Plungers and perspective. Late yesterday I was approached by a group of four 11 year olds and their Social Understanding coach. The guys are members of the Stern Center’s Social Understanding and Communication program (the second largest such program in the nation) and participate in weekly small group activities designed to help develop, among other things, greater capacity for “perspective taking.” Perspective taking is an essential social tool that not everyone acquires without explicit, contextual instruction, modeling, and coaching.
In any case, these guys came to report that one side of the double sink in their group area was plugged, standing water, food particles, and so forth. Lacking a facilities person, and with my years of experience as a school principal, I not only know how to use a plunger but I know where we keep one for emergencies like this. Thus armed, I attacked the problem to the delight of the group members whom their coach was trying to keep focused and engaged with their intended activity, not four feet from my slurping, slopping efforts. Sound effects aside, there is not much more entertaining to a group of 11 year old boys than to watch a grown man all dressed up in shirt and tie, wield a plunger only to have one massive geyser erupt from the adjacent sink directly into his face.
Of course they laughed. Their coach was hysterical. Even I was laughing as I spun away a millisecond too late and shook my face like a golden retriever. The kids were beside themselves. Even in the midst of this impromptu entertainment, the coach kept enough of their attention to turn this into a teachable moment about perspective taking. “We’re all laughing right now. Something disgusting happened to Sink Boss Ed, but we’re laughing. How do we know it’s OK to laugh? How would we know if it isn’t OK to laugh?” They all got the point that since I was laughing as quickly and as much as they, it was OK to laugh with me, but if I’d been angry or crying, they should not laugh. One never knows when real life offers plungers and perspective, but we should be ready just in case!
