I’ve written a lot about Marvin Marshall, my favorite advocate of positive classroom management strategies. As I’ve written before, I’d strongly recommend you subscribe to his blog.

I’d encourage you to read his latest post, which includes this great story. Check out his post for his helpful commentary on it:

A woman having lunch at a small café was seated next to a family celebrating their son’s basketball game. Their conversation was so lively that the woman joined in. “You must have been on the winning team,” she said.

The kid grinned from ear to ear, “No, we lost by 20 points. The other team had a killer defense. We were only able to make one basket.”

“Did you make the basket?” she asked.

With his mouth filled with cake and ice cream, the boy shook his head, “No.”

His father reached across the table to give him a high five. His mother hugged him and said, “You were awesome.”

The woman at the next table rubbed her chin.

The boy looked at the confused woman and said, “At last week’s game, I took nine shots but they all fell short of the basket. This week I took eight shots and three of them hit the rim! Dad says I’m making progress.”