Treasure all around us, matey

LITTLE TREASURES: Seth Cowie (left), Samuel Cairncross and Alex Berridge inspect their treasures.

"Treasure!" pronounced Mrs Bennett in a way that made you stop doodling and look at her.
"What is treasure?"
"Is this one of those trick teacher questions?" I wondered. If I said it's what Captain Jack and the pirates of the Caribbean fought for, would she grit her teeth in a fixed smile and say in her gentle voice, "Now I'm sure you've been thinking really hard, but think some more".
While I was running through ideas in my head, braver kids than me were ready with their answers.
"Me!" yelled one girl, "My nana always says I'm her little treasure."
"My little brother does poos and wees in one, it's a nappy!" shouted a cheeky kid from the back.
Once Mrs Bennett managed to quieten everyone down from laughing or going "Eewww! That's gross!", she asked us to find the dictionary definition. Now if you don't know much about Carlton School you might think we reached for a book and we did - a Google Chrome book where we can access an on-line dictionary. It said:
Noun
1. Wealth or riches stored or accumulated, especially in the form of precious metals, money, jewels, or plate.
2. Wealth, rich materials, or valuable things.
3. Any thing or person greatly valued or highly prized: This book was his chief treasure.
Verb (used with object), treasured, treasuring
4. To retain carefully or keep in store, as in the mind.
5. To regard or treat as precious; cherish.
6. To put away for security or future use, as money.
Nothing about nappies there, but the girl who said about her nana smiled triumphantly when she saw number three.
After we discussed the meaning we were asked if we could bring a treasure to school; a taonga, something that was special to us or our family. Everyone started talking at once. What about an X-box? Can I bring my dad's 1966 Mustang? My mum's gold necklace? Can I bring $100? Can I bring my cat?
Mrs Bennett reminded us we needed to be a bit sensible about what would be easy to get to school, and keep here for a while. Most things were fine so long as we had our parents' permission.
Over the next few days lots of interesting stuff came to school - banners and medals from skating grandmothers, war medals from brave grandfathers. The bringers told the class all about them and why they were their treasures. I thought everyone else's treasures were way more exciting than anything I could bring. Days went by and Mrs Bennett would look at me as I came in the door. "Anything today?" and I just shook my head.
Our class went to the museum to learn about the treasures they have there. We saw so many different things old clothes, bits of furniture, Maori carvings - even Margie's tattered cookbook. Suddenly I understood - a treasure didn't have to fit the dictionary meaning. It just had to mean something to me.
And so I took my treasure to school, a stone I found at the beach the last time I ever went there with nanny.