November 20, 2012
-
Negative to Postive
Currently
Teach your children
By Stills, Nash & Young Crosby
see related"Excuse me T-Man."
He jerked his head up and looked at me with the chain dangling in mid swing.
"I can give you three choices right now. You can put the chain in your pocket, in your backpack or give it to me. Now before you make your choice I want you to know that if I get it, the story will continue."
"What do you mean by the story will continue?"
"I'm so glad you asked," I said cheerfully. "I will gladly take it to the office and hand it over to the principal."
He frowned at this tidbit of information. Another student raised her hand.
"Mrs. H? You sound so happy about that."
"Ahhh, yes. I am happy to give T-Man here the opportunity to learn something new. Now if he doesn't want to be responsible for himself, I am happy to provide him the chance to learn the lesson he needs so he can make positive good choices in the future."
"Won't he get in trouble with the principal? Are you happy about that?
"Well, if he needs to have the principal help him learn, then yes, I am very happy for him. You children are here in school to learn and it's your job at this age to make mistakes at times, so we can help you in that process of learning. I'd much rather that the T-Man here learn this now at age seven, then when he's seventeen. Maybe he needs to have the principal and his parents get together so he can learn that swinging a chain in class is not a good idea."
Now I ask the whole class: "Why can't we all swing chains in class?"
"Someone could get hurt," they say in unison.
"Exactly, and the last time I checked this is a puppetry class not a chain swinging class."
They all laughed including T-Man.
T-Man smiled rather sheepishly at me and the chain disappeared into his pocket.
"T-Man."
"Yea."
"Thank you for giving us all this opportunity to learn something new today."
His body language perked up and I didn't see the chain again for the remainder of the class. We moved on to working on their puppetry shows and voice projection. Class ended and as we walked out to the playground where the children either go on to another class, get picked up or walk home, I got in step with T-Man and put my hand on his shoulder. He looked up at me with those big brown impressionable eyes.
"T-Man?"
"Mrs. H.?"
"What are you going to do with that chain?"
"I'm going to leave it at home."
"Excellent."
I love these children.
@Shining_Garnet has offered up the opportunity to turn this week into a positive experience. Click this link and add your own postive to the party!
(pats heart, and points to you)
Comments (11)
That's what makes a good teacher. Glad the story had a happy ending.
@ata_grandma - Me too. He and I got along very well after that. Children want boundries and he still smiles at me when we see each other.
I'm impressed -- by the way you handled the situation, but also by how much T-man learned from it!
@slmret - Being angry about learning has never made any sense to me. I suspected that T-Man was testing the waters of how to get attention and might have a pattern of getting it the negative way. You know I'm always happy to shine a light on a different path. Hugs to YOU. So thankful for you in my life Janet!
@slmret - And he'll probably remember you as one of the best teachers he ever had !
I like this and well done.
@Grannys_Place - Hi Ruth! Ah yes! Learning the hard way was my way too. Wish I'd had a "me" to help make it easier to learn those tough lessons.
love this.
You and Mr. T-Man ROCKED that lesson
You are a wonderful teacher! That was perhaps the only way to have gained compliance, taken advantage of a teachable moment, maintained the young man's self esteem, engaged peer pressure, and to top it off remained the (no doubt) favorite teacher! Kudos!
I enjoyed this heart warming tale of a lesson learned by an impressionable young man. I'm sure it made you all fuzzy inside as well.
Comments are closed.