The Fat, A Brat, and an Angel

No butterflies today! That is because I did not have to teach a class, but just help out. I started out the day helping with pre-school at the Plains elementary. I pretty much felt like a babysitter playing with the students. Basically having a one on one lesson with the student was really neat. It was fun to watch my pre-school student slowly warm up to me and begin to trust me. These four year old kids were cracking us up. Some of the things they said or did, it was so hard not to giggle or laugh. I liked seeing their little brains working and them trying so hard. I was impressed by my student’s ability to skip, gallop and smoothly move in general. He had this long, blonde, curly hair that would bounce when he moved, it was so cute. We worked together well, until I tied his shoes for him. He got pretty mad when he realized that I had double knotted them. After the next activity I un-double knotted them, and he was happy again. He was well behaved until the very end of the class. He was mad that he did not get to walk behind Jackson down the hallway to the Library. Also, when he was getting a drink it was hard for me to get him to stop and let the rest of the line have a turn. Finally, I squatted down and said, “Spiderman has enough water, he does not need to drink anymore” and Andrew stopped drinking and lined up on the wall.
The afternoon was spent with second graders at the Plains. Even though the first class was not the best listeners, they were not too bad to handle. The last class of the day almost made me want to cry. These kids were crazy. They wanted nothing to do with us and had zero respect for what we said. There were two boys who would not stop talking while Mike was trying to teach. After countless times of glaring at them and getting them to listen, I found myself standing directly between them, so when they turned to chat, they just got a nice view of my shins. I felt like a jerk, but this tactic worked and I liked it. Not too long after, Mike instructed the students to find a partner. After the students matched themselves up, there were two girls left over. The one girl was over weight and did not have much confidence in her abilities, the other I had already noticed that she thought she was the queen of the world. I was standing by the overweight student and walked with her over to find her partner. As we were walking across the gym she told me this was not a good idea. As we approached her partner the snotty girl said, “I can not work with that” with the meanest look in her eye. I was blown away. This girl is in second grade! I was about to tell the brat that the overweight girl could throw and catch just as well as she could. Mid sentence another girl cut me off and said that those two girls don’t get along. The way she said it lead me to believe that in the classroom, they try to keep them separated. I turned to the girl that gave me this information and asked her if she would be partners with the heavy weight girl, and she did with out flinching. It all worked out in a matter of 20 seconds, but I could not believe what had just happened. When I looked at the heavyweight girl after the brat called her “that”, I saw the look on her face and knew she had just been crushed on the inside. I thank God for the nice little girl who did not hesitate to be the heavy girl’s partner. I am in this profession to help students like the heavy girl, I am glad I found her a partner that would keep her moving and involved in the activity, because if she would have gone and sat out, my job becomes pointless.
It is only week three of methods, and I have grown as a teacher and a person more than I could have imagined in such a short amount of time.