Mrs. Streby, My First-Grade Teacher, would have been perfectly justified in scolding me. But she did something else—and taught me a lesson I'll never forget.
I dreaded school and often disrupted classes, and just generally tortured Mrs. Streby's day. Then something remarkable happened. As part of my antics, I had secretly put a sharp thumbtack facing up on her chair. Fortunately, before she sat down, she noticed the tack and removed it. Unruffled, she gently asked the class who was responsible.
There was something about the "you-are-already-forgiven" tone of her voice that made me admit, however sheepishly, that it was I who had done that deed. Didn't I deserve to be punished?
