So it has been a long time since I have posted here. I am now stateside again, and not a day passes that I don't long for the day that I will return to Spanish soil. Yet while I wait here, God is constantly teaching me new facets of Him and preparing me for the next leg of my journey with Him.
I have considered blogging about lessons that I learn from my students for quite some time now. I thought about placing these thoughts in a new blog, yet my job is a large part of mi aventura nueva, so here it stays.
My first post will not be about my current class (though Heaven knows I am learning a lot from my current munchkins!) This is a story from my student teaching days that has had a huge affect on me, and I do not want to forget, as some details have already escaped me.
In my first assignment, I worked in a 1/2 combo class with an amazing cooperating teacher (CT) who treated me as an equal in front of her students. I am indebted to her care and investment in me, as it shaped me as a teacher very much. I learned that being gentle, patient, and compassionate with students goes such a long way with students that I should seriously hesitate before taking any other approach with students.
One afternoon after recess, one of the second grade boys, who I will call Andy, came running up to me crying. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me his best friend, who I will call Jason, had hit him. This shocked me. I knew these two boys were close, and if any of the two were to resort to hitting, it would have been Andy, not Jason. Something was up. Thanks to the liberation of having two teachers in class, I took the boys to the back table while my CT took care of the rest of the class. I told them that I was going to let each of them have a chance to talk, and that they needed to listen and not interrupt while the other was speaking.
It turned out that they had been playing baseball, and Andy had made a decision that made Jason feel left out (here the details from my memory are hazy, for which I apologize). Andy was shocked to hear that his actions had hurt Jason. He turned to Jason and said, "Jason, I didn't mean to hurt you. We have been best friends since kindergarten, and I thought you knew that I would never want to hurt you." Both boys and I started to cry. That was all that needed to be said. Jason needed to know he was cared about. After wiping our tears, the boys were excused to join the rest of the class. As I stood, I saw tears in my CT's eyes, too.
I knew that this lesson was for me, too. How many times have I had arguments with friends and struggled to find the right words to say to them? Those key words that would bring light and understanding to the situation and would help us both realize what the truth in the situation was? Sometimes I find them, most times I don't. But I think of Andy and Jason and how simple it really was: I thought you knew I cared and would never mean to hurt you. If you didn't know, please be assured that it is true!
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