“If you treat an individual as he is,
he will remain how he is.
But if you treat him as if he were
what he ought to be
and could be,
he will become what he ought to be
and could be.”
{johann wolfgang von goethe}
you do know that you pronounce his name "gerduh" right? yeah, i feel all haughty taughty when i say it correctly. and NOW YOU CAN TOO!!!
but more importantly than saying johann wolfe's name correctly, is applying this quote. and i know a lot of adults (including myself) who have trouble making this quote a reality in life.
and i know a middle school girl who has SCHOOLED me in this quote this past week.
she was being teased by a boy in our class. he was treating her terribly. and laughing at her. and so i kept her after class to have a hot beverage (on a side note: if you want to be the BEST TEACHER EVER, let students randomly fix themselves a kuerig beverage. first of all, they feel all haughty taughty AND they learn how to use a kuerig and can make you a hot beverage during class when you need a caffeine fix. which is every day. in every class.)
so i let her stay after class with me and drink her hot cocoa. (i called her next period teacher to make sure it was okay for her to be a tad bit late to her next class. and i had a planning period for the next class.) and we chatted. she had a lot of trouble getting along in her last school. and now it was "starting again" she said.
and this goethe quote popped into my head. and i looked it up on the computer and we talked about what it meant. and how the way SHE saw and treated this bully could maybe make him worse or better.
we also talked about this quote (which is PRINTED UP LARGE on my wall...) and about how we treat people who are becoming something (either a horror or a splendor...)
“There are no ordinary people.
You have never talked to a mere mortal.
Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations
(classrooms, schools, schoolwork) -
these are mortal,
and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.
But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with,
(teach, learn with,) snub and exploit -
immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.
This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn.
We must play.
But our merriment must be of that kind
(and it is, in fact, the merriest kind)
which exists between people who have,
from the outset, taken each other seriously -
no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”
{c.s. lewis}
and this middle school girl, GOT IT. really got it. and then i watched her SIT AT THIS BOY'S TABLE the next day. saw her choose him to go next in a really fun game. i saw her struggle to say something kind to him when he laughed at her. i met her eyes a dozen times, when she thought she couldn't treat him nicely any more. and i encouraged her with my goethe eyes. i printed up the quote and had it for her to look at whenever she needed to in her notebook. and SHE DID IT.
did the boy change? not a lot. maybe a little. but time moves slowly. and people change slowly. and plants grow when we aren't watching. and buds flower in the middle of the night and shock us with their beauty when we least expect to see them in the dry dusty soil. and a middle school girl takes the advice of a 200 year old german writer named "goethe" pronounced "gerduh."
and hope springs eternal. and little things make a big difference. and drops of water carve the grand canyon.
and sometimes theatre teachers have the front row seat on the greatest stories ever seen...