I was at school one day sitting at my desk, I looked up and thought I saw something, I can’t remember now what the incident was (and it makes no difference to the story anyway). What I did was accuse a child of doing something she had not done. I also can’t remember how it came to my attention that I had accused her unfairly, but it did.

I waited until the children had settled in their next class and went to the teacher to beg a few minutes to speak with them. I asked the child in question to stand. I apologized to her firstly for falsely accusing her and, secondly for not giving her a chance to explain herself. If she had been given the time, she would have told me that I had made a mistake and falsely accused her. I told her I was wrong. I told her I regretted my behavior. I told her that, as I had shouted at her in front of the class, I should apologize to her in front of the same class. Then I asked her if she could forgive me.

“That’s okay Ms. Wilson”, she said.

“No it wasn’t okay,” I said, “But thank you for accepting my apology.”

I thanked the teacher; I thanked the class then took my leave. I thanked the class because they were a witness. They were a witness to my initial behavior and attitude, and they were a witness to my apology.

This was one of my finest teaching moments because I recognized that the incident presented an opportunity to teach a meaningful lesson. Sometimes as adults we feel that it is beneath us to apologise to children. Apologising to children is a great way to teach them how to apologise.

When I was in primary school, more than anything else, I remember my teachers. They believed in me when I did not believe in myself. They told me that they expected great things of me, and I remember l how much I loved to hear them say that. I remember that it really did seem possible to be great when they spoke of such things. The idea that someone was expecting greatness of me actually made me sit up a lot straighter. Just as my teacher spoke to me of a greatness I had within me, it is my hope that my apology will have infused this child with a kind of dignity which will encourage her to sit a little taller in her chair.

Teachers are powerful in terms of their potential influence. Every situation is an opportunity to grow, teach, and be taught. An apology offered with a sincere and contrite heart forms cornerstones for future honest conversations.

Who of us like to be falsely accused? Who of us have not wronged or been wronged by a worker, customer, child, supervisor or housekeeper? To apologize with sincerity sets the stage for more truthful conversation. It teaches by example. It allowed this particular child to experience my humanness. The act of apologizing acknowledged that she was worthy of the dignity of an apology from anyone who knowingly wrongs her.

Apologies do not diminish us in the eyes of others. Quite the reverse is true. Apologies make it more difficult for others to deny the same to us. We all know supervisors, spouses and colleagues who would rather die than apologize. Sometimes we are selective, believing that certain people deserve an apology while others do not. Conduct your own experiment and notice the difference ‘sincere apology’ makes in your dealings with people. Your workers will not be able to withhold respect from you, your supervisor’s attitude will have to change as well and even if it does not, you will have risen above the situation and will therefore feel very different.

When you determine that an apology is warranted, apologize without excuses, without justification or equivocation. We have the power to influence others hugely. We have the power to change our world.

To view my art, please visit my portfolio page.

When I was about fourteen years old, it seemed as if I was always annoying some adult. At home I was constantly being asked, “Why don’t you think?” My answer was, “Think about what?” I was always being told to “find something constructive to do,” or a variation on the theme was “Look around and see what needs doing!” I remember feeling exasperated and angry, “I don’t see anything that needs doing!” Once I remember saying “Just tell me what you want me to do, just say it and I’ll do it!”, but nobody ever did! Just thinking about it makes me feel frustrated. If they had told me to sweep the floor, I would have. If they had said I did a lousy job of sweeping I could have looked at the floor and seen what I had missed with my broom. But it felt cruel being criticized for failing to do when I didn’t know what I was meant to do. It also didn’t help much being big for my age.

It’s nearly impossible to look back objectively to be able to see what was actually going on then. All I know is that I wanted to comply but I didn’t see what they wanted. No family, no Mom, I am not standing here today to make little of your efforts. Can we agree that we can only do according to what we understand? These Letters From a Teacher are recipes of the successes I have had. If they work for you, good, If they don’t, then it’s wise to discard them, just throw them out and keep looking. 

When I was in my late twenties and early thirties I read nearly everything I could find on self-development. I would get a short term “high” when I read an idea that made sense to me. The problem wasn’t the lack of hearing a good message; the problem was that the books did not tell me how to move from where I was to where I wanted to go. Glossed-over tools without much in the way of helping the reader to navigate proved to be useless at best and extremely frustrating. Unless we understand how to implement and incorporate these philosophies into our daily lives, neither we nor our children will benefit from them.

We don’t need ‘sound good, no substance’ verbal dribble. We don’t need more rhetoric. We don’t need people telling us it’s hopeless and that we are victims at the mercy of the media. We don’t need to be told that today’s child is born different and that’s why we can’t control them. We don’t need friends trying to make us feel better by telling us an even more horrible story of family life gone wrong. Reality television is designed to do just that. Do you feel better after a dose of reality television, watching out of control children as you cheer on the Nanny who comes in to set things right? Then does that television episode become the conversation at work the next day? Do you see the insanity here? We say “at least my children aren’t that bad!” The insanity is that you are probably watching these reality television shows right along with your children who are learning a few new tricks in the bargain! Geez!

We need to create little support groups with people we respect who are on the same page with us in terms of what we want for our children. It doesn’t matter what we call these parent groups. In these small parenting groups we need to share common family issues which we wrestle with every day. Each of us will benefit from the strategies which are shared as you trade recipes for correction. I hear you asking where you are supposed to go to find these people for your parenting group. If you are already spending time on Facebook, you can start there. You can advertise in your church bulletin, you can ask to put up a poster at school. You can do a lot of things if that is what you want.

We get very dramatic as we tell the world that “I would do anything for my child… I would lay down my life nah nah nah nah nah.” We will do everything except change some of the core issues, like seriously curtailing television viewing and resting down the pacifier (cell phone) long enough to see what’s going on…

If you care to know how I began in a conscious way to teach my daughter to think and reason, I am sharing it here and now with you at no charge.

I had my daughter when I was thirty-two years old and I admit to experimenting with her. I was always curious about how much she understood. By the time my daughter was three years old, I was hooked on story time. I would get all snuggly and begin the reading. I read a bit and stopped and asked questions, “What do you think will happen next? Anansi doesn’t want to work. What do you think about that?” When driving in the car, I would leave the radio off. I would present my three year old with simple age appropriate problems and listen to her thinking. “Oh gee Whitney I forgot to give the package to Mr. Jones, now what am I going to do? Any suggestions?” And you know she had a ton of suggestions. Learning to think is best done when we have a reason to think. The ability to reason is not something that happens automatically. It is a muscle that much be flexed and exercised regularly. Thinking happens best in quiet, not in noise and distraction. That is the reason we need to control the volume and the amount of television and music.

Sometimes the game was played with my posing a scenario and asking “What would you do if?” Age four for instance: “If we are in the department store and you can’t find me, what will you do? Pretend I am the lady at the counter what will you say to me? How can you help the police to find me? What can you tell them?” This was how I played with her all the time. But then again we didn’t watch television except on week-ends. Hey, I hear you saying “that’s unrealistic.”

Well here’s a revelation: Television “dumbs” us down. Just because they make Sesame Street for children, doesn’t mean we need to park our two year olds in front of it every day. McDonald’s makes Happy Meals for children and I can guarantee you, there isn’t much that’s healthy in them either. It’s business, and they have sold us on it. As a treat it’s fine, as a staple, it’s lethal.

We can argue till the cows come home about how great one or two programs are on the tube, but most of it is garbage. Even the commercials are a diet we can live without. But instead of curtailing how much we watch, we now have a television in nearly every room least we miss out on one single morsel.

I’ve been thinking lately about the nature of how we engage or talk to our children. One day I sent my daughter into the post office to do an errand for me. She was about ten years old. She came out of the post office upset and complaining about the way the postal clerk spoke to her. She said the lady was grumpy, acted as if she didn’t want to serve her and wouldn’t even look at her as she answered. I thought about that. I told my daughter that we were going to conduct an experiment. I told her that we were going back to the post office the next day but that this time she would see if she could change the outcome by what she did. I suggested that she speak up with a great smile and a big “Good afternoon.” I told her that she was to be sure to look the lady directly in the eye and smile. I told her to look for something that she could compliment the lady on perhaps her earrings. Next she was to say “I hope you can help me,” or “Please help me.” We rehearsed this at home.

Let me say she did not want to participate in this exercise. I told her that we were going to do it and that she should think about it as if she was an actress on a stage. I explained a little about the study of psychology. Everywhere there are people we find difficult to get along with. They are not going anywhere. We cannot erase them all or fire them all. Some will be your teachers; some will be your supervisor. We can choose many ways of dealing with them. I wanted my daughter see if a different approach would yield a different result. It was funny really because she told me that it was as if the lady still wanted to be grumpy but wasn’t quite able to be. Now I could have chosen to go in and have a word with the clerk myself, but I wanted to see if she could have the experience of controlling to some extent the outcome. When she came back to the car she was smiling, so was I.

As a parent, my mother did the best she could. I did the best I could. Dressing children and feeding them, sending them to ballet lessons or football soccer clubs are fine, but if we find that these extra curricular activities are not leaving time for the teaching which is essential to their later development then you must question the trade-off.
When I learn to think, I do need as many rules from my parents. The rules are intended to keep the child safe until his maturity kicks in and he becomes a problem solver. Failure on our part to begin this process early leads to a lot of avoidable misery later.

I told you that these letters might irritate you, but I promise you I am rooting for young parents from the sidelines. Parent from the perspective that we are preparing our children to meet the world; do the kind of job in your parenting in such a way that should anyone else have to step in and assume your role as parent due to your poor health or death, you have handed over the kind of child you would best like to inherit yourself. If you think enough to make a will which sets out your instructions with regards to your property, then surely you must think about whether or not you have trained your child in such a way that someone else can step in and complete the job.

I have been formulating these letters in my mind for some time now. It is a conversation I wanted to have with parents when I was a teacher. There were always some parents I would risk having this conversation with, and many, for whatever reason I did not. Perhaps it was because it’s hard to know where to start, and it’s difficult to sum up in a few short sentences. Writing this is something I really want to do well because it’s the kind of conversation we don’t have often and because I feel passionate about it. Even if it feels like a personal attack, try to stay with me till the end, then by all means email me if you feel the need. I haven’t time for political correctness. With so many people in pain, I think it’s time for plain talk. I write this out of love for every parent.

When I was a child I never remember my mother, complaining about my grades or showing unusual excitement when I achieved an “A”, but I do remember very well her concern about my behaviour and attitude in general. My mother was not a teacher. My mother was a beautician or hairdresser if you prefer. My mother’s older sister was very good at math and she was made to understand at a very young age that much was expected of her. I understand that she did not have to wash dishes or do many household chores. Her job was to study and make her family proud. I can only imagine how the other siblings felt about that.

I was one of two siblings. I had a an older brother who certainly struggled in school more than I. My mother didn’t compare us much, but others did, unfortunately, even teachers. They didn’t intend to be cruel or do injury,but when you ask the younger child in the presence of the older child the answer to a question which the older child could not answer, that is tantamount to saying “Geez Bobby, even Julie knows the answer to that and she is two years younger than you !” What in the world have we just done !? Bobby just got humiliated, and now he hates Julie because who else can he turn his humiliation towards? Julie had a moment of feeling great but it came at the expense of her relationship with her brother, which she might not fully understand till years later. When your younger child pipes up with the answer to a question which has been put to the older child, do not entertain the answer. Clearly let them know that their answering is inappropriate. “Be quiet,I am not speaking to you”. This respects the older child’s integrity, halts the younger child from scoring points at the expense of her sibbling. In other words, showing him up, and using the opportunity to flaunt his knowledge. I remember my mother saying “when I am speaking to your brother, you be quiet”. She was teaching me bounderies and whether I knew it or not, she was teaching me not to use my information or my knowledge as a weapon. We have telephone conversations in their hearing, which probably would be better served well away from them. As we know, children have excellent hearing, especially when we talk softly about things which don’t concern them. Old folks used to tell us to leave the room, “this conversation is not for you”. This was wise direction. Not all conversations are appropriate for their hearing, even when they are the subject under discussion. With the abundant use of cell phones, parents need to ensure that conversations being overheard by children are appropriate, but that’s another letter. In any event there were times I did overhear, not lots of times, but enough to remember. Being compared to a sibling was an odd thing, sometimes it made me feel superior, sometimes it made me feel very very guilty and sad for him.

I have one child. I have felt advantaged by being a teacher. Although not all teachers have success in the rearing of their children, teachers do have an advantage over most parents because of their training.

What is Worthy of Praise?

Being the first child in the class to learn to read is not worthy of praise. Being engrossed and excited about reading is worthy of praise. Emphasis is better served commenting on what Julie is finding joy in reading, rather than the fact that she was first to read. One implies a kind of superiority. You will come to want more and more of it. You desire to set her apart from her peers by virtue of her development. It says “see how smart she is?!” The other acknowledges her readiness. It is focused on giving her material appropriate to her ability and interest. In other words, one behaviour is about pumping yourself up as the parent of a smart child, and one is about putting the focus on learning. Your child would never think to brag that she was the first to do anything. We make them aware and add that element. Do you see? What we want to celebrate is the child’s discovery as she learns what she is good at. We in effect take her to a door of learning and coo about all that yummy stuff just waiting for her there. What we do not want to do is send a message of needing to be better than someone else.

Parents promise rewards to JD if he can turn his “B” into an “A”. This behaviour is intended to be an incentive. It’s supposed to inspire JD to do better. But what long term message does it send? Believe it or not, the goal is not to produce “A” students. The goal is to grow people who value learning and creating for it’s own sake because the act of learning enriches one’s life. That is the goal. Education is not a race to be won. Learning is not a burden to be borne. Neither should it be a process you cannot wait to end, i.e. ” I can’t wait to get out of school”. Throughout our children’s formative years we are providing nourishment for their spiritual, pychological and social growth. Our role as parent is far more comprehensive than that of teacher.

A teacher’s job is limited in its focus, therefore she speaks of stanines, grades and whether or not Julie is “at grade level”. Do all children walk at ten months? Do they all learn to speak at the same age? Yes, teachers can help you by offering information, but it is the responsibility of the parent to take that information and weigh it. We must make sense out of it and put it into a context. JD may not be reading at grade level, but have you been monitoring him? Was he really into that book about dinosaurs? Was he able to understand how those animals behaved. Is he excited when he tells you how much food they ate? Through dinosaurs you can teach him about the whole world, but it requires a change of life-style for you and your family. And, you know what, he doesn’t know he’s learning, or that you are teaching. In other words it’s not boring empty talk. It becomes the converstion at dinner (with the television and cell phone turned off). He is learning, he is engaged. You are having child-appropriate conversations. He is giving you back information attesting to how much he understands and remembers. Don’t cheat on this time with the television on even if it is on mute.

The teacher cannot work like this. She has a syllabus to cover, but you have a child to grow. We teach through our excitement. Share something you just learned, it can be something very small. Gradually you will see the quality of family- time change. Stop racing to get your children out of your way so that you are free to text someone.That hour or hour and a half between dinner and bed is the most valuable time of your day. A parent’s job is huge. We cannot make more time, but we can spend our time more meaningfully. We must understand our child at a deeper level. We have to balance how we want him to grow, and we cannot do that unless we think about it. If his school is overly competitive we have to create the balance in our parenting at home, not blindly buy into what is being pushed exhaustively at school. If school does not challenge him enough, we must. He is ours, and the responsibility for him cannot be laid at the feet of anyone else. There is no point to looking for anyone else to blame for how he/she is “turning out”. It’s time to begin looking and asking “What can I do better?” No matter how much money we are prepared to spend, we cannot suppose that the answer is just to put him in the right school. It’s not as simple as that.

We cannot enter the world of parenting unwiling to change. Our children mirror every thing they see, everything they hear, everything we imply through our attitudes. They are a witness to it all, which was why my mother and I were both sticklers about early bedtimes. Lord yes ! Put in the necessary time and but those darlings to bed early.

I wish there was a way to speak about some of these issues without causing you to feel defensive, but the truth is that this stuff goes so deep that it’s unavoidable. Our children are not a thing to be shown off. It is unwise to try to make them live the life you did not. We cannot live through them in that way.To use them to make us feel good is dangerous. Why? Because while the child is serving our purpose, we cannot be objective enough to see what his needs are. Do you know how many of us entered into professions which we didn’t want trying to make Dad proud?

Michael loves running,so we encourage him to join the Pacers. That’s fine, but when we say Johnny has won six of his last seven races and if he hadn’t stumbled he would have won them all, the message to Johnny is “you feel great about me because I win.” Then comes I have to win my races, which may later be followed by “I don’t like running anymore. I only like to do what I am the good at. ” (more in the another newsletter) lol Where do these attitudes come from? We all have them and we owe it to ourselves to take an earnest look at them and decide if we should keep them or dump them. We say to children don’t steal or take what isn’t yours, but we come out of the grocery store, sit in the car and exclaim that the check-out boy gave you too much change. Your child asks you if you are going to take it back. You laugh as you drive off, “Not today” you say.

I know I had a lot of days when I felt that having a child was very confining. I wanted to watch a certain television show which was not appropriate for her, or I’m there sitting with a friend who tells an off coloured joke in the presence of my child…..how do I handle it? Do I talk to my friend about it or am I so skewed in my priorities, that I continue to expose my child rather than have that uncomfortable conversation with my friend. It’s like being on the stage all the time.

All of us need plain talking, clear thinking people in our lives. They help us to put things in perspective. Parenting is not so much about finding the right course and sticking to it as much as it is about having a good compass and being willing to constantly adjust. It’s about realising that our children benefit from the work we are willing to do on ourselves.

Even though they aren’t finished yet I thought you might like to see what’s on the drawing board. There are usually four or five paintings going at once. Some fall by the wayside but strangely enough most are concluded and leave me to find a place in the world.

I have days when I am excited not just with my work but in my work. Are you able to separate the outcome of your work from the process? The process is filled with endless possibilities. For instance I’ve been thinking for a while about doing a series of paintings about fear. Fear is an interesting concept. Do you realize that it is perhaps one of the few emotions that are the same throughout your life from the cradle to the grave? Whether we are three or ninety three, we fear abandonment, ridicule, pain and so on. Imagine a conversation between a three year old and a ninety-three year old. I think they would understand each other perfectly well if they talked about fear. And more to the point I don’t think you would be able to tell who was speaking. For all our living and life experiences we cannot teach the three year old anything about fear.

I spend lots of time thinking about the ties that bind us, thinking about our humanity, about ideas and concepts.

The “process” is greater than the success of the individual project or painting. It is the reservoir of endless ideas, it is the place where each idea gives way to an even greater thought and there are always more ideas then we have time to realize.

Then there is the wonderful tactile ‘feel-good’ of warm oozy wax. The color, the smell and the feel of laying it down; yup I like that too. This “feel-good” is the anticipation and excitement for what may come from my fingers next. Painting is a little like planning your life. It never looks like you imagined it. In a lot of ways I am more surprised by the outcome than you. Every single time I begin a new painting there is hope and wonder…… I mean how does the brain and fingers work anyway?! But today as I sat painting these boys, I felt a tinge of sadness; I felt hope and gratitude too.

This is yet another kind of “feel-good”. This one I will christen “the feel-good of hope.” It is a special feeling born out of the knowledge that each child I have taught and painted is a real person. Because I have known many of these children, I send each painting into the greater world in the hope that each child will successfully find his way in the world, that each will be infused with ingredients which feed his humanity and nourish his spirit.

As I work on these pictures I can actually hear these children speak. I remember the pitch and cadence of each child’s voice, even though their names escape me. I wish them rich and rewarding lives. Knowing that I will have been only a blip on the screen of their lives, knowing that I cannot know what they will go on to do, I feel gratitude that our paths have crossed. They have affected my development as an artist, and perhaps my interpretation of them will in some way alter the way you see them too… YUP, I have known them and they have taught me a thing or two.

In order to demonstrate the process of producing a work of art, Sharon has shared some photos of the development of the piece, “Legal Matters”:

I begin with the models. These days I use my students. They are less shy about modeling as we work in this manner more and more . Each person is given her “script” as it were, then asked if she can identify with the role she is given. I try to have more than one photographer. I like to be able to see the differing views and “takes” on the same situational set-up. Role play forces me to focus on each character, her movements and natural interaction with other characters and the environment.

Eventually I will ask the models to freeze. Then I consider what the camera “sees”. The camera sees differently. I take many photos sometimes as many as one hundred with little differences such as moving more to the left or right of the models and shooting them. The final choice regarding which photo I will paint from is made when I review all of the photos at the computer.

Image 1

Next the image is rendered in charcoal. I usually use a vine charcoal. It erases easily so corrections can be made . The values are worked through during this stage of the picture’s development. The charcoal is fixed and becomes permanent.

Image 2

Next the image is rendered with a single color. This provides the under painting. This color will influence all subsequent colors. This under painting is fixed also so that it doesn’t blend with the final colors to be added.

Image 3

The final color or colors are then applied.

Image 4

The final work.