I am not a teacher in the traditional sense, so I hope this is OK, but I am an educator in the sense that I have devoted much of my time and money toward mentoring. My question is one I struggle with all the time. I am a 20 YO Male and have VERY close relationships with some 8th grade students through my church. I try to mentor through some great discussions, but more importantly through example. However, I think that I have to be who I am, not pretend to be someone different around them. This leads me to be the best I can be to be a role model for them, but I don't want to shield them from the rest of the world. We have had great discussions about how there are things that happen in the world as a whole that need careful thought before participating. For example, swearing is something that they do all the time in 8th grade, and so the discussion is about what it achieves. I don't believe in just shielding them and saying never swear since that isn't realistic their entire life. Today I sent a joke to one of the 8th graders I know best, and the joke had a swear in it. It wasn't my swear. But from an image, and he has sent me so many memes with swears and inappropriate things before, but this was a new step for me. Just recently we had discussed how swearing is common and you cant just shelter from it, but also how swearing shouldn't be flippant. It should be intentional.
Anyway, I have been beating myself up over it since part of me things that I should not be spreading that to the kid at all, and the other part of me is saying that since I have worked to educate him on the proper actions with it and he hears it all the time it is OK.
What do you think? Shelter or educate and recognize? And what is my role?
TL;DR: is it better to shelter kids from the "bad" in the world or properly discuss? Is it ok to occasionally show the bad?
Submitted December 01, 2018 at 09:55PM by stachlig_igel https://ift.tt/2FRJ8K3
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