"I'm Sorry I was rude to you earlier."

To those of you who are parents.
To those of you who will some day be parents.
To those of you who will be or are teachers.
To those of you who will ever have the pleasure of being around a child, a child of any age.

I would like to tell you that there is hope.  They aren't all savages.  :)

For today, an eighth grader said this to me, "I'm sorry I was rude to you earlier."  And the best part about that statement is that it came from his heart and his own knowledge that he had been rude.  I had not told him so.

Had he been rude?  Yes.  But at the time I knew he was just frustrated and trying to get through his work.  He wasn't doing his best work and he wasn't thinking about his work.   I hoped I wasn't pushing him too hard.

I stepped away.

A little while later I came back to his group.  He was still in the same place.  I changed my approach and those words came flowing out.  After recovering from my shock, I thanked him for the apology and we moved forward.  In fact, we made more progress than I thought we would have.  He followed directions.  He listened.  He even gave me a huge high-five for our team work.

An apology goes such a long way.  I think it did more for the student than it did for me.  But wow!!  What a great afternoon he ended up having.  He went from frustrated to finishing his work.  And it was all because of choices he made for himself.

I guess as I think about this and I write about it, I realize that I made choices too.  I chose not to get frustrated with the student and not to give up on him.  I guess we both had a good afternoon.