Today, was a typical Monday in my classroom. We only have 32 days left of school, so we are busy, busy working on filling our minds with everything a 2nd grader should know, before the end of the year. Today was also the last day of the book fair at school. Any of you familiar with the book fair, know that it is a BIG deal to the kids, especially the younger ones. They get to come to school with money, and buy things without their parent being there to tell them no, or you don't need that. Before lunch today, Linda asked if she could go down to the book fair. She was so excited, she had $5, and couldn't wait to spend it. We were working on finishing up something in Reading, and she had already finished, so I sent her on down. She came back about 10 minutes later with a poster. We continued on with our day, nothing was ever said about the poster, she just quietly placed it in her cubby and sat back down at her desk. (I need to note that the poster cost $4.77, so Linda spent all of her money on the poster.) At the end of the day, I was passing things out to go home, and as I got to Linda's desk, she was holding her poster, and smiling brightly. I assumed she was excited to get home, to hang her poster in her room. I placed her weekly newsletter on her desk, asked if she was excited about her poster, to which she nodded yes, and I was getting ready to move on to the next desk, when this conversation took place...
Linda: Mrs. Painter, do you have any brothers or sisters?
Me: Yes, I have a younger sister.
Linda: When is the last time you did something nice for her?
--I was taken aback by this question from a 7 year old--
Me: I don't remember Linda. It has probably been a while. (as I really thought about her question)
Linda: Well, Mrs. Painter, we should do nice things for people, all of the time, without having to think about it. Sometimes people need to know we care. Like this poster for example. I took all of my money, and bought this poster for my older sister, because she likes USC. I don't like USC, but I used all of my book fair money to buy her something, because I wanted to do something nice for her.
I honestly have no clue how I responded to her, because I was in shock (and almost tears) as I thought about a lesson that Linda had just taught me. I spend 5 days a week, doing my best to teach Linda, and her 21 classmates lessons. Curricular lessons, and life lessons. But, today, Linda taught me a lesson. Linda taught me that no matter how busy we are, how much money we have, or what our crazy, busy lives are throwing our way, we should take time to do something nice for someone. It doesn't have to be in the form of a monetary item, but something as simple as a card, phone call, or in our technologically savvy lives, an email or text message. Sometimes it is the simplest things, that mean the most to others. This wasn't something that I had never thought of, or done, and to be honest I used to be good at it. But to be honest, if you are like me, we are busy, living life, and often forget, although not on purpose, those who mean so much to us. And we don't forget them, as in completely out of thought, but we forget to tell them, or show them how much they mean to us. I could tell by Linda's smile, as she told me about spending all of her money on a poster for her sister, that she was getting just as much out of giving it, as her sister was going to get out of receiving it.
Such a BIG lesson, from such a small girl. One lesson, that we all need to remember every now and then.
