Last week I had a huge lapse of judgment – as a mother, a teacher, a world citizen.
I’m not going to write about it here but let’s just say that it was a daft and irresponsible thing to do, witnessed by several parents and students. As I always do, I had the need to confess and told one or two of my closest colleagues, looking for reassurance. The general feeling was that it was silly, but forgivable.
I wondered if it really was forgivable. After all, I had, in theory, put several students in potential danger. The fact was that they weren’t really in danger – but it was something ill-advised that could have had serious consequences.
If I had been one of those parents, I would have been furious, and lost my trust. I was supposed to be the mature one, the one who had most of the answers, and yet, here I was, behaving like a silly schoolgirl.
This small acts can colour your whole life, at least for a few anxious days. Their impact fades, but then every now and then, you remember, and cringe.
Back to school this morning and behaving extra carefully, aware that reparations needed to be made and bridges built again. The boy who had been with me last week approached me with a cheery smile, as did all the parents, and we smalltalked our way to the schoolgate. I then realized that it had all been forgotten. And if it was forgotten, then it was also forgiven.
Now I just need to forgive myself.
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It is very important isnt it to forgive oneself - and fully
ReplyDeleteJust found your blog =- you had asked what was the big change
Well the thing that had started helping him was really the fact that he had had speech therapy almost daily since August 08
On top of that we went to the Kauffman seminar where one of the key things we retained was "accept approximations"
because of this there was a huge psychological impact as R started feeling like he was talking
and we started straining to figure out what he was saying