Let this serve as a warning to all student teachers, new teachers, and teachers-to-be. I am paying today with a check ($142.53) to cover my error in judgement when I decided to bring myself down to the level of my students.
I was walking to the computer lab when I stopped at the ministry office's student hangout to pick up some of my computer science students. One tried to hide behind the door, so I decided to play a prank on him. I enlisted the assistance of some of the other students, and we all pushed against the door. I thought that he would eventually give up and cry "uncle" after which we would all go on to the lab in a good mood. Instead, he pushed back by putting his elbows on the bottom frame of the window in the door, thereby breaking the window. Since I was the adult in charge, let alone the instigator of the situation, I offered to pay for the window. That's one prank that I will never repeat.
As an aside, I was amused by the response of my computer science students to my owning up to what I had done and to my freely offering to pay for the damage. In a public school I could understand their response of "why would you go out of your way to admit and make reparations when there were no other adults to witness your actions?" My school is a religious-backed school, though, so the students' view was surprising to me. The financial cost of my error is well worth it if I have been a good role model in the art of responsibility.
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1 comment:
Ah, kind of good, but an adult wouldn't have tried to be childish - and in your heart you didn't look at all that could have gone wrong. But again, playing is part of life and joining the throng is what makes mobs so terrible. Nice story, better ending.
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