Matt Miller (Ditch that Textbook) recently shared this post in his email. With his permission, I’m sharing it here. Sometimes it is hard to control everything but you can control your reaction.
We didn't see it until we made it halfway down the driveway.
My family and I. In the minivan. We stopped with our mouths hanging open.
Toilet paper. Everywhere. All over the trees out by the road.
What had happened? After we were in bed, they snuck into the driveway. (Didn't alert the dogs somehow. I partly blame the dogs for this.)
They used 15 packages of toilet paper. I counted. Twelve rolls each. At $2.75 each, they spent $41.25 on this stunt.
It was all over the place. I saw toilet paper as high as 30 feet up. Some got it past the first line of leaves and branches into the woods somehow.
Rolls on the grass. Plastic packaging strewn about. Everywhere!
👨🏻🦲 My first thought: "Our yard is a mess! How will I clean this up?" (I take a lot of pride in my yard.)
👩👧👦 My kids' reaction: "Who did it? We have to get to the bottom of this!"
👩🏻 My wife's first reaction: "Oh my goodness. (Thinking ...) Yay! They like us!"
The reaction of my wife, a teacher in our local school district, was really my reaction, too. In our community, you don't really toilet paper houses of people you don't like. It's a practical joke or prank you pull on people you do like.
Speaking of reactions, here's the conclusion I came to while I cleaned toilet paper out of my trees that day ...
You can't control what happens to you.
But you can control how you react.
And our reactions say something about us -- to our students, to our family, to our community.
A student misbehaves and we lash out >>> That relationship is broken, perhaps forever
A student misbehaves and we show grace >>> That student may see us differently
A student misbehaves and we come alongside to help >>> A relationship is forged
Sure, school is about learning stuff ... about content and new skills and standards.
But it's also about learning how to be a human being. How to navigate relationships. How to deal with conflict. How to act when we make a mistake.
We might teach students more with our reactions than we do with our lessons.
FYI: I wrote about my efforts to connect with students in my own classroom in my book Ditch That Textbook. Several of the short, quickly digestible chapters are about that. Check it out if you're interested!
Next time you're ready to lash out, take a breath and ask yourself ...
"What do I want to communicate with my reaction?"
-- Matt
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