Hmong villages spread across the walls of a hallway at the Community School of Excellence. The detail of the homes on this mural is so precise that a keen eye can differentiate the purpose of one building from another.

The Community School of Excellence is a K-8 Hmong Language & Culture IB World School, and many of the students here are refugees or children of refugees.

The inside of the classroom that I volunteered in could cheer anyone up; bright posters about spelling and shapes plastered every inch of the walls and the giggling of second graders infected all of us.

“Will you be my partner?” Second graders milled around as they tried to pair up with a St. Paul Academy and Summit School student. Good humor was high as several children pondered over choosing among a few leftover SPA students.

Songs and games about shapes filled that afternoon. “I have a pink parallelogram,” my second grade partner, Mary, said shyly to the class. “Who has the green cylinder?” I was so absorbed into learning second-grade material with everyone else that for a moment, I forgot how many sides a hexagon had.

Making name tags with the kids reminded me of my own elementary school experience, which had also been filled with coloring, songs, and laughter. However, instead of a whiteboard the students used a smartboard and instead of a white majority, the Hmong ethnic group dominated here.

This visit to the Community School of Excellence reminded me that on the inside, I’m still a little kid. Towards the end, I noticed that another second grader and her SPA partner were reading a book adapted from Frozen, a movie that has caused chatter beyond the supposed “childrens” age limit. Even though SPA students might be over two times taller than the kids we helped on that day, we still have much in common.