(verb) -to make higher, nobler, or better. Impressing the mind with a sense of grandeur or inspiring excellence, veneration, etc. German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote “Treat a man as he appears to be, and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.”There are few professions that are as noble and praiseworthy as that of “teacher”. Yet, if your like me, we need periodic reminders that excellence in students is more often “caught than taught”. It helps me to envision parent’s of students sitting in the classroom with their child or to sometimes I tap into the “dad” part of me (I have four kids of my own) and ask myself, “how do I want other adults to treat my son or daughter?”
Not long ago I was sharing a duty assignment with a teacher who began to rant about “how kids today are no longer polite or courteous”. To escape the deluge of verbal toxicity spewing from this teacher’s mouth, I diverted my focus to other tasks. Later that same hour I watched how this same teacher verbally interacted with students. I was not surprised to hear harsh, terse language from “the adult” toward students. I finally reached my “Popeye” moment, when “I had all I can stanz and I couldn’t stanz no more”! I walked over to the teacher, locked-eyes and said (discreetly yet clear), “hey, Ebenezer, you better be careful or you might get visited by three spirit’s tonight.” I knew it was risky, but fortunately the teacher got my lame attempt at a bit of poignant, but long-overdue sarcasm. We both broke out laughing at the painfully obvious contradiction between the earlier rant about impolite students followed by an onset of constant discourteous barking from the teacher. We can’t blame students for behavior we ourselves are not willing to model.
