Tuesday, October 28, 2008

EXPERIENCE IS THE BEST TEACHER

When I picked Maggie up from the after-school program yesterday, I asked her how her day was. She hesitated before answering and then replied, “not so good.” I sighed, wondering what trouble she had managed to find during her second grade day.

“What happened?” I queried. She told me that during art class, they had been working on a painting project and that she and her friend Emily were seated at the same table. She said that when the teacher was turned around helping someone else, Emily reached over to her and painted on her shirt. After a deep breath on my part, she quickly mentioned that Emily painted on her paint shirt that she was wearing to protect her clothing.

I said, “and then what happened?” to which she replied that she didn’t like Emily painting on her shirt, so she responded in kind by painting on her face. Unfortunately for Maggie, the art teacher had turned around at that point and witnessed her during her exceptional lapse of judgment. Maggie ended up having to serve a time out for her untimely face painting episode.

She wasn’t so much mad about having to serve the time out for the face painting as she was that the other girl, Emily, didn’t get in trouble at all. According to Maggie, Emily lied and said that face painting attack was completely unwarranted.

Hoping that she had at least gleaned something from the incident, I asked her, “Maggie – what did you learn from this? What do you need to do next time?” She thought for a moment and then replied, “I know I should have just told the teacher….but if I do paint someone else’s face, I should make sure she isn’t looking first.” Ah yes, experience truly IS the best teacher.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's only breaking the rules if they catch you!! Yeah, that's worked pretty good for me for a long time too!