Selective Vision

Anyone with kids knows that by at least the age of four, they develop something called Selective Hearing. This involves being able to hear a marshmallow bouncing off sponge cake seven rooms away in the middle of the night, but not being able to hear when a parent says, "It's time for bed," or "Go brush your teeth," or any number of un-wished-for parental phrases.



Selective Vision operates much the same way.



"How could you not notice that there was dog barf/a hair ball on the floor? You walked right by it. In fact, you almost walked right through it."



"What do you mean you couldn't find it? If you got any closer to it, it would bite you!"



"This room isn't clean - there are still dirty clothes all over the floor."



However, if your child is at a store and his or her goal is obtaining the latest and greatest item that's all the rage at their school, they suddenly develop x-ray vision and can spot that most-wanted item from outside the store. "Come on, mom, hurry UP! It's over there in aisle 7, and they only have it in red, and it's the LAST ONE!"



Our children are not unique - many kids share this ability to develop Selective Hearing and Selective Vision. That ability can follow them throughout life, especially if they carry that "Y" chromosome. The ability returns to both sexes equally at about age 70.



At our elementary school, we have a program called "Doing the Right Thing." If anyone catches another student "doing the right thing," the child's name is put on a slip of paper along with the name of the person nominating the child, and put into the hat for a drawing at the end of the week. Five students are chosen an rewarded with a candy bar, as well as a candy bar for the name submitter.



It's fun to catch kids especially when they don't know you're looking. Sometimes, the students you least expect to do the right thing will surprise you by holding a door open for a classmate or visiting adult, or share supplies with someone else who is in dire straits. Sometimes, the student will proudly take down the "Doing the Right Thing" slip and deposit it in the hat himself, while some people like to keep the student in the dark until the name is called over the PA system that week. The student then says, "What happened? What'd I do?"



Today, another staff member and I watched to see who would "do the right thing." The entire class had taken a quiz this morning, and as papers were turned in at the wire basket at the back of the room, one quiz fell to the floor. I was going to pick it up, but thought I should give those who were approaching the basket the opportunity.



Not to mention bending over would re-start the leak in this thing I call a nose.



Several students deposited their papers into the basket. Several students walked by the paper on the floor, which was in danger of slipping under the cabinet and being lost for good.



A few more walked up, bent over far enough to find something else they needed, but left that poor paper, abandoned to its fate, on the floor.



Another student walked right over it and though it didn't look deliberate, I wondered if a person could possibly pace themselves while walking so their stride misses every obstacle in the way.



The other staff member and I looked at each other as we wondered, now that there were only three kids left in a class of 27, who would pick up the lost paper.



There was a flurry at the basket as a couple more rushed to slap their quizzes into the basket. They joyfully bounded away, leaving a forlorn paper on the floor.



Then.



The most wonderful thing happened.



A student approached the basket, someone who didn't even look as though she had scanned the floor for any type of debris. After she leaned over to put her paper in its place, she casually bent down and picked up that poor, lost little quiz that had been relegated to the floor by an accident of fate, and placed it safely in the wire basket with its companions.

The student didn't look reproachfully at my colleague and me and say indignantly that she had picked up this paper, even though we were standing within feet of it at the time.



She didn't look around and holler out to the paper's owner, "HEY! YOUR QUIZ IS ON THE FLOOR!" and wave it around dramatically.



She just very quietly went about doing the right thing, saving a classmate a lot of grief over a potentially misplaced quiz.



She did a favor, though the recipient of the favor will never know.



She did the right thing, and didn't even look around to see if anyone saw so that she could ask for a reward.



Hey! What a kid! It's a really nice thing to see that "doing the right thing" can come naturally to kids, and also to know that not every kid practices Selective Vision.



I don't want to clean up dog barf or the cat's hair balls either, but I'm the grown up and that task is likely to fall to me. I can't blame a kid for turning a blind eye. There are times I'd like to practice Selective Hearing and Selective Vision when it comes to the gross stuff, too.



I don't know if this particular student saves her Selective Vision for home life, but if she goes home and overlooks that dirty pair of socks in the middle of the bedroom floor, or absently wanders past an overflowing waste basket, I hope her parents cut her some slack. I'll tell them that their daughter is an observant kid, and hey - what's one pair of dirty socks, right?