Back to School: Life Lessons Learned

On August 29, school bells will ring across Baltimore County signaling a new school year, ripe with potential. There will be new skills acquired—some will learn to read, others will discover how to calculate how many electrons, protons and neutrons are in gold.

But there is something that students will learn in school, that is far less tangible than reading, writing and arithmetic. They'll learn something that can only come from experience—what it takes to be a good friend.

This is a story about that very thing.

My first grader bounded off the school bus. There was a look of seriousness on her face.

“There’s a new girl in my class. She’s so rude!”

“What?”

“There’s a new girl who’s rude in my class. I don’t think she speaks English. I think she’s from China. She has someone helping her learn how to talk our language.”

“You mean speak our language. What does she do that’s rude?”

“She doesn’t listen to the teacher.”

This conversation happened more than midway through the school year. And for the next several weeks there was no shortage of stories about this new girl. The new girl didn’t listen, the new girl got in trouble.

The new girl didn't do what the rest of the kids did.

Naturally, I wondered what was going on. Who was this new rude girl who didn't speak the language?

Then one day I volunteered in my daughter's class and I saw the new girl. The new girl had Down Syndrome.

This was the first time that my daughter experienced someone who learned differently than her. I’d told her about my previous work with children with Autism, prior to my career in Mommydom. I explained it as some people’s brains working differently than others. But still, she never met those kids. She heard stories, but they were just that, stories.

So that evening at dinner, I talked to my daughter about the new girl. I explained that she learned differently than the rest of the kids in the class, but she was no troublemaker. She asked if the new girl’s brain worked differently then hers, and I said, “Yes, I suppose it does. It might take her a little longer to learn things. You should patient with her and most of all, kind.”

“I should be a good friend?”

“Yes. You should be a good friend.”

After this talk, there were still stories about the new girl. This time however, they seemed different. The stories were of the new girl trying her best. And then there were ones about unkindness. Kids ran away from the new girl. No one wanted to sit with her.

My daughter was experiencing empathy.

Now I am a touchy-feely type, it’s true. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that these stories hurt my heart. I knew what it was like to be different. Not in the same way as having Down Syndrome, but still different from everyone else.

You see, I was once a new girl. And I embodied every single bit of awkwardness that title implies—shy, unsure and unable to wiggle my way into my new town's culture.

Each of us was the new kid at one time or another—if only figuratively speaking. Yet, so many forget what that feels like. It hurts when people don’t like us because we’re different, less well-off, or don’t speak the same language.

Now I would be remiss if I told you I've never been mean or unkind. I once bullied. It still makes me feel bad all these years later. In seventh grade, a group of us followed another group of girls around the mall to harass them. We engaged in pack mentality. It's one of those things you can never take back.

That incident taught me that we're all equally capable of compassion and cruelty. Compassion is a choice.

I was talking to a friend of mine who teaches in an elementary school. The story of the new girl came up. My friend made a great point. She said, “You know, I think we forget that kids need to be taught certain things. We take it for granted because we’re adults.”

Her words stayed with me.

A few months after our first conversation about the new girl, our family attended an event at my daughter’s school. When my daughter and the new girl saw each other, they ran up to one another and hugged.

That school year my daughter learned how to be a good friend. It was a lesson that didn't come from a book, but from experience.