8.22.2007

Is it bad that I laughed?*

This morning, I was presenting information to third grade students about the Chess class that I am teaching this semester.

Towards the end of my little talk, one child raised his hand with a comment:

"My dad was a national Chess champion. We have all sorts of trophies and awards."

"Great!" I replied. "Maybe he can come and be a speaker in our class one day."

"Oh, no..." he said. "My dad died when I was three."

Oh. Uh.... Okay... Well, then I guess he wouldn't be able to make it into our class to speak to us, would he?

I mean, what do you say to that with over one hundred third graders staring at you...???

*I didn't laugh at that moment... But afterwards, a couple of the other teachers and I did have a good giggle... and not at the expense of the kid... Just at the fact that the situation happened at all... I mean, what are the chances??

6 comments:

Fantastagirl said...

Geez Violet - out of the hundred kids, you had to pick on the one whose dad died... uhm... yeah - OUCH.

As my young boss says - Glad it's you not me.

Diana said...

Yeah, that would have been awkward...

Anonymous said...

Easy. You should have replied, "Checkmate."

Dave Morris said...

Hey, at least you didn't laugh in front of him!

Although once you become a psychologist, you'll need to lose ALL sense of humor... ;)

Seals said...

Pending on how recent the father's death was, it might not have been a big deal at all.

Of course, the nurse came in my fourth grade classroom to ask a question about older sister.

My 14-year-old sister was killed about a month earlier and I couldn't even speak. I just cried.

Later, talking about my father and sister's deaths was much more uncomfortable on everyone else than me.

I would have been happy to talk about the accident or anything else, but everyone was afraid to ask.

Either way, don't wory about it. Shit happens. :)

Weary Hag said...

Oh jeeze. Ya know - there's good people and there's bad people. I'm guessing if you had to even 'think' about whether or not it was wrong that you saw humor or irony in this situation, you're most definitely a good person. A baddie would chuckle and not give it a second thought.