Today was a good day. I didn’t cry at all and not many days go by when I manage to avoid crying entirely. Usually the crying is more about stress relief than grief but it is still kind of hard to deal with. It’s awkward.

Today was a heavy kid-activity day. They have dance class and gymnastics class in one day. It makes scheduling the rest of the week easier if I have only one day of taking them to classes. Their classes this term are through city-rec so they are mostly taster size samples of these activities. The dance class is “creative dance” and is marketed at 3-5 year olds.

Last week two of the crawling-aged younger siblings were on the floor and making a little noise. The teacher had trouble controlling the students as a result. She decided that the best way to handle this was to yell at all of the parents that it isn’t ok for younger siblings to distract students and if it happens again she will have to just ask people to leave the room. She said it all with a smile and a kind of fake “I’m your camp counselor!” kind of bounce. I didn’t even have a disruptive baby and I felt guilty.

So today I talked to the two moms of babies. I talked to one before class and the other after class. The one I talked to before class is a former teacher. She used to do elementary school. She was not pleased with being publicly shamed in front of a group and had firm plans already to talk to the dance teacher about her methods being inappropriate. Her commentary was, “If she can’t keep control of six little kids then it isn’t my baby’s fault it is her fault for lacking classroom management skills.” Right on, sister.

The second mom was a few minutes late to class. I started feeling kind of anxious that she wouldn’t show up. But she did! Phew.

I waited until we were walking out and I kind of ended up near her alone. I told her that I was kind of afraid she wouldn’t come back. She said, “I considered not coming. My son isn’t that interested and I kind of have to encourage him and it was hard for me to do today.” I told her I was glad she did because I wanted to talk to her.

I asked her how she felt about being talked to by the teacher the previous week. She said she felt really bad and ashamed. She said she felt like she should just stop coming. I sighed deeply and told her that I was sorry.

I told her that no one has the right to speak to her, not this teacher and not anyone else. I told her that she has every right to complain to the teacher about her treatment and if the teacher is not polite she really should escalate it on up to the teacher’s boss. It is not ok for the dance teacher to be basically a bully.

Her eyes got wide. She said, “Really? In India we are told to be quiet and submissive and just tolerate how people treat us.”

I said, “With all love and kindness you aren’t in India. Here no one has the right to talk to you the way she did.”

Her face kind of crumbled a little in that “I’m not gonna cry. I’m not gonna cry. I’m not gonna cry” sorta way.

She told me that since she hadn’t addressed the issue the very day it happened that she had lost her window and she no longer had the right to complain. I told her that wasn’t true at all. She has every right to take as much time as she needs to process her emotions and to figure out what she wants to say and how she wants to say it. It is probably best to do it before the class ends entirely but she can say what she wants to say at any point.

I told her that this is a bad teaching method and if she doesn’t tell the teacher how much it bothers her then the teacher doesn’t know and the teacher can’t fix it in the future. She thought that was a good point.

She thanked me over and over. She said she was so glad that I stopped to talk to her because she wasn’t sure what to do because she felt bad.

You are deserving of respect and good treatment. No one gets to yell at you like that. No one.

By the time we were done with our conversation she looked deep in thought but resolved. I hope she talks to the teacher.

I hope to be a force for good in the world.