“What assumption am I making?
That I am not aware I’m making,
That gives me what I see?”
What a powerful three sentences. I had to stop here for a long time and just think about that…how often have we been completely wrong about a situation? How many times have I reacted and then been ashamed when I found out the back story to the situation?
I feel like as a teacher you have to ask yourself this daily in your classroom. When a kid is acting a fool or throwing a temper tantrum many times I have let them finish and then pulled them out to find out what’s going on, only to hear that their parents lost a job or they had no water last night. Almost every time there as been an underlying reason behind the outburst – that had nothing to do with my class. Doing this has saved the student and I, a lot of heartache. I get to know my students better and build relationships with them and the student gets to share with an adult who cares about them and what they are going through, most of the time they just need to know someone cares. It changes their “invented space”. It also changes mine.
The people at school call me “sunshine” because I am always laughing and at a meeting once someone said I was like a ray of sunshine, just making their day better. So the nickname stuck…but I honestly believe in what Jimmy Buffet sings “if we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane”. I have so much stress in my life that if I couldn’t smile and laugh at some of the absurdity of it all – I don’t think I would make it. Laughing makes me feel good. I loved this passage that Ben Zander wrote in our reading this week “On the whole, resources are likely to come to you in greater abundance when you are generous and inclusive and engage people in your passion for life.”
I truly believe this. Be excited about what you and life and even if it doesn’t work out – at least you still had a fun ride.
You point out the value of a patient teacher. I often find that kids acting out are usually just trying to get attention to either distract themselves from other challenges, or trying to get attention that is lacking.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to already exude a passion and love of life that has been palpable just in my short time working in class with you. Certainly the media that you have created and the fun you seem to have with your own children relate the level of inclusion you demonstrate for your passion. Laughter like passion ignites others to join us in our tasks. I can tell that through your joy, that you ignite the passion in others and I can only imagine that your sunny disposition makes your co-workers go willingly. I want to cultivate that, but right now I think my smile sort of scares my students. Maybe I should lay off the maniacal laughing while doing so:-)
Cricket,
ReplyDeleteI can certainly agree that I've reacted to situations at times and then after getting the whole story wished I had done things a little differently. Dealing with these situations is fairly frequent in a paramedic classroom, considering most people training to go into this field tend to be what some would classify as "Type A" personalities. The challenge I have with all of this is that I actually have to train my students to control their outbursts and emotions. On how to leave the external problems outside our little world that spins around the sun we call an ambulance. Growing up in a military/public safety family made this very easy to me as I can shut off any personal problems when dealing with a patient and focus solely on that person no matter what's going on in my life, yet I still struggle with how to impart this to my students.
Exactly, if you can't laugh about it then what's the point. I know that some things need serious attention and can't be "joked" through... but that's like 10% of what we have to deal with. I'm also so with you that kids act based on much more than "he's just a difficult child." A little respect, a little listening to them goes a long way toward making the day if not their lives a lot better.
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