16 Aug “That” Kid

I will never ever forget a conversation I had my second year of teaching with a veteran teacher.  She was a delightful teacher who was well-liked and popular amongst the parents.  Every year, she seemed to get troubled or difficult children.  Whether it was the child with interesting quirky behavior, or the child with attention issues, or the child with loud outbursts, etc., they all seemed to go to her.

I could understand why they went to her, she was a seasoned and loveable teacher.  What I didn’t quite understand was how she handled it with such grace year in and year out.  She never complained and never once spoke ill of any child.  One day at lunch, the teachers in the lounge were giggling over a particular incident with one of her students.  “How do you do it?”  The other teachers jeered.

“Easy.  I treat him (each child) as though they are the most important person in my classroom.  Yes, he’s a little odd, but that little odd boy is carried around in someone’s wallet.  Someone has his picture with them and shows it off with pride.  He is someone else’s WHOLE WORLD. So I treat him like he is.”

The laughter stopped as everyone took in the magic of her words.  I didn’t have children of my own at that point and so I didn’t fully understand what she meant, but I knew there was power in what she said.  Once I had my own children, I understood fully.  To others, my children might be annoying, frustrating, quirky, loud, etc. but to me, they are my EVERYTHING and every year when I drop them off with their new teacher, I remember my dear sweet teacher friend and I can only hope and pray that this year’s teacher gives them a fair shot– not caring or listening to anything they may have heard from last year’s teacher, but fully believing and treating my child as I would—like the most important person in the world.

Don’t we all deserve a fresh, clean slate?  As we begin our new year, I encourage you to not read up on all the behavior reports or partake in the teacher lounge gossip.  I encourage you to not believe ‘that kid doesn’t get math.’  What if, this year, every single child in your room got a fresh clean slate?  What if every child was looked at as if he/she was your whole world?  How could this change the habitual behavior or self-concept of that child?

Will we get frustrated?  Of course.  I get frustrated with my own children too!  Will we have real moments of weakness?  We are only human.  My encouragement is to reframe how we look at these children every day. Can’t you tell, even as an adult, who cares about you and who ‘has’ to be nice to you?

Ever since that magical year of teaching, I made my goal to treat every future student this way. I wanted to be the teacher to each student that I wanted for my own children. I wanted to be the teacher in the lounge who was never caught speaking ill of a child or making fun.  The culture of our school and of our classrooms starts and ends with us.