This week, the elementary school had their end-of-the-year Field Day. I hadn't been to a Field Day since I was in the sixth grade, and just as I did at my sixth grade Field Day, I got fried. Sunburned to a crisp. When I was eleven, I was dumb; this week, I was just unprepared. (There's a different, I promise.) Regardless, the results were the same: painfully red and swollen skin. At least this time my face survived with only the slightest of sun kisses; when I was eleven, the awards assembly and 6th grade Etiquette Dinner were the next day and I look like I'm horribly embarrassed and blushing in every picture. (Which I was, coincidentally, but you honestly couldn't tell under the sunburn.)
Today (the day after Field Day) I taught my last class at Westmore. I figured the students would be stir-crazy on the second-to-last day of school, but I think they were a bit tired after yesterday's fun in the sun because they were pretty cranky and uninterested in almost every game we played. They perked up significantly when I had them help me clean the classroom and get the tape off the floor, confirming to me that kids need structure and actually prefer that to chaos (thought they'll never admit it). Which leads me to...
What I Learned in School This Year1. Kids (ages 6-8) will do just about ANYTHING if you call it being a "special helper." Holding open doors, wiping down counters, dusting your classroom...anything. And they will fight over who gets to do it, too.
2. Free association is as its best (worst?) with 1st and 2nd graders (but mostly 1st graders). If you tell them that Mozart died when he was only 35, four hands will shoot up to tell you that "My mom is 35!" "My grandma is 67!" "My grandma died, but she was really old." "I know someone who is dead!"
3. Along the same lines, if one kid tells you he/she needs to use the bathroom, on average three other children will need to go within the next 5 minutes. Guaranteed.
4. Kids are sensitive - at those ages, EVERYTHING is personal. Kids are also super sweet and conversely, super mean. I was shocked at how much of the two extremes I found, sometimes in the same three minutes.
5. Yelling works. I hate to admit that I know that, but there were days when I was pushed way past my limits and let the kids have it. The first time I did that, they were shocked into silence and my next thought was, "Shoot, I just got rewarded for my bad behavior!"
6. Kids can handle some responsibility. Some of my best teaching moments were when I asked kids who had been acting out and misbehaving to come up with a solution to the problem, and they did. And then I gave them the responsibility of making sure they followed through, and they did! It's not foolproof (mainly because of item 7 below) but I was always very impressed by what they could handle.
7. Attention = everything good in life, even if you have to get it by acting out. I had kids who absolutely knew they were doing something they shouldn't, who listened when I said "no talking" and talked anyway, who consciously chose to be silly or chatty or dramatic because of the attention it got them. Drove me nuts, let me tell you.
8. If you don't spell out the exact perameters of a game/assignment/task, and I do mean the
exact perameters, kids will break all the rules you thought were unspoken and then chaos will inevitably ensue.
9. Kids will repeat anything and everything you say and/or do to their parents, and usually completely out of context. I was grateful I learned this lesson early on. I believe it may have save me some embarrassment throughout the year.
10. Kids are listening. They are observing and picking up on things you never thought they would. And when given half the chance, they will surprise you with what they know and think and feel. I think my favorite day of the whole year was when I ran out of pictures of Beethoven for one of my 1st grade classes to color and so they drew their own pictures of the composers we learned about. I couldn't believe the specific details they added to show me who it was in the pictures.
Even though there were days I could have sworn everything I said went right over the kids' heads, I have learned that they really do hear and take in what goes on around them. I didn't really aspire to change their lives or inspire them to love music or anything; I made a commitment to teach and I fulfilled that commitment. But I did come away with new skills, with a better understanding of how kids think and act, and with a small hope that I did make a difference. Maybe not a life-changing difference, but I'd like to think that to the crying girl whose classmate said her eyes were ugly, the few minutes I took to tell her that her eyes were beautiful and they she was stronger than those mean words did make a difference. Maybe just for those few minutes, but a difference nonetheless.
