meanie
I made two children cry today.
1. I was teaching CRE at one of the neighborhood schools. Some of the kids were chatting about where their families are from. One of the kids, who I know from church, claimed to have been born in England, which I was 99.5% sure was untrue. So I just did the incredulous thing, until the students said, "just joking!". Then they tried to say that they had been on a trip to England, which I was even more sure was a tall tale, and I said "are you joking with me again?" (trying to give them an easy out, when probably the more gracious thing to do would have been to just walk away). The student burst into tears and put their head down on their desk. Thankfully the student was easily cheered up by my admiration of their pencil case.
2. After CRE, I went on to the school where I do some tutoring. After lunch, I appeared at 4M's line up to pick up one of the two students I always tutor at that time on a Thursday, and when I told him it was tutoring time, he screwed his face up like he was upset. I thought he was doing it as a joke, but no, it turns out that being pulled out of class to be tutored by me is upsetting enough to make a 9 year old boy cry.
1. I was teaching CRE at one of the neighborhood schools. Some of the kids were chatting about where their families are from. One of the kids, who I know from church, claimed to have been born in England, which I was 99.5% sure was untrue. So I just did the incredulous thing, until the students said, "just joking!". Then they tried to say that they had been on a trip to England, which I was even more sure was a tall tale, and I said "are you joking with me again?" (trying to give them an easy out, when probably the more gracious thing to do would have been to just walk away). The student burst into tears and put their head down on their desk. Thankfully the student was easily cheered up by my admiration of their pencil case.
2. After CRE, I went on to the school where I do some tutoring. After lunch, I appeared at 4M's line up to pick up one of the two students I always tutor at that time on a Thursday, and when I told him it was tutoring time, he screwed his face up like he was upset. I thought he was doing it as a joke, but no, it turns out that being pulled out of class to be tutored by me is upsetting enough to make a 9 year old boy cry.
posted by Jo @ 6:06 PM
4 Comments:
At 7/15/10, 11:12 PM ,
Michelle Lamey said...
well you've never made me cry if that's any consolation...
At 7/16/10, 1:37 AM ,
rab said...
I think we worry too much about seeing children cry, anyway. Not that we want to see kids cry. But for Pete's sake, this is the world! Bad stuff happens! Tears are the way we deal with the bad stuff.
At 7/16/10, 9:35 AM ,
Jo said...
Thanks Michelle :)
I don't feel too bad about either incident Bob. The first kid was too easy to distract with the pencil case, and the second actually apologized for crying at the end of the tutoring session, so I knew he couldn't have been feeling too bad. It was just a bit shocking to have caused two meltdowns in the space of a few hours.
At 7/16/10, 3:00 PM ,
M said...
Two in a few hours is a little disconcerting. Nevermind, I make grown women cry all the time at work (well, maybe that's not me specifically).
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