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This is a wonderful and important piece about a smart, thoughtful teacher.
From Reader's Digest -
"Every Friday afternoon, she 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 who 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, she 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 can’t think of anyone to request?
Who never gets noticed enough to be nominated?
Who had a million friends last week and none this week?"
This is a wonderful and important piece about a smart, thoughtful teacher.
From Reader's Digest -
"Every Friday afternoon, she 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 who 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, she 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 can’t think of anyone 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.
Quote:
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. Who are our next mass shooters and how do we stop them? She watched that tragedy knowing that children who aren’t being noticed may eventually resort to being noticed by any means necessary.
And so she decided to start fighting violence early and often in 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.
This brought actual tears to my eyes.
I want to give this teacher a hug.
Seriously.
THIS is the kind of stuff that is actually going to HELP.
Good idea, but I'll play devils advocate (aka jerk) here and ask the very often repeated counters to the "arm teachers" argument that I've heard:
Teachers are grossly under-paid and now you want to give them an hour+ of extra work every week AND ask them to play arm-chair psycho analyst? They get paid to teach, not be psychologists (cops/armed guards) and they dont have time to do this extra analysis (or train on how to use a weapon) that doesn't relate to their jobs for which they are under paid already.
So easy to overlook those same issues when the idea is all feel-good warm and fuzzy, huh?
How dare a teacher actually think for herself! If it is not a federal mandate, she should not be doing it. This is not in Common Core. Wait till the teachers’ union finds out.
This is a wonderful and important piece about a smart, thoughtful teacher.
From Reader's Digest -
"Every Friday afternoon, she 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 who 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, she 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 can’t think of anyone to request?
Who never gets noticed enough to be nominated?
Who had a million friends last week and none this week?"
... and this will stop the future school shootings? How so?
This sounds a little bit like criminal profiling. Is she an expert? She (keyword: she, one woman) will look for patterns and analyze it. (LOL) Okay.
Nah, I don't think so.
Reminds me of something I always hear, "Oh wow, how could that be him ? I didn't see that coming." Does this teacher believe the popular kid will never be a school shooter?
Criminal profiling works sometimes, (sort of like racial profiling), But FBI has a whole department full of profilers, and they cannot even get it right sometimes. This woman must be a wonder woman.
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"“If a thing loves, it is infinite.”"
(set 2 days ago)
Location: Great Britain
27,175 posts, read 13,455,286 times
Reputation: 19472
The fact someone may be shy or lonely does not mean they have serious mental illness or are going to commit mass murder.
Many dangerous people aren't shy or lonely at all, for instance a psychopath/sociopath may be very good at manipulating people and getting on in life, but they are often callous uncaring individuals.
There are numerous types of mental illness and personality disorders, and it's difficult to predict exactly who is going to become dangerous.
Saying that it is a good idea to try and help lonely children and to encourage them to engage more, participate more and to make more friends, so it's a good idea in that respect.
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