Yesterday, as we do every Wednesday, we attended my daughter's school for assembly. After assembly we were walking back to her classroom with Nicola in her wheelchair. She was excited after all the singing and clapping so she was waving to all the kids and saying hi to everyone.
Two little boys from the year one class pointed at Nicola and loudly proclaimed that she was ugly and looked like an alien.
Naturally, Jessica got upset and retorted with "She's not an alien, she's a baby!"
So these two little boys called Nicola an ugly baby alien and started carrying on, trying to push each other into her chair saying "Don't touch the ugly baby alien! You'll turn into an ugly alien too!"
Jessica got upset so we stopped and had a talk about how they were just naughty boys and that they were being mean and it wasn't very nice of them.
One of the teacher's aides in her class room overheard my conversation with Jess and asked me what happened, so I told her.
She immediately shook her head and got a bit cranky and said that she would take care of it, and she walked into the class room after them.
She came back to me while we were waiting for Jess to finish afternoon prayer and told me that she had had a chat to the teacher and the two boys in question and that she had made it clear that their actions were not acceptable and that both their parents were going to be informed... and that it would be raised as a class issue (and further a school issue) the next day (which was today).
I didn't think twice, and didn't expect to hear anything more about it... until I got to pick Jess up this afternoon.
Apparently she was taken across to the boys class room today, and they stood up in front of the class and apologised to her for being mean and presented her with a card to give to Nicola.
Apparently it has gone beyond the class room and into the rest of the school with talks on acceptance being delivered everywhere.
I am surprised... surprised that the actions of two small children carrying on has been dealt with so swiftly when I fully expected it to be brushed under the rug as 'boys will be boys'. I am surprised that it was dealt with in such a broad fashion, rather than being confined to the children involved...
But most of all, I'm hopeful that perhaps those two little boys might think twice before being mean next time. Even if they are just little kids, it's never too early to learn about acceptance and how being mean can hurt people's feelings!
