Teacher’s husband’s duties
As the husband of an elementary teacher, I have done some interesting outings supporting my wife. One year while she was finishing another teacher’s sabbatical, my wife, Lyn needed adults to help supervise a bus trip to Washington, DC. I was a last minute fill-in and was glad to help out.
My reputation for dealing with small kids was not good. This happened before we had our own children, and I wanted to improve in this department.
The adults were sprinkled throughout the bus so we each had a zone to watch over. It didn’t take me long to realize who was the one boy who was the target of the bullies. He was small, withdrawn and reminded me of me at his age.
When I had enough of the bad treatment this poor lad had endured, I sat next to him. This immediately stopped the overt bullying, but I had a different game plan.
I trotted out my arsenal of bar tricks and taught them to my new student. When he was confident enough, we went live with our little show.
One by one, we played these tricks on the other boys. Many of them were the bullys he dealt with today and on a regular basis. As he was able to pull off the stunts, I could see a new level of respect grow for my protege.
After about an hour of truly stumping the others, one student insisted on learning how the tricks were done. I had prompted my young assistant this would happen and to not reveal the answers. To do so would be to give away the power. He held his own, and said simply it was magic.
By the time we reached Washington, our little show was long over, but I noticed a change in the way the little guy was treated now and how he seemed to have a new sense of empowerment.
I hope he remembered the tricks and has entertaining others with them. Maybe he’s even helped another little guy gain some much needed confidence.