Quiero compartir
este artículo que me ha llegado sobre el bullying, para que los profesores
presten más atención a este mal que se produce cada día en las escuelas.
Es una historia
contada por un padre o madre (no se especifica), que acude a ver al tutor de su
hijo porque no entiende algo sobre las matemáticas que está haciendo en ese
momento.
Transcurre la
conversación y la profesora le explica que lo que está haciendo realmente es
hacer un estudio de todos sus alumnos para que ninguno se sienta sólo o aislado
del resto de sus compañeros.
El padre o madre
le pregunta que desde cuando hace esto, a lo que la profesora responde “desde
Columbine”.
Con este método
que ella lleva a cabo en su clase quiere evitar lo que ocurrió ese día en los
EE.UU. Este es mi grito
de padre, ya sea con este sistema que esta profesora expone o cualquier otro,
por favor evitemos esto ocurra más.
A few weeks ago, I went into Chase’s class for tutoring.
I’d emailed Chase’s teacher one evening and said, “Chase
keeps telling me that this stuff you’re sending home is math – but I’m not sure
I believe him. Help, please.” She emailed right back and said, “No problem! I
can tutor Chase after school anytime.” And I said, “No, not him. Me. He gets
it. Help me.” And that’s how I ended up standing at a chalkboard in
an empty fifth grade classroom staring at rows of shapes that Chase’s teacher
kept referring to as “numbers.”
I stood a little shakily at the chalkboard while Chase’s
teacher sat behind me, perched on her desk, using a soothing voice to try to
help me understand the “new way we teach long division.” Luckily for me,
I didn’t have to unlearn much because I never really understood the “old way we
taught long division.” It took me a solid hour to complete one problem, but l
could tell that Chase’s teacher liked me anyway. She used to work with NASA, so
obviously we have a whole lot in common.
Afterwards, we sat for a few minutes and talked about
teaching children and what a sacred trust and responsibility it is. We agreed
that subjects like math and reading are the least important things that are
learned in a classroom. We talked about shaping little hearts to become
contributors to a larger community – and we discussed our mutual dream
that those communities might be made up of individuals who are Kind and Brave
above all.
And then she told me this.
Every Friday afternoon Chase’s teacher asks her students
to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with
whom they’d like to sit the following week. The children know that these
requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one
student whom they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week.
All ballots are privately submitted to her.
And every single Friday afternoon, after the students go
home, Chase’s teacher takes out those slips of paper, places them in front of
her and studies them. She looks for patterns.
Who is not getting requested by anyone else?
Who doesn’t even know who to request?
Who never gets noticed enough to be nominated?
Who had a million friends last week and none this
week?
You see, Chase’s teacher is not looking for a new seating
chart or “exceptional citizens.” Chase’s teacher is looking for lonely
children. She’s looking for children who are struggling to connect with other
children. She’s identifying the little ones who are falling through the cracks
of the class’s social life. She is discovering whose gifts are going unnoticed
by their peers. And she’s pinning down- right away- who’s being bullied and who
is doing the bullying.
As a teacher, parent, and lover of all children – I think
that this is the most brilliant Love Ninja strategy I have ever encountered.
It’s like taking an X-ray of a classroom to see beneath the surface of things
and into the hearts of students. It is like mining for gold – the gold being
those little ones who need a little help – who need adults to step in and TEACH
them how to make friends, how to ask others to play, how to join a group, or
how to share their gifts with others. And it’s a bully deterrent because every
teacher knows that bullying usually happens outside of her eyeshot – and
that often kids being bullied are too intimidated to share. But as she said
– the truth comes out on those safe, private, little sheets of paper.
As Chase’s teacher explained this simple, ingenious idea
– I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. “How long have you been using
this system?” I said.
Ever since Columbine, she said. Every
single Friday afternoon since Columbine.
Good Lord.
This brilliant woman watched Columbine knowing that ALL
VIOLENCE BEGINS WITH DISCONNECTION. All outward violence begins as inner
loneliness. She watched that tragedy KNOWING that children who aren’t being
noticed will eventually resort to being noticed by any means necessary.
And so she decided to start fighting violence early and
often, and with the world within her reach. What Chase’s teacher is doing when
she sits in her empty classroom studying those lists written with shaky 11 year
old hands - is SAVING LIVES. I am convinced of it. She is saving lives.
And what this mathematician has learned while using this
system is something she really already knew: that everything – even love, even
belonging – has a pattern to it. And she finds those patterns through those
lists – she breaks the codes of disconnection. And then she gets lonely kids
the help they need. It’s math to her. It’s MATH.
All is love- even math. Amazing.
Chase’s teacher retires this year – after decades
of saving lives. What a way to spend a life: looking for patterns of love
and loneliness. Stepping in, every single day- and altering the
trajectory of our world.
TEACH ON, WARRIORS. You are the first responders, the
front line, the disconnection detectives, and the best and ONLY hope we’ve got
for a better world. What you do in those classrooms when no one is
watching- it’s our best hope.
Teachers- you’ve got a million parents behind you
whispering together: “We don’t care about the damn standardized tests. We only
care that you teach our children to be Brave and Kind. And we thank you. We
thank you for saving lives.”
Love – All of Us
