See Also:
Beginning of a FAMOUS Hero: The Ruth Buzzi Story.
Life Lesson #13 – Education is Important.
Mr. Delaney was teaching his class one day as a boy in the third row was doing everything but paying attention. And while he was wasting his own time, he was tapping a pencil on his desk so loudly that no one around him could concentrate on what Mr. Delaney was saying. Finally, Mr. Delaney stopped and addressed the boy with the bouncing pencil.
He said, “It makes me sad that you would have such little regard for your own future that you would waste an opportunity to learn something as important as history. But it makes me angry that you would deprive others that opportunity.”
“You can hurt someone by causing physical harm such as hitting them. You can hurt someone by causing emotional harm by calling them names or saying unkind words. You can hurt someone by causing collateral harm when you damage or destroy their property. And,” he said, “You can hurt someone by causing intellectual harm by depriving them of opportunities to learn.” That was Mr. Delaney’s personal favorite, and he never missed a chance to say it!
Mr. Delaney knew how to get his message across. Not only did the boy stop bouncing his pencil, he started paying attention, but he even went a step further. When he would see some of his friends disrupt the class in different ways, he would talk to them at lunch or at recess and tell them the same kinds of things that Mr. Delaney had told him. He was becoming a HERO by HELPING others to have what Mr. Delaney called a “Learning-Friendly” environment!
– Jim Lord