My 10-year old son recently came home with a request for me to speak to his class about what I do for a living. My immediate feeling was one of pride at being asked. A second later, my next feeling was one of agony from remembering what I had experienced after posing a similar question at home many years ago.

When I was in the sixth grade, my mother came to my class to show some slides we had taken on a family vacation. We had visited a museum on our trip and seen a replica of Michelangelo's statue of David. Like everything we saw on the trip, my mother recorded it with a photo. And, of course, she though this would be of interest to a group of my fellow 11 and 12 year-old classmates.

So when she came to the slide of this naked man, my mother announced that "this was David!" This was followed by an uproar of laughter in the class, while I sunk as far as I could into my seat.

As my mind quickly flashed back to this incident, I gladly told my son I would love to come to his class, and I promised myself that I would not put him through a similar embarrassing experience.

So, what to say then? After thinking about the various planning projects I have had an opportunity to work on, I came to the realization that one of the most enjoyable things we do as city planners is to get a base map, wipe the slate clean of existing constraints, and crete a plan for some ideal place, community, or region. Since my son's Montessori School wanted to move into new facilities in the future, I thought, why not let the students create a plan for how they would like their future school to look.

I started my "hour with the class" by providing some background on what city planners do. I described how planners have an influence on all of our lives, even down to location of their homes and school.

I had studied geography in college, which led me into city planning. With this background, as I told the students, I considered myself more of a land use planner. As a land use planner, I was most interested in creating plans that made sure different land uses were compatible with each other. I noted, however, that land use was only one component of the field of city planning.

If a person excelled in math and wanted to become an engineer, then he or she might become a city planner by designing streets and highways, or water and electrical systems.

On the other hand, one might be good at drawing and want to become an architect. Such a person could become a city planner and focus on the design and characteristics of our urban environment.

Following this brief introduction, it was time to move on to the planning exercise. The teacher divided the children into groups of four, which allowed us a total of six groups. This exercise included:

* A base map. I made a map that showed an imaginary parcel of land bounded on two sides by road with a student drop-off area on one street.

* An easy scale. The imaginary parcel was scaled at 1" = 10'. I initially asked if anyone could explain what a map scale was. I was surprised when no one could answer the question. I provided each team with an engineering scale, and was relieved when many of the children understood the concept of scale relatively quickly.

* A visual planning program. On a large piece of paper, I drew scaled squares and rectangles of things the students must include in their plan. I provided other items as optional. The things they had to include were elementary school classrooms, a teachers' office building, preschool facilities.

* Color pens. What's a good plan without some color in it?

As the children began their planning process, I was surprised at some of the similarities with my project experience. Generally, one child took leadership of the group, and in most cases, controlled the scale. Some team members began to discuss options and agreed on a basic strategy, while others argued for much of the time until I urged them to finish due to a lack of time.

I was pleased that several asked if they had to stay with the "block" shapes, or if they could include uses other than those I had listed for them. I encouraged them to be creative and use shapes they thought fit best.

My "hour" with the class passed quickly, and we ended up spending a full two hours on the planning exercise. The teacher and I was pleased with the teams' final plans. More importantly, I could tell that the children were pleased with what they had accomplished.