The Sixth Sense

The Sixth Sense seems to come so easily to children.  But as we grow into adulthood, so many adults seem to lose touch with this last and ever-so-important sense.  What a shame.

Your first thought might be, E.S.P (extra sensory perception)?  Though kids love to fantasize about reading minds, but that is not the sixth sense I am referring to.  Nor am I talking about Equilibrioception (sense of balance) and proprioception (sense of body position),  the commonly accepted physiological senses that some like to lump with the original 5 senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.

No, this Sixth Sense is way more powerful and is vital to human existence.  Without it we might not be human at all.  Let me illustrate this sixth sense through a classroom story that a friend shared with me.

As in most first grade classrooms, Ms. M and her children have a regular morning routine.  They sing a song, update the calendar, count the days they’ve been in school, etc.  One routine they had been struggling with lately was the weather prediction. 

Each morning a new child is chosen to predict the weather for the day and place the corresponding picture card in a pocket on the calendar.  Things had been getting silly and kids were saying, for example, “sunny” when the wind was whipping through the trees and the windows were pelted with angry rain drops.  If the morning was bright and sunny, the chosen student meteorologist of the day might choose the “foggy” picture to place on the calendar.

Although this may have been funny and cute the first few times, Ms. M was becoming annoyed and decided to start this particular day with a lesson on the five senses.  “People who predict the weather for the news don’t just make wild guesses,” she told the 6 and 7 year-olds.  “That wouldn’t work very well,” she added.  “You may not have the tools that real meteorologists have, but you can use your senses as tools.”  Ms. M continued to explain that the children can open the door to feel the temperature.  They can look at the trees to see if the branches are swaying with the wind.  “Sometimes you can even smell the rain!” she exclaimed.

Ms. M definitely had their attention and felt like she had made the point she wanted to.  ‘Jane’ was then chosen as this morning’s weather-girl and the class waited quietly for her prediction.  Jane, a bright and helpful child, walked over to the door and opened it.  Silently she looked all around, held out her arms to feel for cold or rain and paused thoughtfully.  Yay, Ms. M thought, she was using her senses – the lesson was a success!  On this mild and damp gray morning, Jane turned around and announced to the class, “It’s SNOWING!”  Of course the class erupted into cheers.

“Wait.  Wait a minute,” Ms. M struggled to regain the kids’ attention.  “But Jane, it’s obviously NOT snowing.  I thought you were going to use your senses to predict the weather!”

“But I DID use my senses.  I used my sense of HUMOR!”  she giggled.

Ms. M was duped, but found her sixth sense and laughed out loud with the class.  And she was still giggling about it when she shared this story with me.

I often hear kids playing the “what if” game and debating which would be the worst of the five senses to lose.  “If you were blind, you couldn’t play X-Box!” or an adolescent girl might say, “I would just die if I could never hear Justin Bieber’s voice again!”  Personally, I’m not sure how well I would do if I lost one of those five physiological senses, but I am certain I wouldn’t be very happy without my sixth sense.  Just imagine a life without humor.