Wednesday, 23 April 2008
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Currently Reading
Why People Don't Heal and How They Can
By Caroline Myss
see relatedLife's Little Opportunities
"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.
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Comments (13)
Ok....we can totally share stories! How cool is that!!
You make me want to have children soon. :( Gotta get married soon!
How I wish some of my high school kids would do the very same thing. Great post...there is hope!
@portiajules - Very cool indeed. Thank you Xanga!
@lookatmaenow - I didn't start until I was 34. Does that make you feel better or rushed?
I like that you gave him choices and not just rip it into him like so many teachers do. I had to TA for the kids that couldn't sit still and I didn't like the way the teacher taught, it made me uncomfortable. I also commend you in teaching the kids about responsibility. I think that is one of the most important lessons kids can learn -- learning to be accountable for their actions.
As I tried to say earlier, then Xa threw me off -
Sounds like mutual respect and love, just the way it's supposed to work for everybody, nice.
@jaeyounglee - My middle son has a teacher that seems to be wound too tight. She labels the children. I don't work this way at all. Each child is an opportunity to show and teach humanity. I take this seriously, yet much of my teaching is with a sense of humor. We are more open when we laugh. It's like a tickle ah ha.
@llibra - Yes! I agree. It's just the way it's suppose to work.
What a great story. It'd be great if more teachers would treat their students with such respect.
One more story for the "pack mule" O' information.
Logged and sorted.
I noticed you commented me nearly a month ago, but I figured I should atleast reply, and let you know I find your writing to be very interesting.
happy arbor day =]
never got around to planting a tree but I'm wearing a wrist band that says "I Love the Earth" which I got on Earth day
so it's raining outside right now
can you say coincidence seeing how it's arbor day and all
and yes. I do think too much. but I'm learning to live with it.