Working with Youth
Today I had the pleasure to play with a first grade child while his mother completed a study that I am helping with. At the beginning, he was entertained by a game on his mom's cell phone. When I asked about it, I discovered it was "grand theft auto." Later we were drawing, coloring and cutting, which he did very well. He was patient and engaged. When I asked him if he could draw a tree next to the house and truck he had created, he said he couldn't and asked me to. I complied. Later he told me he was tired (so was I, we had been working for about an hour). He said that he hadn't colored so much before. Yet his ease with the cell phone made me think that he had spent many hours with it. hmmm.
World Refugee Day
Today is the day that the UNHCR made. (UN High Commissioner for Refugees)
They have won a Nobel Peace Prize twice(!) so maybe we should pay attention. I have spent the last semester and some time in South Africa working with refugees. Every story is unique and almost all of them are heart wrenching. If you want to understand more. Look
here or
here or ask. I really like
these, too.
Not so related, but often lumped together is the
human rights of immigrants. This organizations free materials on teaching tolerance are well worth a look.
Embrace the diversity in your community today.
Tact
While reading in Harper's the other day, it mentioned that politeness (and I will have to go back and check sources on this anecdote), is when a man opens the door to the bathroom to find a fully naked woman and quickly closing the door, says "excuse me, madam." Tact is when he closes the door and says, "excuse me, sir." In this white lie, he lets the woman think that he has seen so little not to have identified her as a woman.
The other night at dinner, at a very nice restaurant, I removed my napkin from the bread plate to find a dying fly underneath. Not wanting to cause the scene, nor use the dirty plate, I replaced it with the one across the table, but left the fly visible. When the waiter came, instead of removing the whole place setting (as would be normal when a diner is alone), or noticing the fly, he only removed the other place setting's glasses. After he neglected to notice after bringing bread, taking a wine order, or bringing the first course, I got tired of pretending not to watch the flies death throes, and asked politely for him to remove the plate along with my empty soup bowl. What would have been the tactful thing to do?
Then another day, I overheard someone respond to the request for a piece of gum with "sorry, I only have two left." I was a bit flabbergasted. Obviously, the polite thing would have been to share. Would the tactful thing been to lie and say you were all out?
