on the conference with Clarissa made me understand that creating community also means pushing the children to attempt new things in their reading and writing with the full understanding that those challenges may be just outside their grasp.  Grandfather's Journey was too difficult for her.  Yet, I watched Clarissa read it, start to finish.  She had the time, she had the determination; she had heard it before and she read it.  How many of us would have told her to try something easier and what an extraordinary loss that would have been.   
Perhaps that quality, that elusive yet vital quality that lies at the heart of creating classroom community is the teacher  -- a teacher who fully expects brilliant thinking from every child every day and creates a world to support that expectation.