Children can show us how.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

MAYBE IT was a case of midwinter blues. Maybe it was a growing sense that the world, as this week's headlines suggested, is spinning out of control.

U.S. ready to go to war, allies or not ... Cries of `no blood for oil' ring out around the world ... Energy high at abortion rallies.

For whatever reason, my mood mirrored the fog that hung low in the fields and forests along Bailey Hill Road as I approached Twin Oaks Elementary School for a speaking gig Thursday morning.

Man killed after standoff ... Fatal fraternity fight ... Grandparents beater killed ...

I'd been asked to teach the kids a lesson about writing. Instead, they taught me a lesson about something far more important than writing: life in general.

I came away wondering if the world wouldn't be a better place if, instead of the so-called sophistication of adults - Couple suspected of conning elderly drivers - we'd do better to rediscover the innocence we left behind in the Twin Oaks schools of our lives.

It is Robert Fulghum (`All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten') meets St. Matthew (`Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.').

I learned part of the lesson by simply looking out at a sea of (sometimes nearly toothless) smiles and other intriguing facial expressions, and thinking: What a wonderful collection of humanity. And later: What a shame that they must inherit the flawed world we're handing them.

On the other side of the planet you'll find the equally irrepressible faces of Iraqi children, perhaps also yet unsullied by the ways of the adult world. If they're the age of Twin Oaks kids, these are children born just after the gulf war was fought in 1991.

They may have lost fathers or siblings in the war; in the first seven months of 1991, 46,900 more Iraqi children died than normally would have been expected to die, according to a study by the New England Journal of Medicine. This was due mainly to an outbreak of diarrhea caused by disabled water and sewage systems caused by the war - a nearly full Autzen Stadium worth of dead children.

Which makes you wonder if war is the only alternative for today's Iraqi situation - if this is the absolute best we can offer the next generation.

I ALSO LEARNED this "life lesson" by noticing how trusting these Twin Oaks kids are of adults, be they teachers, volunteers, guest speakers or their much-adored principal. "A lot of kids from Twin Oaks School think Sally (Huling) is the best principal in the United States of America," reports the January edition of the school's newspaper, The Register Rat.

The kids look up at you as if you're The Hope. The Answer. The Expert. And yet, given that you're part of this adult world that will soon be handed to them, what you really want to tell them is: Don't grow up. Don't become one of us.

School segregation on the rise in South ... Man held in attack on 8-year-old. ... Hundreds of birds poisoned (by people) in Georgia.

Instead, go create a finger painting. Lie out in that field next to your school - the one with the antique goal posts - and see how many objects you can see in the clouds. Play tag. Dream big. And, as some of the first-graders did Thursday, keep raising your hands and saying, "Geth what? I lotht three teeth."

I learned part of the lesson when I sat down with 10 kids and asked them what they'd do about the state's school-funding fiasco. Of six who ventured an answer, four said they'd help put together fund-raisers, which seems a tad more compassionate and community-minded than some of the over-my-dead-body anti-Measure 28 letters I've read.

But, then, the world of adults is complex.

(Man) will serve 13 years for drunken driving accident ...18-month-old left in bus ... Parents charged in scam ...

Finally, I learned part of the lesson from an essay that a Twin Oaks fifth-grader, Amy Poeschl, wrote for the Eugene School District's Martin Luther King Jr. Essay Contest.

"If you want to make peace, do what you tell your children to do," she wrote in what was the district's winning elementary school entry. "Adults, here's an idea that can help both generations: Take your own advice - talk the talk and walk the walk."

She suggested a "National Neighbor's Day, a day where the government and all people - rich, poor, young and old - will shake hands with their neighbors."

"Our country," she later wrote, "needs to demonstrate peace in order to have peace. We can each take a turn in doing that, forgetting our differences and focusing on making this country a just and true country."

But, hey, silly children - what do they know?

Bob Welch can be reached by calling 338-2354 or by e-mail at [e-mail].