Two weeks ago we turned on the air conditioner for the first time. When we turned it on it worked for a nano second but then shut down. To fix it I changed the filters, turned off the power (I thought maybe it just needed to be rebooted), and banged on the thermostat. Everything worked temporary but nothing fixed the problem. I called an AC repair man but canceled the appointment the day he came because the air started working fine.
A few days go by and I’m in my shed getting out my lawn mower. This is a blog all to itself. It takes me 3o minutes to mow my grass and 22 of the those minutes are me wrestling the mower out of this shed that is really just a small closet. Anyway…I noticed that water was leaking from a pipe. I ran to find my wife, Monica, and she helped me discover what was happening. Come to find out our AC unit was freezing over. There were huge chunks of ice surrounding the unit. I quickly called for another appointment. We were low on freon and it caused the freezing.
When we saw this Monica said a profound statement. She said we tried everything to fix this problem but we never actually looked at the source. Until this moment this was the first time we had actually looked at our AC unit. Silly us.
In life we often forget to look at the real problem. Monica talks about this often. Many times as a teacher she sees kids acting up. Often they are acting up because of something going on in their life. It doesn’t excuse their behavior but punishing them doesn’t deal with the real problem. The real problem is that their parents are getting a divorce, or are fighting, or worse. Maybe you’ve dealt with some problem people. Maybe they are a jerk, or maybe there is something else going on. There are times when we need to look past the behavior and look to the source of the problem. Maybe something else is going on that needs to be fixed. It’s not justifying the behavior but it’s changing the way you deal with a difficult person. Maybe they are being difficult because of another problem. It’s only after you fix the real problem that your issues will be resolved.
wise words my friend. stay cool.
Profound thoughts and much appreciated.
Good to remember.
I like your thoughts. I feel that this is easier to address in one’s personal life than in teacher land. I think as teachers, it’s important for us to keep in mind that maybe things are going on at home that cause the child to act out, but this makes it a much more difficult issue to actually tackle and fix. As a teacher, you can acknowledge the source of the problem, but often times its out of your realm of ability to actually FIX it. I can do all in my power to address the problems in school world, but I cannot change home…. and thats hard. 🙁
Good blog.