This little story is by way of continuation of my previous post. It’s also very relevant to another recent post: Are We Listening to Our Children?

At school, little Johnnie loves to do one thing more than anything else. He loves writing on the blackboard. Everybody knows it: his teacher, his fellow pupils, and the whole school. Between classes, after classes, whenever he has the opportunity, he grabs a piece of chalk and starts scribbling.

Up to now, his teacher has been very indulgent. After all, Johnnie is a sweet little boy, and he’s hardly five years old. But this morning, right at the beginning of the first lesson, the teacher announced a new rule: the children are not allowed to use the blackboard. She made it very clear that from now on, the blackboard is exclusively the teacher’s domain.

The bell rings for recess. Using every once of self-control, little Johnnie runs out to play, and looks for a diversion to distract himself from the burning desire to do you know what! He joins in a ball game with his classmates.

Later, Johnnie returns with the other kids to the classroom, only to encounter the rebuking eyes of the teacher. She is standing before a board with scribblings all over it. “Johnnie, what did I say this morning,” she asks sternly.

Johnnie looks down in confusion. Words fail him. How can a five year old stand up to his teacher? His hurt tears speak for him, but they give the wrong message to the teacher, who interprets them as a sign of remorse for wrongdoing.

The teacher’s heart softens as the sight of the bitter tears. “Okay, Johnnie, ” she says kindly. “I know it’s hard for you, and this time I forgive you. But you must try harder next time not to give in to temptation.”

Once again, a hasty conclusion has bitter consequences, even though the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. Now, it’s very easy to point a finger at Johnnie’s teacher. But, whether as parents of children or as friends, colleagues or employers of adults, can we honestly say that we’re always free of the same fault?

On this subject, I’d like to make one observation here. Much has been written about the critical role of body language in interpreting a person’s moods, feelings, intentions and motivations. Apparently, studies have shown that nonverbal communication has a much greater impact and reliability than the spoken word.

Yet, is body language – or rather, the way we interpret it – really as reliable as many make it out to be? Is it always as foolproof as the pundits would have as believe?

From our little story alone, we see that it is not. As valuable as the gestures of nonverbal communication may be as aids in assessing a situation, we need to be extremely wary of passing judgment on a person on the basis of external signals alone.