You may or may not be aware that I student taught in three grades. Couldn’t get the hang of teaching so I had to keep trying, you ask? While a completely plausible scenario, the real truth is, I was trying to satisfy more than one educational goal during those four months of hell on earth (oops! I MEANT happy, joyful journey…).
My stupidity and overconfidence impelled me to pursue the required undergraduate elementary degree, while simultaneously beginning a master’s degree in early elementary education. I have been chugging away at the graduate degree for three summers now, and can see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Part of the requirements of that degree is an internship in an early childhood classroom for an extended amount of time. My faculty adviser (God bless her!) suggested I kill (or merely stun briefly) two birds with one stone. If I divided my student teaching semester between kindergarten and an elementary classroom, I would satisfy all requirements. Sounded good to me. Sign me up! The other eight weeks I spent in a combined third and fourth grade classroom. Such a great, busy, exhausting semester that was. I learned a lot about what I wanted in my own future classroom, and few things I did not.
I have just laid the foundation for why I do not wish to ever teach kindergarten. Here it is; I mothered four children, I do not feel the need to play mother to more. The educational truth is, kindergarten teachers are three percent educator and ninety-seven percent mother/nanny/doctor/shoe finder/nose wiper/and soiled underwear changer. It is true. Just ask your friendly, neighborhood kindergarten teacher. She’ll be the one talking to herself in the local A & P.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I enjoyed my eight weeks in kindergarten. My cooperating teacher was fabulous and thrives in her role. But it is less actual teaching experience than I had aspired to. I know just what you are thinking (oh, don’t pretend you weren’t…). You want to know… what is the difference between kindergarten and first grade, right?? HA!! I knew it! What is the difference, you ask? I answer with, what is the difference between Motel 6 and the Ritz-Carlton? What is the difference between a hot dog and a Porterhouse steak? What is the difference between a tender kiss and a punch in the nose? The difference, my uninformed friend, is night and day. That one year of maturity and school experience between kindergarten and first grade is unequivocally enormous.
I am not implying that there is not a fair amount of mothering that must be doled out to my darlings. But it is limited and infrequent, at least in comparison to those babes one room down the hall. Really, kindergarten teachers everywhere should be given their own national holiday, and possibly a commemorative postal stamp.
First graders need less mothering. That’s what I THOUGHT.
Picture it…
We are sitting in reading intervention group. Mrs. Dahl’s group is supposed to be tackling phonemic awareness. But Mrs. Dahl is a quasi-hippie, free-spirited, fun-loving soul, therefore her group is clustered in pairs and threes on the floor in the Magic Tree House, absorbing their book-of-choice and sharing with each other interesting pictures and tidbits found in the treasures in their grimy little hands. I believe, after all, that learning to read proficiently will not happen until they are internally motivated to learn to read. Reading is hard work. It is not a fun process. The brain is unconditioned to decipher the strange and mysterious markings that are our alphabet. If a child does not see a reason to rise above those obstacles, what good is my forcing them into activities that are stressful? Therefore, my first action as a reading teacher is to help them fall in love with books and the IDEA that reading the words in a book will be infinitely interesting and beneficial. Sometimes it’s a hard sell.
To that end, I make it my mission to discover what jazzes a kid and makes them sit up and take notice. Then I provide as many books on the topic as our limited school library and budget will allow. Where books are limited due to the aforementioned reasons, I call upon magazines and catalogs found in my mailbox to help fill in the gap. Printed word is printed word. I would drag the water bill from the school office, for goodness sakes, if that’s all there was.
On this particular day, the soft hum of children in the throes of discovery etched a satisfied half-smile on my middle-aged face. There were books open to pictures of dolphins and zebras and tsunamis. Grass-stained blue jeans wandered around showing exciting pictures to friends and teachers. I loved every minute of it.
Off in the corner, Class Clown was just getting wound up. I do not mind a certain degree of silliness. For goodness sakes, I am the personification of silly. A Facebook friend recently reminded me that in high school I had added leopard print leggings and metallic gold high tops to my ugly red PE uniform and then challenged a classmate to a smack down during PE. I hope I won. I can’t remember. I do silly very well.
So as Jerry Lewis was getting the crowd warmed up, a loyal fan at the worktable got the giggles. The kind of giggles that are completely infectious. You know what I mean. The others around may have not a clue as to what is funny, but the laugh is so entirely contagious that soon everyone is joining in. I live for moments like that. Laughing is just the best, is it not?
The Mad Giggler was really out of control now. And the rest of us were equally tickled. Bubbling laughter was filling the classroom space and seeping into the very walls. All of a sudden The Giggler’s hand shot straight into the air. “Mrs. Dahl!” he exclaimed. “I just wet my pants!” You know…. I would have let you whisper that into my ear…
Without missing a beat he says, “Should I change pants?” At that moment I had no doubt that I was certainly the most forward-thinking first grade teacher that had ever lived. I had asked each child to bring an extra set of clothes for just such an occasion or for wet winter recesses, or for whatever. I nearly broke my arm patting my own back.
I assured him that it would be a good idea to change and pulled focus back to reading. I fell in to another round of suppressed giggles when he stepped back into the classroom five minutes later, holding his wet Transformer briefs in his hand. He stopped directly in front of me. “Here, Mrs. Dahl.” He tried to shove the soggy Fruit of the Looms into my hand, but possessing cat-like reflexes, I blocked his move (I AM a wrestler, don’t forget). At superhero speed I located an empty plastic bag and had him make his deposit directly into the Bank of Send It Home To Mom.
OK, maybe first graders need more mothering than I had realized.
I marvel at the uninhibited psyche of young children. Marvel and am just a bit jealous. They simply accept life as it comes, warts and all. If they have a booger sticking out of their nose, someone points it out and everyone moves on. Farting is worthy of fifteen seconds of giggles and then they are distracted to something else. Little boys crying like little girls is nothing to be ashamed of.
At what point in life does minutia suddenly become life or death to us? A zit on the face of a fifteen-year-old becomes the leprosy of high school. Not wearing the right clothes or driving a new car can feel like eternal stigma. Why do we do this to ourselves and to each other? Personally, I like the norms and mores of first grade society. Life is simple here. Maybe we should all take a page from their self-generated rules and live a little less uptight about those things that really do not matter in the grand scheme of things.
Today ended with a perfect example to make my point.
I stepped into the hallway to fetch a couple of short people who had fallen into unconsciousness at the water fountain, apparently. As I was urging them to hurry, a second grader and one my students last year, walked boldly up to me. “Mrs. Dahl, do you want to smell my breath?” Before I could activate my cat-reflexes, he stepped towards me and opened his jack-o-lantern-missing-teeth mouth. “No, I really do NOT want to smell your breath!” He was stunned. It was incomprehensible to him. Why not??He was sure it smelled like the nectar of the gods and would entirely make my day.
Maybe a few societal cues would be beneficial after all….
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