A teacher's message has gone viral after he let his student sleep in class — for the kindest reason.
Teachers spend time preparing lesson plans and trying to engage students in learning. The least a kid can do is stay awake in class, right?
But high school English teacher Monte Syrie sees things differently. In a Twitter thread, he explained why he didn't take it personally when his student Meg fell asleep — and why he didn't wake her up.
Screenshots via MonteSyrie/Twitter.
Meg's nap meant she missed an in-class essay, but she turned it in that night. "I didn't beat her up about it. Didn't have to," he wrote. "In a different room, Meg may have been written up for sleeping in class and given a zero for missing and essay, but she wasn't in a different room; she was in my room."
Syrie pointed out that sometimes we have to "trust our instincts, even if it goes against the grain."
Meg is a good student with a lot on her plate. She takes a zero-hour class before the normal school day and does farm chores before that. She runs track. And she's a teenager, with all of the social, academic, and life pressures that go along with it.
Syrie teaches sophomore English in Cheney, Washington. Photo via Monte Syrie.
And she's not alone. During the school year, teens report higher levels of stress than adults, and many students report feeling exhausted trying to keep up with it all.
"I think too often the biggest thing that people forget about high school students is that they are kids," Syrie says. "They're kids — kids who are having to grow up way too fast and are having way too much pressure put on them, in and out of school ... even for our best and brightest, that pressure gets to be too much."
Syrie's compassionate story resonated with people because we've all been in a position of needing a little grace.
Syrie's tweets continued, exemplifying how teachers can show kindness and understanding to students. He pointed out, "I can't offer Meg a math class later in the day. I cannot feed her horses ... I cannot run 6 race-pace 300s for her. I cannot spirit away her teen trouble. But I can give her a break."
Syrie says he tries to be that responsive to all of his students. "Because I firmly believe that one size fits all is madness, I adjust to each student, trusting my instincts, trusting what I know," he says. "Regardless of our responsibilities, life is hard, and we all need some grace now and then."
Syrie says he's had a few negative comments, but overwhelmingly the response has been positive from both students and teachers.
Screenshot via Alexa Shaw/Twitter.
Screenshot via Maria Riverso/Twitter.
Screenshot via Mrs. Chow/Twitter.
Syrie has words for those who say that allowing a student to sleep in class doesn't prepare them for the "real world."
Some may question whether letting a student sleep in class without consequence is a good idea. Syrie has a response:
"We are not working in factories, stamping out standardized products," he says. "We are helping young humans — unique individuals — learn about themselves and their worlds. As such, when our young humans face the inevitable pressures of growing up, we need to respond with empathy."
"And if that does not prepare them for the 'real world' as some may suggest, then maybe the world needs to change. I want to live in a world where there's empathy. That's the world I want to live in."
You can read more about the way Syrie is rethinking education on his website.
This article originally appeared on 06.01.18
A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
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An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
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Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.