Touching stories from school

Here are some touching stories which either been told to me or I have seen it first hand:-

Touching story from school #1

One day, Jennifer was in our children’s school canteen (Sekolah Kebangsaan Seri Hartamas) when she saw a young boy about 7 years old (Standard 1), queuing up to buy his food. He wanted a plate of rice with a piece of chicken and some curry gravy. All he had was just RM2.00. When the canteen operator handed him the food, he handed the RM2.00 to the canteen operator. The canteen operator shook his head and told him in a polite manner, it is RM2.50 for that plate of rice with a piece of chicken. The boy who was hungry enquired how much would the plate of rice cost without the chicken. The man replied it will be RM1.00. The boy requested the canteen operator to remove the chicken and he would just have the rice and gravy. While all of this was happening, there was a school teacher and parent observing the scene from behind. Both of them immediately told the canteen operator to leave that piece of chicken on the plate. The school teacher went even further to ask the boy not to hand the plate to the canteen operator. The other parent was seen reaching into his pocket wanting to pay for the boy’s food. However, for some reason, the canteen operator took the RM2.00 and the boy got to keep his plate of rice with chicken curry.

What I find really fascinating about this story was that the adults came together to help the boy. There was empathy all around. We have discussed about empathy in Mediation, well, the school teacher and the parent certainly emphatised with the boy. Contrast this story with the one I am going to relate below.

Touching story #2

I remembered when I was in primary school, we used to hold class party at the end of the school term. The teacher would ask the students to bring either a dish or drinks to class to be shared. I remembered there were a few students who did not bring any of the items to school. The teacher would make the students stand and formed a row in front of their friends in the classroom. Each student will then hold an empty plate in front of them as if they were beggars. Once all the food had been distributed, the remaining or extra food will be placed on the empty plates belonging to those students standing in front. The teacher felt that the students should be punished as they did not contribute any food or drinks to the class. What the teacher had neglected to do was to find out why the students did not contribute. If it was done on purpose, then I suppose I can agree about the so called “punishment” but you see, I didn’t know the full story until I heard from one of my classmates who got “punished” on that day.

This classmate of mine came from a rather poor family background. He knew that if he was to inform his mum about bringing food or drinks to class, it would be a heavy financial burden and effort on his mum. As it was, placing food every night on the dining table in the house was already a daunting task. Therefore, he decided to remain quiet and not to allow his mum to worry. This classmate had tears in his eyes when he told me this. In fact, he refused to eat any of the  food placed on his plate by the teacher. He had pride and he didn’t want to beg or being pitied.

That is why when we talked about Mediation, we always say that the Mediator must find the “underlying reason” why did the people act the way they did. There must be a reason for it. As the Mediator, it is our job to find out that “underlying reason” and not make assumptions. If we look at the above story, the matter could be better handled if the teacher made the effort to find out the cause of not bringing food or drinks to be shared in class. Many disputes could be avoided if we only make the effort of finding out the "real cause" of the dispute rather than what we see in the surface.