Kindness and missing shoes

This past week my wife, Michele, told me of an incident that occurred at her school. It is filled with compassion and friendship, but somehow, negativity seeps in as well. Why is it that there always has to be one negative element in everything that is good? Please open your eyes and look at the bigger picture!

In this story, a parent decided to be a strict parent. Perhaps she had the right idea, but her execution was not the greatest where she “left” the child for the entire day to suffer the consequences. I would have just left the child for an hour or so in that situation but that was the decision of the mother and ought to be respected as such. The problem that I (and Michele) have is with the response of some of the teachers, who could not see the lesson learned; rather they chose focus on the situation. Those who are teachers, of all people, should be able to see when a lesson is being taught and most importantly, when it has been learned by the child. It is not always the lesson intended, but a lesson none the less.

Here is what happened:

Keep in mind that my wife has been at the school for over 15 years and ALL the children adore her. Whenever they have a problem they will always go to her for help.

A little girl, nine years old, arrived at Michele’s office in tears. Her and her mother had an altercation because Azania, the little girl, had not been able to find her school shoes at home that morning. They had searched and searched without success. This made Mom late for work. Mom was furious as Azania had been specifically told to clean her shoes the previous night and she had not done so. So Mom packed Azania into the car and dropped her off at school in her stocking feet, without any shoes. In south Africa, the children wear uniforms to school. At the moment we are in winter and it is very cold, so shoes would be great! Anyway Azania was asking if Michele (my wife) had spare shoes that she could wear for the day?

Michele chatted to Azania and discovered that there had been a real zinger of a fight between Azania and her mom. So Michele waited for a bit to allow Azania to calm down and compose herself before Michele phoned Mom. When Michele phoned, she diplomatically started the conversation by saying that she saw that the two of them had had a blue Monday, however Azania is now apologetic and very sad that she had been disobedient and caused problems at home, and was it at all possible for Mom to bring her some shoes? Well Mom refused, stating that she is tired of this child not getting ready the night before as instructed and misplacing her things all the time. So no, Azania must suffer the consequences and hopefully learn a lesson.
Well, this brought on a new flood of tears.

Once she had calmed down, Michele took her to her classroom. However Azania could not summon the courage to go into the class. Michele went ahead of her and asked if anybody was staying for sport and would therefore have an extra pair of takkies to loan to Azania. As it turned out they did not. The children were curious and wanted to know why Azania did not want to come into the class? Michele went on to explain that Azania and her Mommy had an argument and this left Azania without shoes. The children were horrified. Michele asked them if they would laugh at Azania if she came into class with no shoes on. Of course not! was their response. They were her friend !! rang out from quite a few of the children. Michele then went on to ask, well, what could they do to make Azania have courage to come into class? Immediately without hesitation, several children took off their shoes and said that they too, would be just like Azania with no shoes for the day.

The teacher that witnessed the exchange had tears in her eyes at the tenderness and compassion that spontaneously resulted, without any prompting, from these 9 year old children. Unfortunately though as mentioned before, some teachers who did not witness the incident, were not aware of the facts, moaned at the children to put their shoes on. The children refused to comply. These teachers also said that one should not interfere with the lesson that ought to be learnt by Azania.
My thoughts on this are that yes, a lesson was supposed to be learnt, that Azania should take better care of her possessions and yes, perhaps Azania did not learn the lesson intended for her, however a much greater lesson was learned here. That Azania is loved by her class mates, that people have compassion and the basic lesson of this is; if you can be kind to others then be kind! It also gives me great hope for South Africa’s future.

I, as a grown man, lose my things on a regular basis, if I was to be punished every time then I would be getting permanently punished. Perhaps Mom could have sent her to school in her slippers then she would have felt awkward, but not humiliated? I don’t presume to know nor do I pretend to be a perfect parent, as we all parent differently and have our own opinions on such matters. My hope is that I will always be a kind parent and look at the situation and adjust the punishment so as to not humiliate or hurt my children and maybe sometimes you don’t even need to punish because often as the situation develops,
the consequences may punish the child more that you could or ever want to. One does not need to flog a dead horse, the horse is dead! leave it alone now and move on!