lessons from the wise

Some of my toughest students to teach are the ones in my first grade class at Marangatu.  Individually, they are hilarious and incredibly sweet.  But when there are thirty of them stuck in one room, I'm often tempted to crawl under my desk and escape the madness for the rest of the hour.  The girls are well-behaved for the most part, but the boys...oh, the boys...*rocks back and forth*

Sometimes these adorable boys will turn into uncontrollable wild things, whose version of a high-five is a fierce smack to a classmate's head with their textbooks.  "Throw away your trash" means chucking an unfinished cup of yogurt into the garbage bin, only to have the contents explode onto the walls like a dairy-fied Jackson Pollock painting.  I always have to keep my windows closed in class because the boys will climb up the blinds (they're made of thick glass and metal) and hang on them like monkeys.  Submission wrestling is also a common "friendship" ritual, ending only when a student taps out or the referee (re: me) comes to break up the fight.

So with that context in mind, I didn't even bat an eye when this morning's lesson was interrupted by a clamoring in the back of the room:

"TEE-CHURRR this is MY pencil and she won't give it to MEEEE..." screeched a scrawny boy named Edgar (in Spanish, of course).

Seven-year-old Mabel furiously shook her dark, curly ponytail in protest, yanking a green-and-blue striped pencil out of Edgar's grasp.  "Nuh-UHHH this is MINE!  Give it to me NOWWW!"

The gloves came off and a mini boxing match ensued.  Left hook here, uppercut there, blitzkrieg to the face, and...okay, so it wasn't really a violent fight, more like a tug-of-war with a pencil.  But the shouts grew louder as both desperately sought ownership of this coveted object.

I marched over to put an end to the madness.  It took all of my patience to sit them down and gently ask them to tell me what had happened, and that I wouldn't send them to the principal's office if they told me whose pencil it really was.  "MINE!  IT'S MINE!" they insisted in unison.  I honestly couldn't tell who was telling the truth.  Both seemed so sincere -- Edgar with his teary, puppy-dog eyes, and Mabel, with arms crossed and pouted lips.

The situation seemed to be at a standstill; if I took the pencil away from both of them, the real owner would probably go home and tell his or her mom that the English teacher took his or her pencil, and then I'd have to deal with unhappy parents, so that was no good.  But further questioning only resulted in louder arguing, which made it harder to determine the perpetrator.  What to do, what to do?  And then an idea hit me, like divine inspiration:

"Here's what we'll do.  I'm going to break the pencil in half, that way each of you can have the pencil.  Sound good?"

Edgar pouted and shrunk back in disappointment, but after a moment he acquiesced to my suggestion.  "I guess that's okay."

Mabel was a little more upset.  "NOOOO my mom is going to KILL ME she bought me that pencil for my BIRTHDAY and I'm going to be in so much TROUBLE if you break it you CAN'T do that PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NOOOO just GIVE IT to him but PLEASE DON'T BREAK ITTT..."

Worked like a charm.  Edgar was given a sad face on his daily behavior sheet, and Mabel happily completed the rest of her English assignment with her green-and-blue-striped pencil.  (Kids can be so predictable...)

Point(s) of this story:

• The wisdom of God is just as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago (that Solomon was one smart guy)
• God is gracious to impart some of that wisdom to those seeking it, even simpletons like me
• Don't take things that aren't yours.  Especially during my English class.  Because I will call your parents.