I worked in a school where we spent one after school meeting every week focused on one child. We used a structure to describe that whole child in detail–from relationships to gestures, academic interests to play. We did not look through filters of family function/disfunction or pathology of the child’s struggles or vulnerabilities. We brought that person to life as we talked. One unintended consequence we noticed was that in the week before a meeting focused on a particular child, as the teacher prepared her description, the child often blossomed, difficulties decreased, relationships grew.
I have taken that lesson of the power of noticing through the years since then. Every chance I get to notice a child, to smile, say how’s your day going, may make a difference. Sometimes, I decide on a number, one for each class period with a rotation to make sure every single child knows s/he is noticed by an adult.
Marian Wright Edelman wrote a post Helping Black Boys Survive: What a Difference a Smile Makes. She starts with this story that Dr. Sean Joe told 2000 college students.
“…There was a gentleman, a young gentleman … named Kevin. Kevin was one of those children who did well in school and had great grades. People liked Kevin. Kevin was a handsome young man. But Kevin was a miserable young man. Kevin suffered from depression. Kevin decided that he was going to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge and jump. … Kevin said, ‘If there’s one person who would smile at me or ask me if I was okay, I would not jump.’ Kevin jumped.”
I think about this story with everyone inside or outside of school. You never know when your smallest gesture toward another human being will make a difference to a life.