Manners maketh the man
I had an interesting experience at Brandon Learning Centre today. We teach presentation skills to children of all ages. One of our policies is that every child who walks through our doors should learn to return the greetings they receive from our staff. Every member of staff tries to acknowledge every child and make them feel valued and we hope that our students learn to return the compliment. Today James (not his real name!) who is seven and has been coming to us for a few months walked through the door. "Hello!" I said. No response. "Hello" I said again. James headed for the bookshelf and ignored me. Rather than ignore the incident, I knelt down next to him and started talking to him about the book he had chosen. He joined in. After a few minutes I said; "James, we still haven't said hello to each other have we? Shall we start again?" "Hello" he said. We had a talk about how it makes people feel better when other people are friendly to th