Thursday, May 19, 2011

another Thursday alors

It was with some trepidation that I prepared to meet my students today, after last week's excitement and my abrupt shirt removal.
One of the first people that I met on arrival was the house "father" where the shirt ripper himself is accommodated. He is a wonderfully gentle man in every sense, and he reassured me that he had reinforced the idea of no clothes removal with the boy who dribbles.
He also gave me some advice.
Always reply in the positive and it avoids confrontation.
So when the boy who dribbles asked again whether music was finished and if it was time for poneys, I replied "yes, it will soon be time for poneys" and not "No, it isnt time for poneys yet!"
And, it worked. He was happy.
My colleague who had the collision with the radiator has not been so lucky though. She is on sick leave with deep bruising of her spine until at least the middle of June...

4 comments:

Sofisan said...

Oh, good to hear that you found a way to deal with it! and horrible to hear about the bruised spine, poor woman.

Zhoen said...

Positive language is very powerful, great tip.

My sympathies to your bruised colleague.

Rosie said...

accentuate the positive is an unlikely but rather good song that I shall be singing faithfully from now on...

Russ said...

My sympathies to you! I am a special education teacher in Washington State. I had a classroom of special kids in California, now I sub in Washington. We've come to the idea of dressing in layers and rather loose fitting clothes. I'm afraid I would probably use "NO! No D'Accord!"though more often than not!