About your kids: The eyes have it

Just erase it,” said the girl leading the blackboard game. “Mrs. Spencer's face says that's the wrong answer.”

I was stunned by her quick analysis.

Feigning detachment at one end of the class, I had been watching while teams raced to write vocabulary definitions on the board. Spelling counted. She looked at me, at the board, at me again, and made the announcement.

She was right.

Her appraisal was as unguarded as my expression had been. I wondered how many other times they had read my face when I didn't want them to?

Sometimes, however, I did want them to. It beats yelling.

One day the class caught me visually steering a habitual wanderer back to his desk. When they quietly joined me in the stare, he felt it.

“Am I in trouble,” he asked slinking down into his seat, “or just attractive?”

Kids do it, too - talk without words. I've seen eyes roll back so far in a student's head that I could hear them dropping like billiard balls into the pockets of the multiplication table.

Facial expression and body language augment our words, coloring them with various shades of meaning.

Behavioral analysts teach airport security personnel how to detect potential hijackers through their lack of eye contact. Body language can blow a person's cover, they say, because the fear of discovery changes people's behavior and facial expressions.

No kidding.

On test day the cheaters are the ones watching me like an inside trader watches the stock market. Or they have a sudden need to stretch - that's a sure sign - or they just visually surf the room.

“If you are watching me during this test, you are up to something,” I tell them. Most of the time, they get my message via a single raised eyebrow.

Sometimes our facial expressions, hands and body posture speak so loudly they drown out our words.

Do we look the other person in the eye when we say I love you or go away or good job? Do we work at something else while we are supposed to be listening?

“Go ahead, I'm listening,” I told a student who stood at my desk one morning while I entered grades. Glancing up and then back to my calculations I noticed the little eyes.

“No, you're not,” the eyes said. “I'm not important enough.”

I put down my pen, considered her question in more than a passing manner, and made her feel worth my trouble with my undivided attention.

No one wants to feel divided.

Let's face it - the student game leader was right. Sometimes our expression gives us away and we can't hide what's inside.

But that can be a good thing. I have learned that an eye-to-eye smile after the last bell can get a kid all the way home at the end of the day. And sometimes there's enough goodwill left over to bring him back again tomorrow.

Davalynn Spencer is a Tulare County public school teacher. Contact her at aboutyourkids@Hotmail.com

This story was published in The Porterville Recorder on January 10, 2006