I went today to help with credit recovery at the school. A student (a senior in high school) came up to me and said "Ms. Ashton, why did you get so fat? You're a lot bigger than last year, what happened?"
Now. I am NOT posting this for compliments. I know my self worth, and I know what has happened this past year and why. I have gained weight. While the comment was another reminder of the hardships I am going through and the lack of control I have right now, I stopped letting peoples comments dictate my self worth a long time ago.
Here's why I am posting this.
I absolutely do not care what students think about me or my appearance. I will not lose sleep over the comment. What I am losing sleep over is the fact that somehow, this student felt comfortable saying this. Where has society broken down? Where is the gap? I do NOT want to blame only the parents, I do NOT want to blame only media, I do NOT want to blame only the government.
I sincerely wonder, where is the breakdown? Why do people feel comfortable saying hurtful things?
Its not just students either. I had a coworker friend tell me that another teacher asked her if she was pregnant. (Another extremely insensitive question). When my coworker said no, instead of profusely apologizing, the other teacher said, "well, you look pregnant."
Seriously? These are GROWN ADULT WOMEN.
I. Do. Not. Understand.
I do not understand when our needs and opinions became more important than other peoples feelings and needs.
I do not understand why "you look tired" has turned from actual, genuine concern...to just a statement that someone does not look good that day.
I do not understand why YouTube videos of being nice are "restoring faith in humanity". These videos should be boring, because we should see service and kindness on a daily, hourly, minutely basis.
I do not understand why teaching kindness has to be an actual lesson, and not just the way things are. Why do we have to explain respect to a 17 year old, when they should have seen it modeled since they were cognitive enough to understand behavior. And if they fell off the path of kindness and respect, why didn't someone catch it, and explain it to them when they were 10? or 11? Or whatever age they started displaying disrespectful behavior?
When did it become ok to tell a teacher to calm down and go away. Before that even happened, (and yes, it also happened today by another student), this student asked me "who the f**k are you?" Who taught this student that when you do not know who is talking to you, you ask them like that? Where in this students life did he miss the lesson that when you talk to someone, ANYONE, you speak with kindness?
I was at the airport a week ago. As usual, when it gets close to boarding the waiting area becomes very crowded. I arrived earlier than usual to do homework, and got to experience the area filling up with people. About 20 minutes before boarding, the area was completely packed with luggage, people, and kids. I tend to sit on the edge of a crowd. I noticed two ladies in wheelchairs get rolled up. Now, I had an open seat next to me, I saw the two ladies who needed a place to sit (the employee needed to take the chairs elsewhere), and I connected the dots. I quickly packed up my computer and offered them my seat and the one next to me. This was how I was raised. If someone older than you enters the room, you give up your seat, no questions asked. The two ladies were overwhelmed by my "kindness". To me, I didn't even think it was that nice. It was what SHOULD have happened.
I did not tell you that story to make you think I am an incredibly nice, caring, kind human being. I have my faults and I have my moments. We all do. No one is perfect. No society is perfect. I know I can be thoughtless and selfish. I am constantly working on that.
But I had a moment when the student told me to "go sit my ass down", I thought...
Why didn't this student have someone in his life teach him, and model for him, respect?
***** I do have incredibly kind and wonderful students. I also know incredibly kind and wonderful human beings. This is an unnaturally negative post for me, and I try so hard not to dwell on the negative. The point of my post: asking how we can better teach, model and advocate for respect and kindness. My heart breaks for students who do not have strong role models that teach this. How can we fix this?!
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