Stories I Shouldn't Tell

In Don't Tell from Sioux's Page by Sioux, she asks,

 “What story could you begin with "Don't tell..."?”

I have so many stories that I shouldn’t tell but when someone tells me “Don’t Tell!” then I’m more apt to share it with the world.

I remember getting my first speeding ticket as I took my young daughter to Vacation Bible School and afterwards telling her not to tell her father until I told him first. That night, as soon as he came into the house, she was bursting with the news about how a policeman pulled me over! 

One year I had my class do landscaping around the school building and with the grant money, we were going to plant 30 huge pear trees. When I bought them, the landscaping company told me that we had to dig holes 3 feet deep and 3 feet in diameter so each person was assigned a hole to dig. My hole went well until I realized that I was in the hole and unable to get out of it so my students had to grab my arms and drag me out. I told them not to tell anyone because it was embarrassing. They couldn’t wait to tell everyone how they rescued their teacher!

There was another time that my daughter was rough housing with my husband and that night he called me from work telling me that he was hemorrhaging because his urine had blood in it. We thought maybe my daughter accidentally kicked him in the kidneys and injured him. He wasn’t in any pain but the ER doctors saw the blood in the urine and rushed to call a urologist. Imagine our faces when they did a test and found out that there wasn’t any blood in the urine. The beets we had for dinner caused the red coloring! My husband told me not to tell anyone about this embarrassing situation and I couldn’t wait to share my newfound knowledge with the world! Who knew that beets would do that?!

I guess the moral of this story is to be careful what you tell your students not to tell. We don’t want to encourage secrets with anyone and want to show we are transparent educators. We want parents to know what we are doing in the classroom. We want our students to know why we are doing things in the classroom. We want the administration to know we are doing the best we can in the classroom.

I have to admit though, that I have told my students, “Don’t tell anyone that learning is fun!” Hopefully that is a surefire way to share that they are enjoying learning with others.

What is your “Don’t Tell” story? Please share.