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Legitimizing the Behavior

© Thomas Robertson

You probably remember when there was media publicity on a problem of mercury contamination in tuna fish. About this time, however, we heard an amusing news story: there was an incident in which a worker in a mercury plant was taking a lunch break and accidentally dropped his lunch in the vat. The contents of the entire vat had to be thrown out. Why? Because the mercury was contaminated with tuna fish!

The moral of this story was, there is a place for everything! And this is a maxim which is all too often forgotten by teachers. When we see undesirable behavior, we often assume that the behavior is undesirable under any circumstances, whereas we could be missing a teachable moment.

When I was in the fifth grade, we had an epidemic of paper fortune tellers. Even at the time, I wondered why our art teacher didn't take the golden opportunity to give us a lesson in origami.

Do you hear the children chanting "Sherry has a boyfriend!" or "Johnny is a sissy!" on the playground? Then you can make a music lesson out of the three notes.

Or do you hear the children chanting "Sherry and Johnny, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" on the playground? Then you could make a language arts lesson on trochaic tetrameter.

Or is there a problem with the students using paper wads for basketballs and the trash can for the basketball hoop? Then you could give a physics lesson on projectiles and trajectories.

Can you think of any other examples? Or do you have any thoughts on this topic, pro or con? Then log into the discussion page and tell us about it!

Thanks to the National Education Service for suggesting this idea.

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