Self esteem

I had the privilege of teaching so many different children during the course of my teaching. It was a big challenge for me as they were all unique and had different interests & needs. Here are some snapshots of my experience:-

1.    A four year old Italian girl came into my class with her pacifier. Her mom informed me that it should be taken off during class but the child insisted on keeping her pacifier in her mouth.

      After three weeks of constantly reminding her to remove the pacifier, I finally decided to remove it from her mouth and kept it in her bag. She was so close to tears and was miserable the whole day. Nevertheless, I found her so adorable with the tears around the corners of her big green eyes. 

     The next day, I was so worried, thinking how she will be when she comes to school. Again, she had her pacifier. And again, I removed it. This lasted for the next three days. But, on the fourth day, she took it off by herself and asked her mom to keep it.

2.    A French boy has just scribbled his tree with black color. I told him that trees are mostly green, but can be brown or yellow and that he was supposed to color inside the line. I gave him a new picture of a tree to color and again, he coloured it black. So, I decided to colour for him and put it up on the wall.

     The next day, he asked me where was his black tree. I pointed to the tree that i coloured for him and the child said, “Oh no, Miss Ruby, that is not my tree!.” Seeing his disapointment, I pinned up his black tree up and there was instantly a smile on his face.

3.   An American girl with a speech impediment in my class love story telling. The children seated in the front row will usually move with excitement as they followed the story. This girl usually sat at the back row and I saw her attempt to tell her friends at the front row to stop moving around so much so that she can follow the story telling. But due to her speech impediment, she could not communicate this to her friends. So, she pushed or hit her friends at the front row.I can see her frustration when her friends did not understand her and I was trying to find a solution for her.  

     So, one day, before I started the story telling session, I asked her to sit on the chair at the back so that she can see well. She was quite reluctant at first but after seeing the comfort of having the best view without being interrupted, she eventually took the back seat without being told every time we had story telling.

Looking back, I really do wonder whether I made a positive impact in their lives & how many I have lifted up or crushed in terms of their self esteem.