march 2008: Notes and teaching

Dear Family, 

Passing notes has long been a tradition in the classroom, but writing them and then hiding them has not. Although hiding the paper communication is less disruptive than passing it around, it still drives a teacher mad.  My housemate, Rebecca, and I were eating dinner a few weeks ago, and she began to tell me about one of her students that had surprised her.  Shamar, one of Frederick Douglass’s second graders, was the hider of notes and the reminder Rebecca needed to assure herself that God’s strength is perfect in our weakness. 

Below you will read Rebecca’s account of her reminder. 

“It was a stressful day.  So, as I walked past the front row of desks, and out of the corner of my eye saw Shamar writing on a small piece of paper, I desired to go in for closer inspection.  Yes, it was as I had thought: a note!  When I stopped in front of Shamar’s desk, he immediately took the paper and began vigorously shoving it as far back into his desk as he could manage.  Aha!  It’s even worse, I thought; it’s a bad note. 

“‘Please give me the note, Shamar,’ I said sternly.  He simply giggled in response. 

“‘Give me the note,’ I said this in much firm voice.  He still giggled, but refused to produce the malicious note.  This was not what I was expecting.  When he immediately asked to use the restroom, I allowed him to, slyly thinking to myself that now I could fish the note out of his desk. 

“Feeling very tricky, I sat down at his desk to take out the note.  But, instead of finding one note I found that his entire pencil box was stuffed full of notes.  Wow, nothing like storing evidence against yourself, I thought, and I prepared myself to dish out some corrective discipline.  I began to read the first note. 

“‘Dear Kevin, you are cooL!!!!!!!  You are a good good good friend to me.  Love Shamar’ ” 

“I was flummoxed.  A note with curse words would have shocked me much less.  I took out all 14 other notes, all written to a different classmate, each of which had a variation of the first note written on them.  I could not stop myself from smiling; my cheeks even started to hurt.” 

All day those notes brought a smile to Rebecca’s face.  She was delighted by this boy’s desire to express positive thoughts about all his classmates and to take the time to write them down.  She relayed the story and the lesson learned, and we are both amazed that God is at work, despite us.  Please pray as God continues to work.