A Group with Many Troubled Kids
Kimberly
Kimberly was a good-hearted little girl. She was well-cared for by her family, but she messed up all her social relationships by overstepping and taking over.
One day, well into the year, Kimberly came to me to complain that nobody liked her; nobody wanted to sit next to her or play with her.
A little while later, the whole group was sitting in a circle, our usual discussion and story reading time and place.
I sat next to Kimberly and told the kids how she was feeling. I asked if anyone had something they would like to say to Kim. Though there were endless things they could have criticized about her behavior, those who volunteered focused on three things she did that annoyed others. It was an honest assessment and kindly done. She received it well and was not at all defensive.
Recess was next and the kids made it their business to include Kim in their activities on the playground. When they came back inside, they again reached out to her in the classroom.
From that successful interaction, I became a strong advocate of honesty in discussions and always found that the classmates rose to the occasion by limiting the criticism to two or three salient points rather than drowning the “offender” in all their bad attitudes. The class always rose to it with kindness. The troubled child always was attentive and usually made appropriate changes.
Years later, when Kim was in fifth grade, she was having some more social problems. She went over to her teacher and asked her to go downstairs and ask Mrs. Sciaky what she had done “to make the kids like her.” I was amazed at the impact that that first-grade incident had.
More and more we hear about cruelty in children, about bullies and such. In this protected environment I discovered the opposite. Usually when the chips are down, the children show kindness and sensitivity that is sometimes hidden but is in most of us. If cruelty does show itself in this kind of open discussion, I would question the style and quality in that particular teacher.
Robbie
My second year teaching first grade I had an extremely challenging group. Before the year began I had been warned by Robbie’s kindergarten teacher to be prepared for this maladjusted little boy who was always destructive with his peers, nasty, mean, etc.
By the first week of school, I had forgotten the warning. What I saw was this cute little guy sitting in the circle, looking as though he was on guard. As the weeks went by, he showed he was crazy about the class animals (lizard, turtle, fish, guinea pigs) and was very taken with the science table. Generally, he was a good kid. So far.
It became apparent that he was already well-informed about the animal world and he contributed endlessly to any class discussion that touched on animals. He was definitely getting satisfaction out of being a class contributor.
One day I read a story to the kids as we sat on the floor in our usual circle together. It had to do with differences in a community of animals. After the story we got into a discussion about similarities and differences in people. The kids said what you might expect, that people have different eye colors, hair colors, heights, and so on. Some are artistic. Some are athletic. But then Robbie spoke up. “Our ideas, our thoughts show our differences,” he said. And the conversation took a wonderful, more meaningful turn, thanks to Robbie.
I told his mom at our fall conference that although Robbie was at times a challenge, he was also a teacher’s dream for what he consistently inspired in class discussions. When we ended the conference, his mom turned to me and said, “This was the first positive conference I’ve ever had about Robbie!” She was thrilled.
Months later Robbie’s family was planning to leave town a week early, to make a longer spring vacation for their visit to visit Hawaii. “Oh no,” said Robbie. “I can’t miss school.”
Late in the spring a volunteer was working with Robbie at the science table with the class microscope. Another boy was waiting for his turn, but problems with the microscope were causing delays. Finally the other boy, in anger, threw a bunch of beans at the microscope and messed up everything. The volunteer started scolding the culprit and John said, “It’s okay. He just couldn’t wait any longer for his turn.”
And this was the boy who supposedly mistreated his peers, showed no tolerance for others, and was always criticizing others.