Stories from the green zone

I love this duty. I try to get out there as many afternoons as I can. I get some sun on my face and arms, I can wave to my staff as they finish for the day, I can greet parents walking to and from the office,
and best of all, I get to chat to kids. They always have something to tell me - often it's about the weekend or their pool they can't wait to get into or some art work they created that day. Sometimes it's checking I know their names, know their car or know which teacher they have this year. Many times they are full of excitement about something. One little bloke last week couldn't wait to tell me how many friends he had made since moving to Peregian two weeks ago - more than all the six years at his old school, he marvelled.

This is great to hear. Our school places a lot of emphasis on kids looking out for each other, on building each other up, on helping without being asked or rewarded for this behaviour. And it really works. Our kids are friendly and compassionate. They are sharers and givers. They are smiling and happy. And they tell great stories in the green zone.

Did my child really say that at school?

Many years ago as a new Deputy Principal I wandered into a Year 2 class while they were doing 'Show and Tell'. This is sometimes called Morning Talks or News or some variation on that theme. A little boy was proudly showing the class some photos of his parents that he had found in their bedside table. I could see the teacher about to have a conniption and children's eyes getting rounder by the millisecond. I quickly collected the photos, distracted the children with a joke, introduced the next speaker and glided out of the door. I collapsed at my desk half in laughter and half in horror about the conversation I now needed to have with the little boy's parents.

I tell this story not as a warning to parents to lock up their private lives but as an insight into the sharing that goes on between staff and children in the classroom. Children tell their teachers, teacher aides, volunteers, and other kids all kinds of things that they see and overhear at home. Most parents would be horrified, frankly, if they had an inkling of the content of some of these stories.

Teachers, however, are not horrified. They are professional and skilled enough to understand that the way a child sees the world from their shoes and current levels of development is vastly different to the actual reality. Most teachers discard much of the information children chatter about all day. And this is really good practice, generally!

We know that sometimes children come home with all kinds of stories about things they've observed, experienced or heard at school. And I'm sure some of it makes parent's blood boil. The best thing parents can do is listen, make a constructive comment about behaviour you want to encourage and then politely request more information from the class teacher.  Listen to your children with an open mind, sort out the bits that sound valid, and ask more questions of the teacher - if you really need to!

When my daughter was very young, her (very wise) teacher said to me 'I'll believe 50% of what she says at school about home, if you believe 50% of what she comes home and tells you about school!

It seemed like a fair deal.

Stories kids tell...

Quite often we hear at school about something a child has told their parents their teacher has said or done that has caused a great deal of consternation in the home. My own daughter used to tell me stories about her teachers that would have made their hair curl, had I repeated them!

Most times parents come and ask us about the situation and we are able to put the story straight - many times the stories are quite funny; but occasionally a teacher will say to me in anguish 'how could they have thought I would have said/done/thought that?'

The thing is that kids sometimes (actually a lot of times) get things muddled. They are not liars and they are not lying - they are merely reporting something they have seen or heard from their perception. They don't have the depth of experience or the level of cognitive development that adults have to draw on to make conclusions about what they've seen or heard, and to give it perspective. And perspective is a wonderful thing to have when trying to make sense of something that has happened. From a small person's point of view things are louder, bigger and more exaggerated - and if your child has heard your own conversations about teachers, they may feel their story adds weight to any conclusions they think you have drawn.

So next time your child tells you a story about their teacher (or me!) and your first reaction is 'you've got to be joking - that couldn't have happened; remember - it probably didn't! At least not in the way your child saw it and reported it to you.

A good response to children's 'horror' stories from school is 'tell me more about that' - and then, just let it go or seek more information from your child's teacher.