My daughter brought a book home from school yesterday. After dinner we sat on the couch together to read it. It was about a little girl who LOVED her cool male teacher and wanted to be a teacher when she grew up. One day she became disruptive trying to show the class her new purse and ended up getting it taken away. She was sad and then very angry at the teacher, deciding she didn’t want to grow up and be a teacher anymore…
At some point during the day she drew a picture of him saying that he is “fat” and wanted by the FBI and slipped it into his bag. At the end of the day he gave her the purse back. On the way home she opened it to find a note from him saying, “Today was a hard day, tomorrow will be better.” She immediately felt horrible for what she had done and did what she needed to do to make it better.
The author’s portrayal of the humble teacher and the kind gesture of writing that note really struck me as a powerful demonstration of how to relate compassionately with others. What a wonderful world it would be if we all set our egos aside and extended ourselves like that.