How many more killings do we have to endure in this country before action is finally taken?
Got this from another site I frequent
This teacher
took action since Columbine
Here's the copy of the post;
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ATTENTION ALL TEACHERS AND PARENTS
This is an article that needs to be repeated:
Every Friday afternoon Chaseās teacher asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom theyād like to sit the following week. The children know that these requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one student whom they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week. All ballots are privately submitted to her.
And every single Friday afternoon, after the students go home, Chaseās teacher takes out those slips of paper, places them in front of her and studies them. She looks for patterns.
Who is not getting requested by anyone else?
Who doesnāt even know who to request?
Who never gets noticed enough to be nominated?
Who had a million friends last week and none this week?
You see, Chaseās teacher is not looking for a new seating chart or āexceptional citizens.ā Chaseās teacher is looking for lonely children. Sheās looking for children who are struggling to connect with other children. Sheās identifying the little ones who are falling through the cracks of the classās social life. She is discovering whose gifts are going unnoticed by their peers. And sheās pinning down- right away- whoās being bullied and who is doing the bullying.
As a teacher, parent, and lover of all children ā I think that this is the most brilliant Love Ninja strategy I have ever encountered. Itās like taking an X-ray of a classroom to see beneath the surface of things and into the hearts of students. It is like mining for gold ā the gold being those little ones who need a little help ā who need adults to step in and TEACH them how to make friends, how to ask others to play, how to join a group, or how to share their gifts with others. And itās a bully deterrent because every teacher knows that bullying usually happens outside of her eyeshot ā and that often kids being bullied are too intimidated to share. But as she said ā the truth comes out on those safe, private, little sheets of paper.
As Chaseās teacher explained this simple, ingenious idea ā I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. āHow long have you been using this system?ā I said.
Ever since Columbine, she said. Every single Friday afternoon since Columbine.
This brilliant woman watched Columbine knowing that ALL VIOLENCE BEGINS WITH DISCONNECTION. All outward violence begins as inner loneliness. She watched that tragedy KNOWING that children who arenāt being noticed will eventually resort to being noticed by any means necessary.
And so she decided to start fighting violence early and often, and with the world within her reach. What Chaseās teacher is doing when she sits in her empty classroom studying those lists written with shaky 11 year old hands - is SAVING LIVES. I am convinced of it. She is saving lives.
And what this mathematician has learned while using this system is something she really already knew: that everything ā even love, even belonging ā has a pattern to it. And she finds those patterns through those lists ā she breaks the codes of disconnection. And then she gets lonely kids the help they need. Itās math to her. Itās MATH.
All is love- even math. Amazing.
Chaseās teacher retires this year ā after decades of saving lives. What a way to spend a life: looking for patterns of love and loneliness. Stepping in, every single day- and altering the trajectory of our world.
TEACH ON, WARRIORS. You are the first responders, the front line, the disconnection detectives, and the best and ONLY hope weāve got for a better world. What you do in those classrooms when no one is watching- itās our best hope.
copied for hope to save more Children
