“Oshi,” a teacher called to me, from across the staff room. “I want to share with you something that I did.”
So, I came over to her side.
“My son didn’t want to go to school and my first instinct, as a mom, was to tell him he didn’t have a choice,” she told me. “But then I thought, ‘what would Oshi do?’ And I said, ‘you don’t want to go? Great! Let’s chant it together, I don’t want to go to school.’ And that’s what we did. We walked to school singing about how he didn’t want to go to school.”
My heart nearly popped out of its chamber.
A teacher, who is also a parent, and who is not a clown and has not trained as a clown, called me over to tell me that she is incorporating the language of humor and Oshi-isms into her daily life. That she has me and my antics on her mind even when not in school.
Wow.
“Did it work?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “But it was so much fun. We had a great time together. We laughed a lot. It was so much fun. More fun than if I had argued with him that he doesn’t have a choice and told him he’s going.”
Wow.
She continued: “I’ve started to think, ‘what would Oshi do’ before I react in so many situations in the classroom and as a parent,” she told me.
My heart popped out.
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