Years ago I was a kindergarten teacher. I taught 3K for five years. It was one of the most fun things I have done in my life, if I only had to deal with the 3 year olds. Adults are much tougher to handle.
One of the things that bugs me about adults is when they act in a way that they would not tolerate from small children. Twitter seems to be a prime example of grown ups acting badly.
I grew up on the periphery of the public eye. Most of the time it did not affect me, but when it did it wasn’t fun. My son is now a bit more in the public eye since becoming the host of a radio sports talk show. As his career advances, he will probably be even more visible.
When his new talk show was first announced, a press release went out with he and his co-host’s picture included. It was an exciting time for the Lunceford family.
It just so happened that my husband and I were at the beach when the announcement was unexpectedly made. I texted my son to tell him how proud and happy I was for him. He mentioned that the comments to the article were “hilarious” so I innocently decided to do something I learned a long time ago not to do- I read the comments.
Let me just say, his idea of hilarious and mine are very different!
A lot of the negative comments were tweets lamenting the old show going off the air, which of course my son had nothing to do with. The rest knocked the new guys, a show no one had even heard yet, so no one knew if it would be good or not.
Since then I have seen many nice and complimentary tweets about his show, but also a smattering of mean tweets. My son always retweets the negative comments with a funny or gracious comeback. He is a better man than I! I want to let these trolls have it, but then again I am a mom. As the “mama bear” I want to defend my 6’4″ cub, but I know that the high road that my son takes is the best course.
Lately, inappropriate tweets from our new leader have been in the news. In looking at them I have often been reminded of my days as a kindergarten teacher. I can remember kids lashing out for the smallest of things, because they had not learned any self control at that point. It was my job to help them start that process.
I can remember a kid telling another that he would be their friend only if they did as he said. In other words, if you do what I want, I’ll like you. If not, then I am your enemy.
I can remember kids pouting if things didn’t go their way. I saw kids do something and when questioned lie to my face even though I had just witnessed the whole thing. I can remember kids telling me they would do better tomorrow and then doing the exact same thing again the next day. I can remember kids telling me they would do something with no intention of following through. Their hope was that in the meantime I would get busy and forget they had made a promise. Sound familiar??
Kids at that age really only know how to look out for themselves, and they are still even having trouble with that. They are just starting to navigate the world around them and it is natural for them to think only of their self interests. As they grow and mature, they learn to think of others. I feel they need to be led to do so. They begin to know that you don’t say everything you think and that you consider what you are saying before you blurt it out. I saw my job as helping them down that path to being compassionate, thoughtful, and to love learning.
Twitter seems to give people a forum to just say whatever jumps in their head. Their “twitter handle” gives them something to hide behind. It becomes a place for cowards to say whatever they want from the comfort of their computer or phone.
You can insult people, lash out at people, say offensive things and never leave your easy chair. You can be a bully and never really have to confront anyone. You can hurt people in 140 characters and never have to see the devastation you cause.
I will say that our new leader seems fine with saying hurtful things in person as easily as he tweets them. I can’t say that is any better than being a hidden bully. He was not hiding when he said immature things that insulted veterans, people with challenges or anyone who disagrees with him.
Not for one second would I put up with one of my 3K students mocking any of the special needs kids I often tried to help mainstream into our class. Not for one second would I let a kid embarrass another kid trying to read something for the first time. Never for a minute would I allow a kid to chastise another for looking or sounding or dressing differently. Yet I am supposed to accept that from a so called adult!
Many times on the playground I closely watched, but did not interfere, as two kids disagreed. If it got out of hand I stepped in. But more times than not, the kids figured it out. They worked out a compromise to make things amicable for all. I would stop other teachers from stepping in because I felt if the kids could figure things out on their own, the lesson would be stronger in their minds. Again, why would I not expect adults to be able to work things out in a cooperative manner like the three year olds?
On the other hand, why would I expect that the mean tweets won’t continue in everyday life if the example is being set that it is OK to spew venom on a daily basis from our leaders? I hope that people will quit following someone who wouldn’t last a day in my kindergarten class without some major attitude adjustments.
I think maybe someone needs a good kindergarten teacher to take control of the situation! At the very least I would hope that we would hold ourselves and our leaders to the same standard we expect from our 3K students. I don’t think that is too much to ask.
