Stories From the Classroom: Cesar

Cesar was a twelve-year-old student in sixth grade at our school. He was bright and personable, as indicated by his strong grades and his election as a student council member in the school. Cesar’s family had few resources and shared a single computer that Cesar’s parents wisely placed in the kitchen to ensure that computer use was monitored and appropriate.

One day, while working on a school computer, Cesar received a discouraging photo of a Mexican farmer dressed in ragtag clothing and looking lost. The photo came from an unknown student account.  The negative association was clear to Cesar, but he was on his own here, not wanting his parents to see the discriminatory bullying he sometimes had to address in school. Instead, Cesar took it on his own to attack two boys he suspected of sending the photo by digging up a redneck photo on the Internet and placing their names on it. He then sent the photo to every student in his class.

The boys were adamant about their innocence. The parents of both boys were appalled.  They demanded that Cesar apologize to their sons and be expelled from school.

The dynamics of the situation were fraught with frustration and hurt on all sides. Cesar survived the trauma, but not without learning some important lessons about technology.

Cesar’s parents were never naïve about the challenges faced by their son and immediately moved to regular discussions about their expectations for him. At the time, our school had adopted Traits for Success and actively taught these traits as a foundation for our expectations for children. Cesar’s parents dove into the conversations at full throttle. Cesar’s father adjusted his work schedule so that he could be home at dinner time, and there was nightly discussion about the expectations they had for their children. Both parents tried to tie their expectations for success to the school’s expectations (persistence, organization, positive attitude, flexibility, etc.) and connect the reality of their own success as often as possible.

Though Cesar’s parents recognized they could not delete technology from their son’s life, they embraced the idea that they could take the task of being their son’s primary influencer more seriously. They understood that as Cesar grew, he would become more consumed by technology, but they determined they would always be there for him for critical counsel and advice.

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Coming next week: We Have More in Common Than We Think

From our first posting: As parents and teachers, we need to reclaim our traditional role as influencers of our children – not by shouting louder than the influencers our children discover online, but by stressing ideas that are more important than fancy shoes and snappy TikTok tunes. We need to emphasize traits that everyone agrees children will honor.  We need to convince our children that the people who are most important to them have a better understanding of what it takes to be successful in life.

John Zurn began his educational career teaching fourth graders and other aged children in K through 8th grade independent school settings.   He went on to serve as Head of School for three independent schools over a 28 year period.  John has written a book on a comprehensive school-wide character education program, “Traits for Success”.  He is currently working on a book directed towards teaching “Traits for Success” to students in grades 4 through 8.

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