More little things

Hello everyone,

I received the following email, which has made me think about a lot of "little things."

"A little thing that makes the world of difference when the kids can't be quiet: I remember that my kids don't talk too much because they're bad kids or because they're disrespecting me, but because they simply forget to focus. I know this because they say, 'Sorry, miss, I forgot.' Then they get focused again.

Plus, it's just more positive, and I don't need negativity in my life."

Personally, I frequently have to remind myself to be "more positive."

This represents a crucial idea in working with kids--that none are really bad. Yes, I know some of them occasionally do some really bad things, but the very worst of them are good in many ways.

You will all note from the email that the teacher in question does not permit the incorrect behavior--the behavior is corrected. But the conscious choice to think of the kids as people who simply need help to focus helps the teacher.

I found, when I was teaching 8th grade remedial reading, back in the 1980's, that I could play a little mind game that helped me a lot. Instead of thinking of my students as immature and illiterate adolescents, I thought of them as extremely mature children. It was a little switch from negative to positive that made all the difference in how I treated them.

These attitude adjustments are, I believe, healthy.

For example, I confess that there have been times that I have hated my job. The kids have behaved very badly, or pressures from on high have built up, or my pay has been incorrect, or (you fill in the blanks). A little switch from looking at the negatives of the job (they can't be denied sometimes) to the positives (they need to be sought out occasionally) does a world of good. Very often, I confess, at my darkest hour a student will come to me and tell me how I have helped in some way. It's amazing; thinking of the one student whom I've helped can pull me through the darkest periods. It's also amazing that there is such serendipity in the profession. Just when I need a boost, a student provides it. Of course, the boost might have been there all along, and all I did was change what I was looking for, which is part of my point here.

For those of you teaching middle school, there is a thin line between the positives and the negatives, and the perspective view is longer (the kids you inspire to go to college won't let you know for a while, for example), but you can find many ways to switch yourself from negative to positive if you consciously work at it.

It'll pay off. You don't need negativity in your life.

Jeff Combe