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All We See or Seem

by Leah Sanders

Giveaway ends September 29, 2012.

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When I was in seventh grade we moved to Alaska from Idaho. It was a whole new world, and a very small school in comparison to the place I had been. Everyone there knew who I was before I showed up on my first day, because a new student was big news.
Before my first day was over, I was targeted by the seventh grade bully. She walked up to me in the hall after school and said, "I heard you want to fight me." Hmmm... news to me. I told her I didn't want to fight, but I'd oblige her if that's what she wanted. She backed down. And she never bothered me again.
Instead, she moved on to weaker targets. In P.E. one day one of the smaller girls accidentally hit her with a hockey stick in the shins. She started hitting her back until one of her friends stepped in and told her to stop picking on the smaller girl. Later in the locker room, the bully grabbed her friend by the neck and started choking her. We all had to pull her off.
I don't know why she backed off when I stood up to her, but attacked when the other girl did. I guess it doesn't always work. But both of those incidents are forever ingrained in my mind. Which is a glaring example of what kind of damage bullies can do. Not only do they cause a person to live in terror, but they can scar someone emotionally for life.
That's the real damage. Physical wounds usually heal. It's the emotional wounds that hang around long after the bully is gone. And that means that words can do even more damage than anything else.
Don't be a bully. Use your words and actions to build each other up.

Memory Monday: A Piece of Quiet

originally posted 9/11/2008 on In a Word:

It was a Saturday evening. I had done the dumbest thing I have ever done in my teaching career and was paying the price for it. So I sat at my kitchen table, trying desperately to score a stack of about 150 position papers (almost all of which were plagiarized from the same three sources, I might add). I say "trying desperately" because I had NO desire whatsoever to be doing what I was doing.

I had been forced by the powers that be to inflict torture on myself via the aforementioned essay assignment. Foolishly, however, I made it into the semester final exam. Grades were due in just three days, and I had to grade them quickly.

First of all, grading essays is no picnic, regardless of the writing ability. But when you have to read essentially the same three essays 150 times -- and they weren't even that well written to begin with -- you get the strange, yet overwhelming desire to jab your red ink pen into your eye.

So there I sat at the kitchen table trying desperately to grade papers and to avoid my periodic involuntary attempts to put out my own eye. My two energetic and very boisterous children began to "play" in the living room about ten feet away from the table. This was more than I could handle. I stood up suddenly, slammed my hands down on the table and announced (or rather, bellowed), "I WANT PEACE - AND QUIET!!!"

My children were slightly taken aback at this outburst, but not really enough to move their game elsewhere. Instead, my son -- bless his heart -- sidled up to me slowly with his hand in his pocket. He pulled his hand out of his pocket wryly and handed me his fist. He said, "Mom, here is a piece of quiet. You can eat it... then, you can IGNORE us."