Challenge Day #3

J - A Student Who Was My Teacher

J was a student in the fourth grade – I was his inexperienced teacher.  I taught fourth grade language arts and math for 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th graders in a small rural community in Nebraska.  J was the student who taught me to dig deeper and to reflect before you act.  Later having learned perceptual control theory, I recognized J was the epitome of you can’t tell what someone is doing by looking at what they are doing.

One day J sat for 20 minutes while the rest of the students were at PE and repeated “I hate you.” This was said very slowly over and over again the entire 20 minutes, while I sat quietly at my desk doing work.  J was probably the one student in my class who needed PE more than any other – he could hardly contain himself long enough to read for 10 minutes.  Sitting still was just not part of his make-up.  He is the only student in all my years of teaching that I spoke to in a way that showed every ounce of frustration I felt.  After that, I acknowledged that what I did when I was frustrated set the tone for how students acted when they were frustrated.

What I know now that I didn’t then was that J was one walking cry for help and reassurance that he mattered. Each of us wants to matter, to be special, and to be seen as an individual whose life matters. In J’s family, all that mattered was where the next drink came from.  He learned early on that alcohol was more important to his parents, than he or his sister.  His actions screamed “I am person.”  Adult, please show me that I have significance. Show me that I matter!

I learned a lot from J that year.  A lot of what not to do and a lot about understanding that actions that may appear to be directed towards me were often rooted deeply somewhere else.  Today I try to remember that I cannot tell what someone is doing by looking at what they are doing. I’ve learned to ask “What’s this all about?”  “What do you want right now that you think you aren’t getting?” “How much of what’s happening right now is about this moment?” Most importantly, I’ve come to realize that what I do is what I teach.