Dear Parents,
As a young teacher someone gave me a notepad with a saying at the top that read, “I’ll believe half of what I hear about home if you believe half of what you hear about school.” It was a good reminder to me of the importance of perspective and the necessity of gathering my facts before making a decision about what must be true.
As is the case in the story of the blind men and the elephant, one’s position in a situation often determines one’s perspective, and on occasion that perspective can be incomplete. This is especially true when listening to the perspective of young children.
Developmentally, they are thinking primarily of themselves in relation to everything going on around them. Remember too, that while Lower Schoolers are not inherently dishonest, when sharing an incident that happened at school or at home they may leave out critical information involving choices they made or didn’t make. An understanding of an event is only as good as the thoroughness of the firsthand information one possesses. This is true whether we are listening to a Lower Schooler’s version of something that took place or, quite frankly, another adult’s perspective on what they heard happened at school.
So how can we work together to insure that when something happens we keep perspective? For starters, we can each pledge to believe half of what we hear until we have had a chance to investigate “the other side” for ourselves. If we agree to do this, our partnership will be stronger and our girls will be better for the relationship. Second, let us remember that in the scheme of life, many issues that seem huge in the moment are really, well, not that huge. It’s all relative.
Happy weekend,
Donna