📙 Part 2: Describe a time you helped a child

This episode's vocabulary

To revolve around something/someone (phrasal verb) - to have someone or something as the main or most important interest or subject.

Plaster (noun) - a small piece of sticky cloth or plastic that you use to cover and protect a cut in the skin.

Instance (noun) - a particular situation, event, or fact, especially an example of something that happens generally.

Nature connectedness (noun) - the extent to which individuals include nature as part of their identity.

To summon (verb) - to increase your courage or strength, especially with an effort.

Self-confidence (noun) - the belief that you can do things well and that other people respect you.

Counter-intuitive (adj.) - something that is counter-intuitive does not happen in the way you would expect it to.

Regardless (adverb) - despite; not being affected by something.

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Questions and Answers

M: Give it to us. Off you go.

R: Well, I'm a teacher. So my entire employment revolves around helping children, whether it's creating accessible and supportive materials, or putting plasters on various cuts that they've managed to get during the course of the day. One particularly memorable instance of me doing my job was probably when we were doing outdoor learning in the forest at one of my most recent placement schools. The idea was that the students would head out and learn how to do things outdoors and bring together all of their learning and play, and generally have a good time and develop their sense of nature connectedness. So there's lots of advantages to this kind of thing. There's a variety of structures out there to play on, this is in the forest, and one set is like a log shed where wood is stored, and the kids usually play on the roof and jump off from there. I'm making it sound dangerous, but it's really not, it's actually quite safe. One particular student, though, was having difficulty summoning the courage to jump and didn't actually seem to know how to do it safely. So I lifted myself up next to her. And we watched how the other students did it. And I asked her to look at how these other students bent their knees when they landed to avoid getting hurt, and how they pushed themselves off the side. And I reassured her that this would happen almost automatically, and she just had to try. So I started by helping physically by holding her hand, and then we progressed to just her holding my fingers and she got there. In the end, it was important to help her in order for her to develop the self-confidence to do things by herself. And since she wouldn't be able to always ask for help with this in later life. It's, well, it helps in the sense as well. I suppose that ultimately that's the teacher's job to foster independence and community feeling. Which seems a little counter-intuitive. Now that I think about it. Regardless, I'm still glad that I did it. And well, it is my job after all. So if I hadn't done it, I wouldn't be doing my job.

M: And what about the girl? How did she feel about it?

R: I think she was pretty happy that she was able to do it by herself in the end.

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