Needed to release the results of their oral exam to my fifth graders. Since I’m living in Asia, suffice it to say that our educational system is an intense pressure cooker, with parents often behaving as singlemindedly on getting good grades as their offspring.

But Sensei is different. I know that it’s up to me to manage the stress that they face. So, I bought Pocky biscuits for them to share and wrote each of them a one-liner about what I liked about them. I then gave them the card and the biscuits - along with their result.

Not sure if they appreciated my efforts. At least one boy told me that he was going to place my card in the recycling bin. (It’s okay. I’m not offended. I’m the adult here.) In a nutshell, I like that I behaved atypically from their other teachers. That I leveraged a mundane event to help them celebrate (if they did well) or cheer themselves up (if they flunk). Magnifying the moment and turning it to magic, so to speak.