Lessons

It's two more days until Christmas break and the natives are getting restless.  Today one of the teens was doing a math problem and he messed up one section, so everything after that was just wrong.  I tried to help, but he refused to admit there was a mistake, and then he did admit it, but he was surly about it.  One thing led to another, and it became behavior that we needed to stop everything to address.  (Not everything is, in my opinion.  Sometimes I make a comment like, "Wow, you're not being kind right now," but we move forward.  This was beyond that.)  I told him he was being rude and disrespectful, and that there was no sense going on with the school day, because I couldn't work with him under those conditions.  I said he could sit where he was until he was willing to acknowledge and  apologize for his behavior.  It took about 15 or 20 minutes and two false starts ("Fine!  I'm sorry!"), but finally he did tell me he was sorry in a genuinely humble way.  He even went on to let me know he really understood why I was upset.

So.  He still might not completely understand the math problem, but that's okay.  Sometimes lessons are learned that have nothing to do with what's in the teacher's manuals.

Around lunchtime Baylee and I went to the grocery store to pick out little things for a couple white elephant gift exchanges that are happening tonight at church.  We got what we needed, I used a debit card to pay for it, and then I got out a little extra money just to have on me.  Immediately upon leaving the store we were stopped by an older man in a wheelchair wanting to give us a balloon animal that he made. Of course, it wasn't quite like that, because he went on to ask if we would give him one or two dollars so he could buy himself something to eat for lunch.  I looked at him, thought of the two five dollar bills I had in my purse, and said, "I'm sorry.  I don't have one or two dollars on me."  Which...I didn't.  I was telling the truth.  He still held out the balloon animal for us to have, though, and my heart just about broke.  I told him to keep it to give to someone else who had the money to pay for it, then I walked away with Baylee.  We got halfway across the parking lot before I stopped, dug a five out, and gave it to Baylee to run back and give him.  When she returned to me she said, "That was a really nice thing you did, Mom."  Sigh.  Deep down I know that my initial reaction is often to be selfish.

But in a way that's okay, too, because sometimes doing a good thing, even late and somewhat (secretly) begrudgingly, can teach a sweet 10 year old about kindness.

There are lessons all around us, and hardly any of them have to do with our curriculum.