"That is the problem of life. If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything. When a child presents himself to you with his smile, if you are not really there thinking about the future or the past, or preoccupied with other problems then the child is not really there for you. " -Thích Nhất Hạnh
I know as teachers we are often the ones preparing lessons, but last week I was taught one by a really neat kid. I had one of those weeks where it felt like I didn't stop to breath. I was barely home and when I was home I was thinking about work and when I was at work I was thinking about home. My mind had been totally preoccupied. In May, I am usually thinking about all of the teaching I still need to do and feeling like there isn't enough time.
A couple weeks before that student had told me about going to a "give away." I told her I had learned about give aways from a man named Dr.Martin Brokenleg and he told me that "real giving entails sacrifice-if it doesn't cost you something, it is not generosity." She told me that was true and how some people give everything they own away. We had a conversation and she was very excited about it. I told her she should tell me how it goes.
Some time went on and we learned about equal groups in multiplication and sharing in division. We even built an arcade in Science....things were busy. The student came up to me and said, "Mrs.Collette...can we Skype after school? I added our class account to my Skype." My class is really loving connecting to other classes via Skype and Google Hangout so this was not a surprising request. I thought...we could Skype but we could also talk right now too (as I was walking towards the door to get the class lined up). I am sure she could see in body language that I clearly didn't have time at that moment to talk. I told her I would try to connect with her via Skype if that was her conversation tool of choice and we set up a time. I quickly got the class refocused and away we went to the library. I got home and things came up and I totally forgot to even turn my Skype on. The next day the student didn't say anything and was pretty quiet for most of the day. At the end of the day she came up to me and said, "Mrs.Collette, you weren't there at 5:30." I had totally forgot. "Can we try to Skype today?" she said. "Yes, we can...I will make time. Are you sure you don't want to talk now?" She said, "No, I will Skype you." I sent a message to her mom to see if this was okay and her mom sent me a message saying she really wanted to Skype.
After work a colleague had come over to plan an Edcamp PD event and we were doing a google hangout. Again, I had forgot that the student would be calling. All of the sudden, my computer starts beeping and I have an incoming call from the student. As I opened up the call she was sitting there with her sister on the other end and with the BIGGEST smile ever she said, "Hi, Mrs.Collette!" I said hello back and asked her how she was doing and she said fine. Then she said, "I can't believe I'm skyping!" The connection got really bad and the call was lost. The next day at school she came up to me with a big smile and said, "Wasn't that awesome?" I said, "Yeah, too bad we had a bad connection." I then asked her, "What did you want to talk to me about?" She said, "You never checked in with me about the give away." In that moment, my heart sunk a little...I had again, forgotten.
I sat down next to her in a quiet place before school started and said, "I'm sorry that I forgot to check in with you. How did the give away go?" She told me some of the things she had gotten and all of the people who came. She told me about a feast they had too. Then she said, "When you give things away it means you always care for one another." She said, "I made something for everyone in the class." She ran to her locker and came back with all of these coloured pages and had made a picture for everyone, including me. She decided to create her own give away. I made sure I took a moment to watch everyone's faces when she went around and gave each person their own picture.
She taught me a lesson that day. I needed to press pause. Slow down. Stop worrying about time. I needed to listen. I needed to just be. I had been so worried about what needed to get done in class that I was missing the moment. In a classroom full of learners, even the teacher gets to learn important lessons that sometimes only kids can help you see.