Auggie gives children a reason to smile
Churchill
■ North Greenbush The third-grader had a secret. She revealed it in a letter.
“There is one part of the day where I feel left out. It is recess,” she wrote. “Nobody plays with me, not one bit. I feel like nobody cares about me.”
The girl didn’t write to a teacher or a sibling. The letter wasn’t addressed to her mom, dad, grandparents or even Santa Claus. She wrote to Auggie.
To see Auggie is to understand why. The dog, a goldendoodle, just 5 months old, is teddy-bear lovable and as gentle as a heap of feathers. He looks like a Muppet. He’s as cheerful as a birthday party.
At Bell Top Elementary, Auggie is a rock star.
The North Greenbush school brought Auggie in as a therapy dog at the start of the school year, thinking he might be a benefit to students. Just three months later, Auggie’s impact has exceeded anyone’s expectations.
Contact columnist Chris Churchill at 518-4545442 or email cchurchill@ timesunion. com
Marty Mahar, the principal, says that when students write to Auggie, as they are encouraged to do, they share things they would never share with an adult, as the letter about recess shows. The letters reveal emotional lives — including worries and fears — to which the school’s adults would otherwise have little access and not know to address.
But Auggie’s importance to the school is about more than that.
The dog is a reason to enjoy school. For some students, he might be the only thing makes them want to come to school.
Jaime Gibbs, a counselor and social worker at Bell Top, and also the person who takes Auggie home at night, told me about a boy who disliked school so much, he refused to exit his parents’ car one morning. At the sight of Auggie, everything changed.
“He jumped out of the car, sprinted to Auggie, patted him for like 20 seconds, smiled the widest smile and ran into the building,” Gibbs said. “I was like, ‘Did that just happen?’”
Carol Willis, a reading teacher, said students who struggle to read suddenly perform better when Auggie strolls into the room.
“They lose their apprehension,” Willis said. “Auggie doesn’t judge them. Auggie doesn’t care when they say a word wrong.”
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that we live in an anxious time. It would be nice if our children and schools were immune from that, but that isn’t the case. Actually, schools seem to be a source of anxiety.
Consider the recent meetings in Saratoga Springs over whether to disarm monitors who patrol the district’s schools. The meetings have been full of raw emotion. When parents drop off their children, they are often afraid.
Consider the packed meeting in a Niskayuna auditorium this month about a lockdown at the high school prompted by a note threatening to shoot up the school. Parents and students yelled at school officials through frustrated, fearful tears.
Adult fears and worries trickle down even to young children. Some studies show a sharp rise in anxiety levels among not just teenagers, but elementary students. Anxiety affects nearly onethird of both adolescents and adults, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Enter Auggie.
No, a dog doesn’t solve the problems plaguing our society. Auggie is helping just one school, but that doesn’t mean his influence is small.
“We never thought he would become such a big part of our building,” said Willis. “We never imagined the impact he would have.”
Therapy dogs aren’t uncommon in upstate schools, but Auggie is a first for the East Greenbush Central School District. The school board approved the idea over the summer, Gibbs adopted Auggie, and, after extensive therapy-dog training that continues, Auggie came to Bell Top.
Gibbs and others at
Bell Top told me Auggie’s lessons are beyond academics. Interacting with the dog helps students learn about empathy and respect. But Auggie’s biggest gift is joy. Watch Bell Top’s students with Auggie and something becomes obvious: The children are smiling.
Dogs are magic, as those of us who love them have learned. They are grace, beauty, play and, when their end comes, too soon, deep sorrow. They are wonder, mystery, and a touch of the wild. They are life itself.
“What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass?” says the poet Mary Oliver. “What would this world be like without dogs?”
I don’t want to know, and neither, it seems, do the children at Bell Top.
The letters they write to Auggie reveal their worries and secrets, the sorrows they face. The inner lives of children are more complex than we often realize.
But not all the letters are melancholic, not by a long shot. Some express gratitude that Auggie walks among them. Some are love letters.
“I can’t wait for you to come into our classroom,” wrote a fifth-grader. “Thank you for making me smile.”