Years ago I was interviewing for a job and witnessed a sad example of bullying a student I’ll call Jenette. She was a teenager with a developmental disability in a vocational class. Jenette was shy and timid around her teacher. The teacher seemed to thrive on controlling her students with her loud voice. She yelled at all the students including  Jenette. Jenette would calm herself  by talking out loud. She’d say repeatedly, “I’m okay, it’s okay.”

I’ve never forgotten that example of bullying all these years later. Jenette had found a way to calm herself. But the next year she had a different teacher. I became her teacher and so there was no need to calm herself down for I never once yelled at any of my students. I encouraged Jenette and the others making sure learning vocational skills would be fun.Of course I knew I had angels on my shoulder.