Tell the Truth! All the time!

I had a really nice visit from one of the adults taking classes through the online school. She was struggling and came in because she needed encouragement. This is on of the problems I anticipated with the online students; staying motivated is an issue. She just feels disconnected and she knew she needed some encouragement. In the end we agreed to establish e-mail contact with each other and I invited her to come to the school to work on her classes in times when she felt she needed the human element (particularly the adult element) in her life. She left feeling better and I have to send her a note to see how the rest of her day went.

I got involved in a complicated relationship thing today where a young man came in to discuss a problem he was having with his girl friend. She didn't trust him and was believing someone else who was apparently telling lies about him and another girl. I was quit sympathetic and told him if necessary we could show his girlfriend the video of the hallway where this incident was alleged to have taken place and straighten the whole thing out. He didn't think it was necessary but he nodded when I told him the offer would stand if he needed it.

Well the next hour his girlfriend was in the office in tears and she asked me to see the video. I had a meeting to go to but I trusted the young man and I thought it would help him to show her the video. Turns out he was lying to me and his girlfriend saw something he never would have wanted her to see. I don't know how it all will play out. I feel really bad for the young lady he was lying to though and when I saw him that afternoon and discussed it I asked him about an assembly we'd had where our principal had asked the students to remember a couple of little things: the first was "TELL THE TRUTH" and the second was "ALL THE TIME." He could have saved a lot of people a lot of time if he had been honest to begin with! It was an interesting couple of hours. Unfortunately, the rest of my day was spent with the bureaucracy the Minstry of Education has created around special education. I'm really feeling like administration is getting to be too much responsibility and instead of giving us time to be educational leaders the demands on our time is taking us away from the classrooms. Today I missed a class visit because of the longer than expected meeting with our special education consultant. Tomorrow is a new day though and I'm going to continue to make students my first priority!