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Leavening the Dispirit As a first-year teacher, I put off grading a stack of descriptive essays until the very last minute. It was late at night and I was reading quickly when I encountered a detailed description of a student's favorite cafeteria food, "the toasted beagle." At that moment, it was the funniest thing I had ever read; I couldn't contain my laughter. The word bagel was misspelt in every sentence; misspelt as she buttered the beagle and even as she shoved that poor thing into the toaster.
However, at different points in my career, I encountered typos that did not amuse me at all. Instead, they caused me to rant about the carelessness of "kids today." How could similar circumstances elicit such wildly different reactions? Was it the context of the errors? Probably not. In hindsight, my reaction was more likely a window into my ability to maintain perspective at a particular moment in my life.
I am an adult, and spelling errors are a small matter, and yet my ability to regulate my reaction to them varied widely depending on other stresses in my life. I'm sure you have experienced this phenomenon. The flat tire or broken refrigerator, which on one day would be perfectly manageable, is an insurmountable crisis on another.
This tendency toward letting other stressors amplify one's sense of crisis and futility is even more present in teens and preteens. It becomes more pronounced when the troubling event is not a broken appliance but rather a world in turmoil. Without some time to come up for air—to just be kids—it is easy for children to lose perspective, and to lose hope. Finding Room for Hope This summer, I read a blog written by Catherine Hunter, a retired Head of School, reminding educators about the importance of humor and perspective. It has been a long time since I encountered advice that felt timelier: Providing Reassurance Last week, the Head of a peer school introduced me to the term "eco-anxiety." A mother at that school had asked to remove her fourth grade daughter from science class because the unit on the polar ice caps was causing the daughter distress. The young girl was unable to sleep, fearing that her house would be flooded and her dog would drown. Her class had watched YouTube videos intended for older students. ![]() (c) 2018 Marshall School |