The fourth-grade safety patrol tells his side of the story like this: “I told this second-grade girl that she needed to stay off the snow on the sidewalk because that’s the rule. Then she asked me where she was supposed to walk because there was snow all over the sidewalk. I told her to walk on the edge of the street and she got an attitude and told me it was dumb and dangerous to walk where cars drive. I was just doing my job and she was being mean and not listening to me.”
As I listened to his interpretation of the dialogue, I knew he wanted validation for his valiant efforts upholding the school rule. He wanted vindication that he was right. He wanted intervention because he was older and had the orange vest, but no real authority.
He came to me for support and he didn’t want to hear that sometimes the rule doesn’t make sense. He didn’t want to consider that perhaps someone he perceived as below himself might have sound logic. He wasn’t ready to look for alternatives, compromises, or pragmatic solutions.
The fourth-grade safety patrol, who in class would gladly listen to reason, only saw his side of the story, because we gave him a title, a post, and an orange vest. But I thanked him, no less, for enduring my questions and allowing me to push him toward empathy and a little common sense with that second-grade girl.
Then I walked away thinking how ironically close his story is to our own story in the world of education.