Читать книгу Joan Garry's Guide to Nonprofit Leadership - Garry Joan, Joan Garry - Страница 40

Our twins, Ben and Kit, are thick as thieves and always have been.

When they were 5 and attended a small, progressive school in suburban New Jersey, the school officials thought maybe they were too thick. Their teachers, who knew them each so well, determined that two separate pre‐K experiences made sense.

Try telling that to Kit. She was bereft. Miserable. The sweetest kid in the world actually bit a teacher. It got pretty bad.

In other schools, a kid who bites might be removed from the class, and a kid of color might actually wind up in handcuffs when teachers call the police. Certainly, a punishment of some sort was in order.

But Kit's teachers proposed a better solution — one that was so smart, so simple, and so compassionate, I will never forget it.

Twice a week, Kit would get on the phone and call Ben's classroom and invite Ben for snack time. He'd come into the classroom and Kit would already have set out his snack crackers and juice for him. They both lit up. All was well with the world. They would chat for a while and then Ben would toddle back to his class.

I still get goose bumps when I think about how wonderful these teachers were to propose a solution like this. How much they cared.

A story like this one is golden. It speaks to the mission of the school, to what makes it a unique and special place. Even if you don't have kids, you want them to go to a place that makes these kinds of choices. Kit, as the protagonist, is clear about her challenge, and the school solves her problem in a way that honors her.