Eighty Memories for Eighty Years: #26 On Raising Children - Rebecca

Rebecca's selfie which included me and Bonnie

I would like to say that I am having way more fun in this
picture than it looks like I am having.
Yes.  This is my having-a-lot-of-fun face!

At first, I wanted to say about Rebecca that I have learned from her how mothering skills can be played out in a spectacular way.

I was telling Lurene Bates that Rebecca can take her sons to Shakespeare plays and the men think it is a normal thing for a family to do.

They understand the Elizabethan language, they quickly figure out who the protagonist is, and they can talk out the different themes of the play.

Just a normal family night out for them.

I credit Rebecca's gift for spectacular parenting skills.

But then I decided that is not the thing I wanted to say about her.

Instead I want to say that I have learned from Rebecca how kindness is the best plan.

I will see if I can give an example of how she does this, knowing that not everyone will agree that I am describing kindness.

Early in her teaching career she was lecturing – well, guiding students through their first year law classes entitled criminology.

The cases were horrifying.

The law didn’t seem just.

The students sometimes have lived experience that was similar to what they are learning about.

Rebecca was looking for a way to teach where the students could still engage with the material, but also keep some distance.

I am calling her search to separate her students’ lived experience from the facts they must learn, that act I am calling Rebecca's model of kindness.

She began to incorporate film into her lecturers, believing that by pointing to film she could both teach the curriculum and open up a way for her students to maintain their own energy to learn, rather than be sucked into the sorrow of what can sometimes be found in law.

A professor with kind pedagogy.

Arta