Lesson in a Nutshell

Respect is correct!  As part of a unit on being champion students, our kindergarten lesson this week has been on showing respect for learning and for the feelings of others.  After finishing a discussion about the reasons for being respectful and singing and dancing to a peppy song, the children voted on the storybook they wanted me to hear.  As usual, I went down the class list and gave out puppets to hold during the story.  Since this was our last guidance class of the school year, it was the final chance for students to have a turn, and only 6 puppets were available.  After all of them had been handed out, a little girl with long golden hair said disappointedly, "Miss Mimi, it's been a really long time since I had a turn to hold a puppet."  "Yes," I replied, "your name was called last week, but you were absent."  Nodding her head, the child accepted the fact that she had missed her turn the previous week.  In a split second and with no prompting whatsoever, a little blond "Dennis the Menace" jumped up and headed across the carpet with his alligator puppet in hand, saying, "Here, she can have mine."  Instant tears flooded my eyes and I exclaimed, "Oh, that's the sweetest thing I've ever seen.  Now THAT is showing respect for feelings. I've got tears in my eyes!"  An auburn-haired girl touched her eyes and said, "I've got tears, too!"  Still another sitting behind the hero boy blurted, "Me too!"  And then a fair-haired child in the back row said to the boy who'd given up his puppet, "Here, you can have mine."  Another girl in the back corner said, "You can have mine, too!"  I squealed with genuine delight and said, "Well, I don't need to say another word about respect because YOU have got it got it got it!"  We all enjoyed some laughter and camaraderie before settling down for the story, but I can guarantee that the sun was shining BRIGHTLY in Ms. Ratner's class yesterday!