Reason #11 They keep you honest

I will never forget the day, two months into teaching a group of unique and brutally honest seventh graders, that my student came up to ask me what the thing was hanging from the lanyard over my neck. I answered, perhaps too proudly, that it was my keys and a gym membership card. She looked at me sideways and said, "Oh. You don't look like you go to the gym." And then she walked back to her seat leaving me in a puddle of mortification. There have been countless more moments like this one in my teaching career. I have gotten tough, or tougher, but kids sure do have a way of knocking you off that pedestal you didn't know you'd been balancing on.

My co-teacher had her kindergarten student come up to her adoringly and stroke her hair that she had haphazardly put in a pony tale. "You're so beautiful" he said. "But only when you wear your hair down. Not when it's up like that." Ouch! When she told me she was somewhere between a belly laugh and a grimace.

A few days ago my other colleague told me she was getting into a conversation with a student about the definition of a habit. She told him it is something that you do all the time, sometimes without even knowing it. "Like the way you chew on pens?" he offered. Touche.

I am of the belief that if a child is honestly speaking their mind with you it signifies some sort of trust. A friend recently told me in her Early Childhood and Family Education class they talked about how healthy kids will tell parents they hate them, will test boundaries and limits, and will push parents away, because they know that they are always safe to come back. They are safe in their parent's love for them and therefore willing and able to take risks. Of course, that leaves the rest of us bruised and sometimes battered by the pushing and the honesty we weren't quite sure we wanted. But I try to keep that in mind when David writes me an "anonymous" note that says, "I hate tattle tells, and I hate it here!"

Teachers get a big brunt of the exposure, but parents have it the worst. Like it or not, children are the sponges that pick up our clean and our dirty, and then squeeze it out just when we thought we were safe. Last week one of my students was caught doing something naughty while standing next to his best friend. A teacher friend said to student one, "Why did you do that? That is a nasty attitude!" Without hesitation, student one's best friend piped in, "Oh, he gets that from his mama!"

Maybe it will be awhile before I have kids of my own. I'm not sure I'm ready for the level of self reflection necessary to be the sole bearer of the wisdom from these little truth sayers. In the meantime, though, I have twenty student ready and waiting to breech the gap.