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学会赞美他人

　　One Friday, I asked the students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name. Then I told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down. It took the remainder of the class period to finish the assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed me the paper.

　　That Saturday, I wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and I listed what everyone else had said about that individual. On Monday I gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. "Really?" I heard the whispers. "I never knew that meant anything to anyone!" "I didn’t know others liked me so much!" Then Mark said, "Thank you for teaching me, Sister."

　　No one ever mentioned those pieces of paper in class again. I never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents.

　　Soon I was asked to teach junior-high math. The years flew by, and before I knew it Mark was in my classroom again. He was more handsome and more polite than ever. Maybe since he had to listen carefully to my instruction in the "new math", he did not talk as much in the ninth grade as he had in the third.

　　That group of students moved on.

　　Several years later, after I returned from vacation, my parents met me at the airport. Mother gave Dad a side-ways glance and simply said, "Dad?" My father cleared his throat as he usually did before saying something important. "The Eklunds called last night," he began. "Really?" I said. "I haven’t heard from them in years. I wonder how Mark is." Dad responded quietly. "Mark was killed in Vietnam," he said. "The funeral is tomorrow, and his parents would like it if you could attend."