But the hot water tap is ALWAYS on the RIGHT !!

Working in the bathroom yesterday a true story came to me.

A woman 'phoned a plumber and asked him to come to her house because the hot water tap and piping had to be repositioned .It was on the left where the cold water tap should be and incorrectly marked. The plumber asked her why, to which she responded that she had newly acquired the house. The tap on the left was running hot water but was marked correctly  'cold'. The tap on the right was running cold water and was correctly marked "hot".

The plumber told the woman " You don't need me madam. You don't have to go to the huge expense and the inconvenience of changing the plumbing. Just carefully clip out the little red and blue discs on the top of the taps and exchange them."

The woman flatly refused.

" Why not?" asked the plumber.

"Because", she said, " Hot water taps are always on the right hand side , The plumbing must be the way it always is."

The story was a reminder of a hundred similar incidents experienced in children's programs.......lots of time , money and effort put into keeping things that way because that is the way it always is, when a tiny change will more effective.

There was a program which prided itself on its' in-house tuck shop. It was run as a business by the program, within the program as the delegated responsibility of a senior child care worker. Apart from the valuable child care time spent on this, there was effort, energy and often heart-ache and anger when the young people broke into it and stole the sweets.But it went on. Right across the road from the programme facility was a friendly little store which stocked the same range of sweets, a little more expensive, but then that's what children would normally have to pay. It is "normal" for children to shop in a community located shop, but long standing program interested objectives made the tuck shop "right". It was always like that.

It was really hard for everyone, even the children, to 'switch the tabs'.

There have been many such "always on the right" situations that had to be faced ...

small shifts.......... Big advantages .......huge problem.

Can you think of examples in your programs?