So I am adjusting to a whole new ball-game now, working with children aged 7 to 13. It is mainly great fun, and the children are mainly endearing, ultra enthusiastic, and funny. And it is enlightening as well.
Two incidents yesterday in school made me realise a couple of things:
Firstly, I get totally involved in how other people are feeling, and really feel it with them. This is because I have a very high something or other in my DISC Personality Profile, which makes me empathetic - trouble is, I sometimes feel things way more strongly than the actual feeler of the thing does. And, they often get over it and move on while I am still feeling bad for them.
These were the incidents:
A girl came up to me after lunch, right up to my side and took hold of my arm, her face all scrunched up, and said "... something bad... I had to carry my timetable round with me everywhere so I took it to lunch and put it on my tray and then I handed the tray into the dishwashers and left it on there, and now it's lost, and the teacher can get very cross..." Since it was her individual timetable for her special lessons, she couldn't get a copy from a friend. She was afraid of getting into trouble and wanted me to go into the dishwashing area and try to rescue the timetable! I actually did not consider doing that, but I did offer to as the teacher on her behalf, but she said she would just be brave and tell her...
Later a class came into the library, and a nine year old boy was in trouble with the English teacher for not having a "reading book" - so she asked me to help him pick one - mouthing to me "Very Low Ability!" So the boy looked at a few easy books but then lit upon the Anthony Horowitz series which his friends are reading - I told him it was too hard for him, but he said "Just because I can't spell very well, but I can read, and all my friends are reading these..." But when the English teacher saw him with it, she rounded on him and said, "That is way too hard for you, we've talked about this before, choose a MUCH easier book" - and I felt terrible for him, wanting to read the cooler book - and not being allowed to try it, but then again the teacher probably knows he won't be able to, which made me feel sad for him, stuck with the stupid books for younger kids... He picked out a Michael Morpurgo, but then his music teacher came to fetch him and he left his book behind in the Library! So now, he is probably in trouble again with the English teacher! And he probably doesn't feel as bad as I do that he can't read Anthony Horowitz.
Another thing I realised is that the feelings of worry (for the girl) or frustration and unfairness (for the boy) were so huge and real in the moment, but for me as the adult I could see, when I wasn't caught up in my empathising, that there was nothing to worry about: the teacher might be a bit cross momentarily, but would give the girl a new timetable, and the boy might have to wait for now but there are years ahead for him to read all the great books. I am sure that the worries I have, bad as they seem to me at the time, look to God as the children's worries look to an adult. If only I could step back and see things from God's higher, bigger, wider perspective - my things would be suddenly so small, so insignificant, it would be such a relief.
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