On Working With Kids (Of All Ages)

Remember last semester when I came to this grand revelation that I actually - gasp - like working with kids?  Well, it turns out that kids ages 5-19 are pretty much the same.  Yeah, there are some differences here and there when it comes to hormones and attitudes, but when it comes to most things?  On a grand scale?  Not as many differences as you might think.

Here are a few of the notable ones I have discovered lately:

Young Kids:
*  What is it with girls and Frozen?  Like moths to a flame, I tell you.  I've never even seen the movie and I know almost all the words to "Let It Go."

*  The Countdown works as a disciplinary measure.  Although I'm not sure how I feel about it as a parenting technique, or even as a classroom technique, when I'm in dire straits I use it and it works.  There is some sort of behavioral magic that happens when I say 5...4...3...

*  It's a really big deal if the food on your tray touches the other food and it's not supposed to.  Like, a really big deal.

*  The other day I was on recess duty and two of the girls I work with ran up to me, panting, and handed me some sweaty, half dead dandelions they picked for me as a gift.  They turned to another tutor and gave her a discarded, dirty water bottle.  So, you know, it's not all bad.

*  When doing a class activity/game as a lesson, everyone plays along!  No matter what!

Quit asking stupid questions

Older Kids:

*  First of all, it's a sad state of affairs that I'm old enough to consider 18-year olds "kids," but alas.

*  When doing a class activity/game as a lesson, no one plays along!  No matter what!

*  May they each have to teach students at some point.  In purgatory or something.  That's all I'm sayin.

*  There is most definitely such a thing as a stupid question.

*  Today I overheard the following conversation - and I'm so not making this up - before class started:

"I hear that Matt and Kim are Facebook official.  Like, she's gonna go visit him at college and everything."

"Yeah?  I dunno.  I tweeted Jim and he tweeted me back.  And I'm like, it's my birthday.  And he's like, I dunno, a lot has changed?  But then everything's the same?  So, you know."

"Yeah.  I know."

*  There is no way to adequately clarify a paper assignment.  No matter what, students will perceive it as one of the world's unsolvable mysteries and will ask at least 580 questions - a good 578 of which are actually specified on their assignment sheet, which, if you just stumbled into my classroom and overheard the questions, you would think was written in Swahili.

*  I get called "Miss."  Just..."Miss."  Their voices fade away like they don't know what to say next.  As if my entire name is Miss...short for Missy or Melissa.  My name is a far cry from that, so I have absolutely no idea what's going on.

In other news, I can breathe and my throat is slowly (think snail doing government work), ever so slowly mending.  So, there's that.