Long Time, No See

Quote du jour: When you meet up with a disagreeable person, never allow yourself to be upset. Say to yourself, if a dowdy like that can stand himself all his life, surely I can stand him for a few minutes. ~ Unknown


I've been absent from blogging for several weeks and now have wrapped my head back around thinking and writing. (I was thinking and writing, but most of it was nonsense, and considering the already low height of the bar, not worthy of the link)

I spent a few days last week at a pastoral care conference/training. When ever I go to one of these things, I find that along with the formal and explicit program content, the other attendees contribute equal or greater content. What people offer up for solutions, the situations they describe, and yes, the personality traits that drive me up a tree - all content. One of the reasons I took up knitting (and this does not apply to all meetings) was as a way of mitigating the frustrations of (often) pointless or endless meetings I attended in my volunteer and work lives. Whatever happened or didn't happen in a meeting was easier to take if I came home with a sock.

Because, face it - some meetings are glorious and productive and some are not. We can't have glorious and productive all the time, but at the very least I think we should strive for relational. If you are asking (as I think you must be by now) what this has to do with a teaching blog - think about the different experiences you've had. Some days, everyone is on. They are eager, attentive, thoughtful, full participants and you leave thinking "I'm so glad I did this".

And then there are the other days. The days when someone is off. Or everyone is off. Including you. You can't avoid it. Everyone has an off day, so sooner or later it's going to be your turn. Or your class's turn. And then there are the poor souls to whom every day is an off day. I watched a few in action last week swinging between the extremes of 'offness' in adults. Most of the extremes took the form of variations on the "look at me" theme, although there were a couple of "don't look at me" moments. Kids do this too. Their vocabulary is a less polished for most of it, but they either push for attention or push to be left alone. Both of those reactions in a classroom are ways of asking to be 'seen'. If you can remember that, it goes a long way to help you address "off" behaviors in a neutral, non-punnitive fashion and maintain caring relationships. Kids aren't always easy. Neither are adults. And there are some folks seem to pride themselves on being difficult. But look at it from their point of view. Poor things. They're stuck with the selves forever. We get to go home. And until then, we can knit.

(Need knitting lessons? See me!)