My "Twice Told Tale:" A lesson in Empathy
A coworker of mine told me a very funny story about when he was a young boy in catholic school. My one and only disclaimer is that there is no way that I will be able to tell this story nearly as vivid, and with as much humor as my coworker told it to me. I was literally crying with laughter.
One day, his class was receiving their theology lesson from a “student” nun / teacher. This young nun was what he described as a bit “mousy.” She was audiotaping her lesson with a cassette recorder in the back of the room. The teacher placed the recorder in the back of the room, right next to two of the more “playful” boys in the class (as my coworker described himself and his friend). When the teacher played back her recording at the end of the day, she was horrified by the noises that she had heard. There were loud bodily noises, sounds that a monkey would make and words that were considered “profanities” at the time.
The next morning when the two boys entered the classroom, they were met by this young teacher who promptly escorted them down the hall to the “Head Nun’s” office by their ears. They were asked to explain their behavior the day before and then spanked relentlessly with a yardstick in front of their entire class. The boys felt humiliated and contended that this punishment did not fit the crime. They were only eight years old and this young teacher should have known that something like this was bound to happen given the fact that she had placed the tape recorder in such close proximity to the two boys. A small prank fails in comparison to how “red their butts were” that day. To do that at the beginning of the day and then expect them to sit all day on hard classroom furniture was inhumane. Is this what the Bible teaches?
If I were speaking from the young student teacher’s perspective, she worked extremely hard on the day’s lesson. She had prepared and set up a cassette recorder in the back of the room to capture her lecture as well as the interactions of the class. This strategy would help strengthen her skills as a teacher. After a long, hard day of teaching, she then had homework of her own in critiquing her performance. When she played back the tape, all she heard were vulgar, offensive sounds. An entire day’s work been ruined. She was going to have to teach another entire lesson and record it, putting her days behind her already busy schedule.
The disrespect displayed by these boys cannot go unpunished. By now, and at this age, they should know the basic principles of right from wrong and lack of impulse control is no excuse. The punishment, while harsh not only fits the crime, but will serve as an example for any other student thinking about the same type of disrespectful behavior. This was an extremely important lesson for anyone wishing to progress in the Catholic faith and the teachings of the Bible should not be taken lightly. It is important that these boys understand these teachings. The punishment that they received today will serve as a reminder for them in the future and transform them into obedient, respectful, well-behaved young men.
Again, I was unable to tell this story as colorfully, or as humorous as my friend. However, I feel that I captured the essence of the story and the ability to empathize with someone that I had never met. While Kris was telling the story, I was not only laughing but I was thinking about what I would have done had this same thing happened to me. I certainly could understand the rationale for the harsh punishment inflicted by the teacher and with that, I attempted to tell her story without ever hearing it.
A coworker of mine told me a very funny story about when he was a young boy in catholic school. My one and only disclaimer is that there is no way that I will be able to tell this story nearly as vivid, and with as much humor as my coworker told it to me. I was literally crying with laughter.
One day, his class was receiving their theology lesson from a “student” nun / teacher. This young nun was what he described as a bit “mousy.” She was audiotaping her lesson with a cassette recorder in the back of the room. The teacher placed the recorder in the back of the room, right next to two of the more “playful” boys in the class (as my coworker described himself and his friend). When the teacher played back her recording at the end of the day, she was horrified by the noises that she had heard. There were loud bodily noises, sounds that a monkey would make and words that were considered “profanities” at the time.
The next morning when the two boys entered the classroom, they were met by this young teacher who promptly escorted them down the hall to the “Head Nun’s” office by their ears. They were asked to explain their behavior the day before and then spanked relentlessly with a yardstick in front of their entire class. The boys felt humiliated and contended that this punishment did not fit the crime. They were only eight years old and this young teacher should have known that something like this was bound to happen given the fact that she had placed the tape recorder in such close proximity to the two boys. A small prank fails in comparison to how “red their butts were” that day. To do that at the beginning of the day and then expect them to sit all day on hard classroom furniture was inhumane. Is this what the Bible teaches?
If I were speaking from the young student teacher’s perspective, she worked extremely hard on the day’s lesson. She had prepared and set up a cassette recorder in the back of the room to capture her lecture as well as the interactions of the class. This strategy would help strengthen her skills as a teacher. After a long, hard day of teaching, she then had homework of her own in critiquing her performance. When she played back the tape, all she heard were vulgar, offensive sounds. An entire day’s work been ruined. She was going to have to teach another entire lesson and record it, putting her days behind her already busy schedule.
The disrespect displayed by these boys cannot go unpunished. By now, and at this age, they should know the basic principles of right from wrong and lack of impulse control is no excuse. The punishment, while harsh not only fits the crime, but will serve as an example for any other student thinking about the same type of disrespectful behavior. This was an extremely important lesson for anyone wishing to progress in the Catholic faith and the teachings of the Bible should not be taken lightly. It is important that these boys understand these teachings. The punishment that they received today will serve as a reminder for them in the future and transform them into obedient, respectful, well-behaved young men.
Again, I was unable to tell this story as colorfully, or as humorous as my friend. However, I feel that I captured the essence of the story and the ability to empathize with someone that I had never met. While Kris was telling the story, I was not only laughing but I was thinking about what I would have done had this same thing happened to me. I certainly could understand the rationale for the harsh punishment inflicted by the teacher and with that, I attempted to tell her story without ever hearing it.
CEP 817 Module 3 Lab Activity: Problem Definition Exercise
Part 1: "Sniglets"
Part 2: Reconsidering and Reframing
This story is very personal for me as it directly affected me. When I was in the 9th grade, I struggled in school. I tried but wasn't a "natural" by any stretch of the imagination. It got to the point in the middle of my second semester that my teachers began to communicate the idea of summer school to my mother. This yielded a typical parental response at first due to a widely presumed, yet simple mathematical equation: teenage boy + bad reports from teachers = lack of effort. There was frustration on my part as well because up until this point, I had done quite well in school. My punishment consisted of many nights grounded to my bedroom for additional study time. This however was to no avail.
It wasn't until baseball season had started that my mother suspected something besides lack of effort. I was no superstar by any means but I was pretty good as compared to my friends. In one of my first games of the season, I went 0 for 4 at the plate (4 strikeouts) and missed the ball every time it was hit to me in the outfield. The next morning I found myself in the doctor's office for a check up when it was discovered by the nurse that I could not read past the fourth line from the top of the Snellen Eye Chart. While this was a significant change from the year previous, it had apparently been too subtle for me to notice because it hadn't been reported to anyone. After a thorough eye examination and a new pair of glasses, my grades, and my hand-eye coordination improved significantly.
While not a particularly entertaining story, it was a significant episode in my life. The initial problem definition was a lack of effort on my part, more than likely due to numerous distractions and me primarily acting like a typical teenage boy. It took the better part of 6 months for this definition to be reframed and reconsidered. To this day, I have no idea how I functioned so well with such poor eyesight for so long. What is as great of a mystery is that not one of my teachers considered anything but laziness on my part. I believe that this may have been due to the fact that I was new to the school, no one knew me and so there was nothing to compare current and past performance. However, it does show how problem solving fails when empathy skills are not employed.
Part 1: "Sniglets"
- Plowbbered (plow' bird): snow that gets pushed to the end of a freshly shoveled driveway following snow plow snow removal from city streets
- Trashodils (trash-O-dils): garbage that ends up in your flowerbeds on trash pick up day
- Snoozebuse (snews' eh byuse): the act of repeatedly hitting your snooze alarm in the morning
Part 2: Reconsidering and Reframing
This story is very personal for me as it directly affected me. When I was in the 9th grade, I struggled in school. I tried but wasn't a "natural" by any stretch of the imagination. It got to the point in the middle of my second semester that my teachers began to communicate the idea of summer school to my mother. This yielded a typical parental response at first due to a widely presumed, yet simple mathematical equation: teenage boy + bad reports from teachers = lack of effort. There was frustration on my part as well because up until this point, I had done quite well in school. My punishment consisted of many nights grounded to my bedroom for additional study time. This however was to no avail.
It wasn't until baseball season had started that my mother suspected something besides lack of effort. I was no superstar by any means but I was pretty good as compared to my friends. In one of my first games of the season, I went 0 for 4 at the plate (4 strikeouts) and missed the ball every time it was hit to me in the outfield. The next morning I found myself in the doctor's office for a check up when it was discovered by the nurse that I could not read past the fourth line from the top of the Snellen Eye Chart. While this was a significant change from the year previous, it had apparently been too subtle for me to notice because it hadn't been reported to anyone. After a thorough eye examination and a new pair of glasses, my grades, and my hand-eye coordination improved significantly.
While not a particularly entertaining story, it was a significant episode in my life. The initial problem definition was a lack of effort on my part, more than likely due to numerous distractions and me primarily acting like a typical teenage boy. It took the better part of 6 months for this definition to be reframed and reconsidered. To this day, I have no idea how I functioned so well with such poor eyesight for so long. What is as great of a mystery is that not one of my teachers considered anything but laziness on my part. I believe that this may have been due to the fact that I was new to the school, no one knew me and so there was nothing to compare current and past performance. However, it does show how problem solving fails when empathy skills are not employed.