Stolen Wallet

At the end of the last lesson, my colleague didn’t let my class leave because one student had lost his wallet with his credit card, tickets, student and ID cards. My colleague called me for help. Students noticed that D who lives in Cuckoo didn’t attend the last class. I called D on phone, his father and his mother as well, and finally, after many times the father picked up, and he said that D was taken by his mother today to the dentist, so he left school earlier. The dad called his son to call me. By that time D had already reached the nearby bus station and he refused to come back to school. Meanwhile, the student whose credit card has disappeared received SMS that the card was used to shop at the Christmas Market. D was unaware that his mother supposed to take him to the dentist by car. When I managed to reach the Mom, she was neither aware of this. I called them for at least an hour, and it was obvious that the story was fishy. D was already on the bus, telling me the name of the „dentist” he is going to, but after I checked it turned out that this person was a GP, not a dentist and was not receiving patients that day. During one of my phone calls, D’s mother rebuked and threatened me: How dare I confront them. D’s dad said on the phone that I must understand, that D is his son, and will protect him with all his might. In the meantime, the class went home.

My feelings: I felt helpless, unable to deal with the injustices towards me. The threat didn’t bother me, but I didn’t understand why the truth wasn’t important. I didn’t understand how parents could help their son lying. For a moment I realized that the Mother’s threat could be legitimate, so I felt we had to find the truth for all four of us.

• Tool 32 Force field analysis
• Tool 33 Stakeholder analysis
• Tool 34 Empathy map
• Tool 5 Reflection on my values
• Tool 13 Interview pupils

BehaviourBeginning teacherExperienced teacherUnder 16