I was having dinner a few nights ago with a teacher who teaches fourth grade at a public school and he shared an experience that resonated with me so deeply that I asked his permission to share the story and he said yes. I am going to write from his point of view just in an attempt for the story to come across clearly.
“There was an instance in the classroom where a group of girls came up to me and said that they witnessed the poor treatment of one of their classmates. Their friend had fallen down and one of the boys had made fun of her. So I called the boy up and talked with him by himself and he tried to transfer it on to his sister, like he wasn’t making fun of the girl in the class who fell, but that he was talking about his sister.
So then I just explained to him what I heard from seven people all telling me the same story, but he denied it. I said to him from what I can see that there were a few different scenarios from what I understood about the situation. The seven girls could have been telling a false/different story, but all of their stories were the same so that didn’t seem likely.
So as I talked with him, I asked him to stop, and I said to him, I think sometimes we can make decisions that are the wrong decisions, and sometimes we realize that they are the wrong decisions, and that we can feel trapped in those decisions with no easy way out. I want you to think about what you are doing. And I want you to think about ten years from now who you will be when you are 18 and 19 years old. Will you still be carrying this with you or will you be a changed person because you have learned how to stand up on your own and do the right thing?”
We just sat there for a while and I didn’t ask him for anything or to do anything. And finally he turned to me and said, “I did it.”
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