"...unless you become like little children..."

The power is out in our apartment right now so I thought I would blog about a
memorable moment from my classroom this past week. Earlier in the week,
two students of mine had gotten into a tiff on the playground, which is the norm
around here most days. It got blown way out of proportion as the day went on.
The next day I got an earful from both mothers even before the school day began.
The sad thing is, I come to find out that the kids are cousins and the mothers are
in-laws. As one mother is complaining to me outside school, the other mother is
inside school listening to our conversation and shaking her head. I go into school
and hear her side of the story. The other mother goes into the “teacher’s room/closet”
with her son to avoid discussion with us. I want both parents to come together, but
it’s clear they will not. They were downright disgusted with the other child. One
mother even told me “not to let her child near the other one.” She says, “to avoid
problems,” which is a good problem-solving technique to model to your child, right?
It goes against every grain of my being. The children make it through the rest of the
day with little trouble. I even saw one assisting the other with putting on a band-aid.
I gave the children a Thanksgiving word search the next day. I don’t exactly know
how it came about, but the two children came skipping up to me and asked, “Miss, can we work together?” When I said yes, you would have thought I said I was taking them to Disney World or something; they were thrilled to work together. It didn’t strike me until after the day was done what a cool moment I had witnessed, but I thought how cool would it have been if I could have videotaped it for their parents? Well, honestly, it would have been lost on the mothers. (Families are very competitive around here) If only the parents would have gotten it, though, because their children sure did. All I could think was good work, Lord!.

It is events like this one that reminds me of why I went into
teaching in the first place.