Children inspire me.

During break duty, I take my place on a bench. Arms folded. Sunglasses on. Looking strict and stern. The role that I have to play. Twice a week. I have to be the meanie. The one who imposes the rules. The one that punishes those who wouldn't follow them. Running children would slow down if they felt my obscured eyes following them. Trash would immediately go into the bin. Older kids would stop bullying the younger ones.
Yes. I had power. I had the power to control. I decided the fates of many. I could humor or humiliate. Praise or punish. The truth was, the children knew little of what was truly going inside my head. All they saw was a teacher. Sitting on the bench. Putting limitations on their every move. Forcing them to behave in a way that the adult world would accept. Teaching them how to follow the adult's world rules. How to understand their language. Stopping them from excess play, and excess noise, and excess chocolate.
What I saw in them were liberated souls. Running on infinite energy. Affected by the smallest of things. A tiny sticker shaped like a star would boost their esteem so that they felt like they conquered the whole world. A grasshopper would make them squeal in delight. Permission to let them help you with something made them feel like they were worthy. If you ask them to rub the board for you it would make their day. If you ask them to carry your books they would fight over who gets to carry the bigger pile. Red markings on their homework sheets determined their fates; A series of neat ticks on their sheets made them beam with delight. One tiny X, and their world would crumble.
The most amazing thing, is the fact that no matter how much you punish them, or yell at them, or enforce your rules on them, they still love you unconditionally. If they see you walking on the other side of the playground, they squeal your name, and come scrambling towards you. When they reach you they would fight over parts of you to hug. Three would wrap their arms around your waist, two others would hug an arm each, and a tiny one would grab a leg. There would be a lot of pushing and giggling. One kid might get hurt in the progress. When he starts crying, the girl who bumped him would apologize. Instantly they would go back to being buddies again, and they would start laughing again before his tears had a chance to dry up and were still resting on his cheeks.
They squeeze you making it difficult to move. They forgot that a lesson ago you let them stay in for P.E. They forgive you and hug you and carry your things for you. They write little "I love you" notes on bits of paper that they tore from their classwork notebooks.
These children, for some reason unknown, look up to me. I wish I could tell them that it is I who look up to them, but instead, I have to sit on my bench, with my stern face, making sure they follow the rules.

Teachers are mean.

Today was my first "official" school day. I had different plans for that day, but apparently, with these things, you can never be sure. My day started out bad when the bus driver forgot to pick me up and I had to show up forty-five minutes late for class. I texted my supervisor to find me a substitute because I couldn't make it.

My problem did not end here, in fact, this was the beginning of a very eventful day. I tried to brush the bus incident off and forced my face to smile. Eventually, I got sucked into work and forgot about it all.

Break duty was assigned to me on Sundays. "Beside the Glass Door" was the location. I asked my teacher friends what I was supposed to do, and they told me not to let anyone come back in, once they go out, until the bell rings. So, thinking that this would be easy. I headed for the glass door.

Standing guard, no one was allowed to pass by me. I kept a straight face. Tried to look scary.

Random children started running up to me.

"Miss, I forgot my sandwich, can I go get it?"

"Nope, Sorry"

"Please, miss" (Puppy eyes)

"No."

That was the most heartbreaking thing I had to do today, imagine a cute six year old girl in pigtails and huge brown eyes. Yes, torture.

Other kids came over:

"Miss, can I go put this in my bag?"

"Miss, I forgot my money, can I go get it?"

"Miss, can I go to the nurse, my tummy hurts"

It was becoming more and more difficult not letting the kids through, I looked at the watch, ten more minutes of torture to go.

"Miss, can you please open this for me" (Fruit juice can)

"Yes"

(Thank god, something I actually was allowed to do).

Once tiny girl actually managed to quickly maneuver her way back inside. I ran after her, grabbed her by the arm and got her back outside. As much as I feel sorry for them, I hate it when they think they can make a fool out of me.

I was beginning to consider letting some of the younger kids through. They looked like they desperately needed to use the rest room. I questioned the school rules. What's the point of break time if you can't use the rest room? One girl came to me with her legs tightly squeezed together and asked to go to the restroom. The bell that announces the end of break time rang, and I was spared the answer.

A few minutes later I had a class to go to, I grabbed my things and entered the class. It was right after the German class.

"The German Teacher"

(I'll blog about her someday, when I gather more information).

The German teacher yells, keeps a stern look on her face, is always prepared, but her class is still never in order. The last time the kids had German, there were tissues all over the floor, the trays were knocked over, and the colors were scattered everywhere.

So this was the condition my class was in. I decided to go back to the "Classroom Rules Chart" and explained it again. This time, however, I didn't do it in a fun, sweet, manner. No. I did metamorphosis, and changed into a troll. The children stared back at me in horror. But my point was through. I gave them sixty seconds to clean up the mess. The class was clean in forty. They were back at their desks, and I changed back into me again.

I began Math class, and I wanted to make learning fun for them. I explained the lesson, split them into teams, and then introduced a game. I spent so much time focused with them on playing the game, I forgot to give out classwork. There lies my first mistake.

When I left the class, I remembered I forgot to assign the homework. There lies my second mistake.

A couple hours later, I managed to mess up several other things. The bus incident started to look amusing. I started to panic. School was out and I forgot to do a lot of stuff. Sheets were missing, Copybooks, Parents started sending notes before the kids even got home. I stopped counting the mistakes.

Conclusion is this: I had a crappy day at work. But I had a fun time with the kids.

Fitting In.

Four days have passed since the start of my new job and tomorrow will be the end of the first week. So far I have conquered five out of the six other teachers that hang around in my staff room...

This has been done very simply. The idea is to be totally alert and focused. Keeping the sarcastic humor to a minimum, setting your smiling abilities to the maximum and never, ever complaining.

Lending a helpful hand in what you do best, also helps a lot. Today I helped someone type in the name tags. The day before I was helping with a cardboard display and before that I was drawing miniature stars. Doing that with a smile surely does get to them. Smiles can really be so deceptive.

So today I got an iftar invitation from one of the teachers. I was very flattered. This means my plan is working.

I don't think I'll be able to conquer the sixth teacher though. She seems to be living in a world of her own, keeping distance. So I'll just be happy with the five new friends I made... for now.

Starting next week. I'll be working on conquering the bus.

My Second Day at Work and How Lemonade Saved Me.

I didn't really want to talk about my new job but since I might be wanting to blog about things happening at work often, I decided to come clean and just tell you about it. I started work at a school. Grade two class teacher. Today was my second day at work.

Yesterday was my first day. Umm, duh.

So anyway, because the school is pretty close to where I live, and because my freelancing jobs have pretty much disappeared for a few months now, and because they'll be providing transportation, I decided to go back to the dreaded. And work as a teacher. At a school. Again.

Not that I hate teaching. Nope. I love teaching. It's teaching at a school that I hate. Because I've hated school ever since Kindergarden when I was left alone on the first day. Wearing my sorry pink uniform and crying like I'd lost my mom for good. I've hated school because of the girl with red lips who constantly rolled her eyes at me. I've hated school because of having to get up early and wearing itchy scratchy stockings. I hated it when I needed to raise my hand and ask for permission to go pee, in front of the whole class. I hated maths lessons and the fact that art lessons seemed to last only three minutes. I hated the kids that bullied me and the evil teacher that made me stand up in my chair and wear a hat that spelled "Dunce" when I lost my Science Homework. I hated the "A" students, the goodie goodies, that always managed to get me in trouble with the teachers. I hated the rules.

Yep school wasn't a good time for me.

So naturally I would feel intimidated starting work at a school and having a trip down memory lane. I decided that I would try a different approach this time, and actually try and be a goodie-two-shoes myself. Just to find out what the fuss is about. Like following the rules, getting great appraisals ... and the like.

So because I spent my first day just observing others and trying to learn what to do. I decided that the second day I should go ahead and try and get something done. Naturally, I decided to just do what I do best to try and make an impression. That would be art. So being a classroom teacher for primary two yellow, I was supposed to create a yellow theme to decorate the class. Most importantly, the classroom door. So thinking "yellow", I immediately thought "lemons" and thinking lemons I immediately thought "Lemonade."

And that my friends, is how I came up with the idea of the giant lemonade pitcher with the sliced floating lemons inside that carried the student's names.

Using white, red, green and a lot of yellow Canson paper sheets.. After a lot of snipping and tracing, my masterpiece was complete. Gained so much popularity in so little time, teachers from other staff rooms came to have a look and my giant paper lemonade pitcher with the floating lemons. I had succeeded in bedazzling them all, for now.

I figured that if I keep up my artsy spirit, they would be too blinded to see the truth about me.