No Report Card for the Teacher

The elders say, "The longest road you're going to have to walk is from here to here.  From your head to your heart."  But they also say you can't speak to people as a leader unless you've made the return journey.  From the heart back to the head.

                                       Phill Lane, Jr.; Yankton Sioux, (1992)

Young Girl Dancing at Sugar Island Powwow

That’s difficult for a person, like me, who has held the belief - I will know what a person is like-at first sight, first meeting, first interaction.  I have to admit, I’ve tried to discard this rule.  Discarding all “Rules” is more my mission, lately.   

St. Ignactious Loyola
St. Ignace, Michigan 

Catholicism Has Had a Huge Impact. 
 More "Laws" I Need to Reassess.

Rules about people, I learned, were rigid.  Not of the yielding kind.  They've demanded so much from me.  Yet, I still quote laws in my head, unconsciously.  I automatically expect a strong discipline from myself, to follow them.  I'm learning to free myself.

Laws I’ve had for judging a person’s character: 

• Your intuition will guide you to what a person is like. 
• You must close yourself off emotionally, to a person you don’t trust.
• People fit into different categories.
• Be leary of anyone who isn't from Northern Michigan.

I’m embarrassed to even write these rules.  They are horrible, narrow-minded, and prejudiced in many respects.

As you know, if you’ve followed me on my blog, I am evolving.  I have a lot to learn about myself and how I deal with the world. 

Along Path Down to Brevort Lake

Realistically, I’ve spent 34 years teaching children and I felt comfortable in their world.  Kids tend to be innocent, open-minded, impulsive, trusting and haven’t learned the gamut of laws adults live by.  

I couldn’t have been a good teacher without discarding "Judging" rules.  Kids need unconditional love and unending chances to grow.  My teaching world involved living on a small planet, within a planet.  I don’t think the planet we live on, affords them the opportunity to reassess all the strict laws adults teach them.  

I had students come to school sleep-deprived, malnourished, scared, suspicious of adults, defensive, spoiled, enabled, pampered, indulged or neglected by their families.  I had to take them from where they were, when they walked into my classroom door and try to educate them.

Faces From the Detroit Thanksgiving Parade

I devised my own “Lack” of rules for kids.  I became patient, compromising, understanding, trusting, and open-minded.  I should say the word "Patient" ten more times and "Understanding, ten times ten.  I felt it was imperative to gain their trust.  Starting from scratch with rules was important. Each year I had so many young people coming from varying environments.

My job was to teach.  They needed to feel safe and trusted by me, in order to get them to buy into the world of learning.  They knew, by five and six years old, the most important skills they needed for survival didn’t come from a book.  Interestingly, some of the trust I built with them came from setting boundaries for them.  And we made rules together they agreed on.  They thrived on consistency.  Repect for each other became the biggest rule.

I have to laugh when I look back and read my laws. They are similar to rules many of my first graders were living by.  Maybe I internalized them at about the same age. I spent years compromising with their beliefs in the classroom and not even questioning my own.  Or at least, giving myself the unconditional love, patience and love, I gave them. I had no report card for my internalized rules.  I just followed them.

My dad use to play tricks, tell me lies and misleading stories, as I was growing up.  He’d laugh when I discovered I trusted him.  He’d justify this by saying, “I do this so you can learn not to be so gullible”.  

My daughters were constantly warned of people, places and unseen dangers outside the door of our home, by my husband saying, “Be careful”, daily.  On the other hand, he said, “Meet someone new, today.”  Saying it wasn’t very powerful.  He rarely made new friends, or trusted anyone.  This mindset reinforced my own set of rules.  No gray areas.

I understand how these “laws” can become lodged in a person’s mind.  It doesn’t mean I have to continue to follow them.  I’m old enough and am beginning to realize I'm smart enough, to re-frame my own laws. 

Neighborhood Kids in Gaylord, Michigan

Reflecting on how children learn to judge people, who are different from them, my first thought went to a plaque I put up in the entrance to my first-grade classroom.  I wanted parents and other teachers to see it. I loved it as a reminder for myself, too.

Change is the end result of all true learning.  Change involves three things:  First, a dissastifaction with self -- a felt void or need; second, a decision to change or fill the void or need; and third, a conscious dedication to the process of growth and change -- the willful act of making the change, doing something.  - Leo Buscaglia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internalisation_(sociology)