Well, what indeed. Having to stay inside does rather limit one's ideas but my trusty daily Times always adds a bit of daily spice to my life. And this morning the piece which set me off thinking is a piece about Elaine Paige who played Evita in the long-running musical in the West End. Paige was only 4ft 11in tall and had dreams of being a professional tennis player. One of her teachers crushed the dream flat in one sentence when she remarked Paige 'couldn't even see over the net'. Paige says she never forgot because 'in one sentence that woman devastated my dream'.
Having been a teacher for most of my working life I am only too aware of how a crushing remark can hurt a growing child far more than it is intended to. Some teachers use crushing comments as a way of control. Praise has always been a much better way - however hard it may seem at first. Young people, on the whole, rise to the occasion. I have had so many instances of this throughout my career.
But thinking back to my own childhood (I have most likely told this before) - I passed the Scholarship to go to the High School and what's more I passed it a year early. and I remember there was great rejoicing in our household and my parents held a party for me - inviting our Headmistress who was a friend of the family. She was a spinster in her sixties, brought out of retirement I suspect because of the Second World War. The jollifications were in full swing when I overheard her say to my mother - 'well Pat is never going to be a pretty girl, but she has such an intelligent forehead'. That statement coloured my thinking for many years. Until I married my first husband (who was a painter and drew and painted me for years both clothed and unclothed) the 'pretty' bit was ingrained on my brain. Then the intelligent bit kicked in and after having my son I studied to go into University - and eventually became Head of a Special Unit. So here we have the positive and the negative.
But seriously - I do think more emphasis should be placed on Positivity in teacher training. It is so very important.
What other news today. Well - all over grey sky, severe frost - so no likelihood of my going out walking with priscilla today I fear. So it will be double exercises - including a new one I have included - that of standing on one leg for thirty seconds (obviously holding on to the table) - it is said to improve balance - and goodness knows I need that.
Until tomorrow.....
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31 comments:
Beauty comes entirely from within.
When my son was in second or third grade, he and sister had come home from school and were having a snack. Usually my son ate as quickly as possible and was out the door to play, and my daughter told me all of the school news of the day. That day my son was still at the table after his sister had gone out the door. He was not one to tell much about school events, but that afternoon he told me that they were rehearsing for the Christmas program and Mrs. S had told the boy sitting in front of my son "You look stupid sitting like that. Hold your head up straight." My son was very upset that she told his friend that he looked stupid. He said that the boy got tears in his eyes, but kept from crying. I asked my son if Mrs. S had ever said anything like that to him, and he said no. I asked him if he was absolutely sure the teacher said the boy looked stupid, that was exactly the word she used. He said it was. I told my son I thought I needed to speak to the Principal about what the teacher said. I called and spoke with the Principal and after speaking to him, he asked me to speak to the teacher about it. I did. I told her that she had hurt the boy's feelings when she said he looked stupid sitting like that and he had tears in eyes and was trying not to cry. She told me she misspoke, and that was about all she had to say. That teacher must have really put the Christmas spirit into that little boy. I wonder if that episode affected him before and during their Christmas program, or maybe it affected his feelings about public speaking in later life,or maybe he completely forgot about it, who knows, but a teacher saying anything to a young child using stupid in the description is totally inappropriate.
How right you are about giving a child encouragement, and I am so pleased you still have your intelligent forehead!
As a teenager, I overheard an aunt, talking to my mother, say that her daughters had received the brains while my mother's girls had beauty. My mother, quietly, told her to look again.
My children were bought up with my very sarcastic tongue but I never used it to wound them. Words can hurt so much. I remember my mum once telling a friend that she had wanted a daughter to dress in pretty clothes, but got me. I am female but was short, square and looked like my dad's side of the family!
Gawd, personally I'm surprised that anybody would want to teach the snowflake generation these days. Even from an early age they will argue with a teacher about what their rights are and what they can and can't be made to do, it must be very difficult to discipline them, especially when a PC parent then runs round there and argues over a simple word. If I'd of gone home to my parents every time a teacher called me a name I'd of never been at school, besides my father would normally retort that I probably deserved it. I went through school in A grades and left with good exam results, so can't say as the odd clout around the ears or name calling affected me.
Most of my schoolday slights were from the other children who laughed at my NHS specs and knobbly knees.
I do remember though my first report card where the teacher described me as diffident. I had no idea what that meant and had to look it up in the dictionary. I never did develop much self confidence whilst at school.
When I moved school, the new head mistress made a scathing remark about my penmanship. I had received an award for penmanship from my previous school. She couldn't understand how I had received an award she said.
My confidence took a beating. I was very shy already. Later in a class she was teaching, a bird flew in the window, and after a lot of to do the bird flew out through another window.
We all got handed a sheet of paper to write down this event.
I wrote from the birds point of view - it never occurred to me that there was another way to write this.
Later the headmistress stood up and said one pupil has written something extraordinary, and I had so little confidence it took me a while for it to dawn on me she was talking of my writing and praising me.
I couldn't agree more, Pat; the right word at the right time can make all the difference. I remember working with one young man who was particularly challenging and we came up with the idea of a "Brilliant Book" in which we wrote down anything that deserved praise in either the school or the residential area. When starting work with him you looked at the book, sometimes there had been nothing added that day (that told you all you needed to know!) but you could look back and say "Wow, you really enjoyed swimming on Monday!". He would look very pleased with himself and you at least started out on a positive footing. I sometimes think we should all keep a Brilliant Book for ourselves to remind us of things that went well in life.
Positivity is important in all of society, I think. Certainly with children. Adults crave it, too. Negativity is rampant these days.
I enjoyed your story. I think everyone has one like that. It's funny isn't it, how a cruel comment stays in the mind longer than stacks of kind compliments.
A smile and kind word makes everyone feel better. We have had enough meanness in the world already.
One day when I was about 12 or13 and had entered a new school, my social studies teacher passed out small pieces of paper to everyone but me. The rest of the students were told to write brief descriptions of their first impression of me. When finished, the papers were carefully folded in half, collected and given to me to read later at home. Terribly shy, I know I was the very color of my red dress that day
I opened each one with a sense of dread. I still have them! They're locked away in a wooden box in the closet. I am now 76 years old and can still remember the warmth that spread through me as I read......"nice smile", "seems nice", "friendly", "cute", "pretty hair".......there wasn't one bad review, nothing but kindness through and through, and I knew I had been accepted into the fold.
As a former teacher, Weave, do you think this was a risky experiment or do you think the teacher knew instinctively that we imagine the worst of ourselves and it was a way to put those ugly fears aside at the outset?
I have been rereading the first of the Miss Read books and you say the same thing that she does... positivity is best!!
I remember loads of adverse comments - never said directly but always in ear shot. The worse was the comments when I said I wanted to be a fashion designer - that sparked great amusement in the staff room - but I did become a fashion designer despite all the comments of 'it is too hard an industry to get into', and yes it is hard but had I taken notice I would not have even tried.
What you have written about in your post is truly an important thing to keep in mind. I've always believed in giving positive feedback to children and adults as well. We never know how badly a rude or negative remark can hurt a person. Negative remarks can stay with a person and affect their self image for years. Just by reading the comments here you can see many people that were hurt by such comments and never forgot them. Thanks for a good reminder to use kind words to others Pat!
Teachers need to understand the impact of negativity in the classroom. Seems like common sense,sadly not everyone gets it. Finally, we are to get some snow tonight. Good for alpine skiing tomorrow.
We had a geography teacher who told all of us girls regularly that we were "stupid" and we were all going to have to re do our previous homework that evening as well as another huge demand-she terrified me and I sat there crying and she smirked.She often scrawled across my work"stupid"x
Always be positive.As a former teacher that was always my mantra .The other was to develop each child to their full potential(which is different for everyone).
Beautiful post.
Positive and praise ...YES! In my teacher training and my first years teaching things were very negative. School has a much better atmosphere when we started being positive. Kids can be very sensitive. The positive teacher has a much better self image and more confidence.
I worked with children that had behaviour issues K-9 for 27 years. We always tried to catch the kids doing something good instead of always dwelling on the negative. I think there's a lot of truth in the saying 'You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar'.
How I relate to not going out. I must check for freezing rain lately. Hate that.
Weaver, I love the wisdom of your post. Then I read the comments. Gail? Yours made me cry. I wish that all children could get the validation that you received that day. And just the idea that you've kept those papers all these years shows how important those positive words are.
I totally agree with your second para'. I only taught for a short while, but made sure all my pupils felt good about themselves, for whatever reason.
Hurting others - verbally or physically - is not something to be proud of, but kindness and encouragement can make a huge difference.
Why anyone should feel they are entitled to comment on the beauty (!) of anyone else - or their children! - is beyond me, too. We humans are a weird species, aren't we.
When I became part of my company's management team, the first hard lesson that I had to learn, was that daring to suggest an alternative solution to a problem, generally found you being called negative. It was much easier to follow the thought stream of everybody else in a meeting, it was called being positive!
I'm horrified when I think of the things some teachers said in the days when I was at school and things they got angry about that I now know require patience and understanding.
Thank you for these (mostly) positive commnents (sorry Derek I shall have to disagree with your point of view although you are of course entitled to it) - I wrote a long rely yesterday answering each comment individually - then CAPTCHA would not let me enter it. I hope it will take this today.
The teachers at my school were mostly very bad at inspiring children. I was hopeless at maths. The maths teacher asked me what I wanted to be after school, and I said 'a cameraman'. He said I could never be one because camera operators had to use maths to work out angles, etc. Utter rubbish of course, but I believed him.
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