I am showing my eighth graders a film that supports the text they are supposed to have finished. It is a foreign film so they have to read subtitles and think. There is one part I don't want them to see. Just before the scene, I pull out the connection to the projector and a wail of protest erupts.
"Did you do that on purpose?" students ask.
I just smile.
Oh, they get it and the room fills with whispers. A boy sitting just a desk away says, "The rabbits are breeding."
Yes, the rabbits were breeding and even though it was nature and a pretty innocuous scene, I didn't want to burden them with the image throughout their school day.
In Corrie ten Boom's memoir, The Hiding Place, Corrie writes of a lesson her father taught her while she was still a child. Corrie had heard the word sexsin at school. She was confused by the word and what it possibly meant. While on a train with her father, Corrie asked him the meaning. He didn't immediately answer. The train stopped and her father lifted the heavy suitcase he'd laden with watch parts on his trip to Amsterdam. He set the case on the floor and asked Corrie to pick it up. She tried, but it was much too heavy. Her father then explained that there were things that were like the heavy suitcase: to heavy too lift and tocarry around. When she grew older, she would have the strength and understanding to carry that information. For now, he would carry it for her.
The day came when my own child asked me a difficult question, a question I deemed too heavy for her to carry. I'd been waiting for this moment so I could pull out a suitcase, fill it with weight and ask my child to carry it. The analogy worked, and my child was satisfied.
The responsibility of teacher is as weighty as the responsibility of parent. In all things, we have to ask ourselves if the suitcases we present, share and require, are the correct weight for students to carry.
"Did you do that on purpose?" students ask.
I just smile.
Oh, they get it and the room fills with whispers. A boy sitting just a desk away says, "The rabbits are breeding."
Yes, the rabbits were breeding and even though it was nature and a pretty innocuous scene, I didn't want to burden them with the image throughout their school day.
In Corrie ten Boom's memoir, The Hiding Place, Corrie writes of a lesson her father taught her while she was still a child. Corrie had heard the word sexsin at school. She was confused by the word and what it possibly meant. While on a train with her father, Corrie asked him the meaning. He didn't immediately answer. The train stopped and her father lifted the heavy suitcase he'd laden with watch parts on his trip to Amsterdam. He set the case on the floor and asked Corrie to pick it up. She tried, but it was much too heavy. Her father then explained that there were things that were like the heavy suitcase: to heavy too lift and tocarry around. When she grew older, she would have the strength and understanding to carry that information. For now, he would carry it for her.
The day came when my own child asked me a difficult question, a question I deemed too heavy for her to carry. I'd been waiting for this moment so I could pull out a suitcase, fill it with weight and ask my child to carry it. The analogy worked, and my child was satisfied.
The responsibility of teacher is as weighty as the responsibility of parent. In all things, we have to ask ourselves if the suitcases we present, share and require, are the correct weight for students to carry.