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10 Cheshvan 5763 - October 16, 2002 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family

Little men, little women, real people of all sizes.

A Community of People
by Bayla Gimmel

My three-year-old grandson came home from nursery school and announced that his teacher had told the class that the following week they might be able to go on an outing.

"How nice," said his mother. "Where will you be going?"

"Don't know," came the reply. "We were talking about that. Some of the people in the class want to go to a park."

Yes, just as my middle-aged friends are people and your peers and associates are people, the children in that nursery school class are people as well.

The most effective parents and teachers are the ones who can maintain a sense of community within a family or class, and a feeling of human dignity and self worth for each individual within that group.

What is the worst thing an educator can do? Belittle a child - - to make him small in his own eyes and in the eyes of his peers so that he appears to be less than a person.

Rabbi Pesach Krohn tells a sad story that happened many years ago. There was a child who was disruptive to the tranquil classroom setting. He had some problems and was `acting out.'

Today, such a boy might be diagnosed as learning disabled, but in the language of that time he was called a `mental case.'

The teacher had had it up to his ears with this boy. We all know that this can happen. However, there is more to the story.

The boy's name was Mendel. One day, the teacher just could not deal with Mendel's disruptive antics. He lost it. He shouted at the boy and instead of calling out `Mendel,' he called the boy `mental.'

The nickname stuck and it led to disastrous results. Mendel was no longer a person; he was a mental case. His humanity had been stripped away from him in one brief moment.

It is not just teachers who are guilty of this. Parents sometimes call their own children `stupid,' `idiot' or worse.

We are supposed to see within everyone we meet the tzelem Elokim, the Divine image that is within him or her.

Rabbi Avrohom Twerski tells how his father consistently dealt with problematic behavior. If he caught one of his young sons doing something inappropriate, the senior Rabbi Twerski would say, "Es past nisht -- It is not fitting behavior for you." The message was clear: that behavior is beneath the standard I would expect of a person of your caliber. After hearing that gentle reminder, the child would immediately act in a more proper manner.

But what will happen to the child who is called `stupid'? Most likely he is not unintelligent at all. And he will think to himself, "If they think that little of me, just watch what else I can do." The inappropriate behavior will spiral out of control and all because the parent forgot for maybe one second that standing before him is -- a person!

I know one set of young parents who are wise beyond their years. They have several small children at home. Each time a new baby is born into that family, the father comes home from the hospital and tells his older children that they have a new sister or brother and as soon as the newborn is named, the parents refer to the infant only by name. No one in the family is every called "the baby" who needs Mommy's attention; it is a person called Chani/Moishy. As an added bonus, the one-year-old does not feel dispossessed of his/her title when the next child is born.

When a decision has to be made concerning family plans, wise parents involve their children in the discussion. This does not mean that the adults then do whatever the children want. It means that the children are consulted and thereby given the message that their opinions are important to their parents.

Years ago, when we bought our first home, my husband and I went to a flooring center to pick out carpets. The salesman showed us all of the synthetic carpet samples on the showroom floor. My husband looked at them. I looked at them, and our very young son studied them as well.

We talked for a while about the particular texture that was most pleasing and there was one sample of a new type of polyester that had just the right `feel' but the colors were awful. We asked the salesman if there were any other carpets made of that material with better coloring.

In the midst of this discussion, my pre-school son disappeared into the alcove behind the desk and came back shlepping a sample book that we had not been shown. Behind its soft cover, it contained the samples of the very latest, improved polyester carpet and the salesman had not remembered that it was there. We looked through the book, picked out the color we liked and that carpet lasted for well over twenty years! We were always grateful to the `person' who found it for us.

I will always have fond memories of my ninth grade World History class. Once a week, our teacher would throw out a subject and we would have a lively town- hall type of discussion about it. During that hour, we were not young students. We were serious 13- and 14- year-old philosophers and historians solving the problems of the world.

It is all a matter of attitude.

One family of pre-schoolers spent a whole morning at their front window, watching a new neighbor move into their building. They were intrigued by the movers who were rushing back and forth, unpacking a `lift' containing a household full of furniture plus a huge number of cartons filled with clothing, books and housewares.

For weeks after that, whenever the mother wanted the children to put away their toys, she would pull out some cartons which had come with the last grocery delivery, help the children toss all of the toys, dolls and blocks into the boxes, and then as they all carried the filled cartons to the corner of the room where the toys were kept, the mother and children would sing out loud, "The moving men are coming; the moving men are coming." The children were delighted to be moving men and the clean-up was accomplished in record time.

We can improve our own attitudes. When taking your children to the playground, it doesn't have to be an ordeal. Okay, so you are pushing a double stroller and you do have to account for the toddlers holding onto it. But you can actually enjoy yourself if you consider the trip "an outing with some nice people."

Last of all, don't think of your activities at about five in the afternoon, when you are bustling about in the kitchen, as actions leading up to "giving the children their supper."

Think of yourself as a hostess.

You are preparing a dinner party for several important guests. And even if they do tend to smear tehina on the chairs and spill the milk on the floor, welcome them to the table with a big smile, if not with a hug. And as they file in and take their places at the table, keep your perspective and bear in mind that this is a community of -- people.

 

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