Talking it out. Letting it air. Bringing it to the surface. Fleeing isolation.

Easily distracted, not fully present. Rebuked and rebuffed. Imperfect, and dispute that unchanging fact, it is not a weight that presses down on the road to improvement.

One is running around the classroom when everyone is supposed to be sitting down. One child is screaming at another. A child points out that another child sat in their chair when they got up to answer a question and now won’t move. What are you going to do? Watch idle as it happens? Listen…

It’s okay to be sensitive, to feel hurt and vulnerable. I can acknowledge those feelings, and create space as I put my Victor Frankl hat on and choose my attitude. “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and…

How are you? A precursor to everything else. Before I judge your silence. Before I assume the worst of your frown. These are all withheld until I know, “How are you?” Until I’ve opened my eyes to see you: a fellow human.