The other day, Joe and I were talking about career paths and whatnot and I asked if he'd ever considered becoming a teacher. Don't you think he'd be a great Kindergarten or first grade teacher? Wouldn't you have loved it if your Kindergarten teacher was a super-tall, bearded BFG with the most boisterous laugh in all the land? I think I'm trying to bully him into becoming a teacher because although I enjoy the career I've stumbled into, when I was younger, I always wondered if I'd end up a teacher. I definitively decided against it once I started volunteering and realized how difficult it is to corral only four six-year-olds, let alone a class of like 25 of them. And for the whole day! Not just a couple of hours. That's a lot of time to not say any curse words.
Also, I'm afraid to go back to school as a teacher because I loved school so much as a student. Because, you guys. I LOVED SCHOOL. I was totally that kid you hated, the one who got 100% on every test (or, like, cried if she got a 97% WTF) and always volunteered to write things on the chalkboard and got to grade all of your papers with the ANSWER KEY (!) and who was basically a know-it-all-smarty-pants. I don't know what happened to that kid. I mean, I'm still a know-it-all-smarty-pants but I have even less to back it up now since I think my brain reached Learning Saturation a long time ago. But I digress. AS PER ALWAYS.
My favorite part about going back to school was finding out who my new teacher was going to be and who else was in my class. They'd always put the lists out a week or so before school started and I'd bug the shit out of my mom until she took me to look at it. I'm not sure why, exactly, I was so excited because it's not like I ever knew anything about many of the teachers. I think I was just always hoping for someone with a last name that started with an A to be in my class so I wouldn't always have to go first on presentations.
My second favorite part about going back to school was SCHOOL SUPPLIES. Glorious school supplies. Pens and rulers and new folders and notebooks and YOU GUYS MAYBE EVEN A TRAPPER KEEPER. I don't wanna wait for my trapper keeper to be over! Ooh! And best yet! NEW CRAYONS. I remember this one year, they'd just come out with (I think) the 64 count crayon box with A CRAYON SHARPENER ATTACHED TO THE BOX. So you could sharpen your crayons and they'd be like new all the time! WHAT KIND OF AWESOME SORCERY IS THAT?! I somehow convinced my mom to get it for me, probably because I told her I needed it to live or something. Also, probably because my dad wasn't there.
Did your dad ever used to give you the Want vs. Need speech? Like, whenever my sister or I said we needed something, he'd be all, "do you want it or do you need it?" and I'd be like, "yes, dad, I need this penicillin to live," JK it was more like, "yes, dad, I need this Saved by the Bell game TO LIVE." My point is, do they still make Trapper Keepers? Because I need one. No, I don't want one, DAD. I need one.
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I also loved school and was "that kid" and when I was a teaching assistant I found that that was exactly the reason teaching didn't work for me: I wanted everyone to like school as much as I did and I didn't have the foggiest idea what to do with people who didn't enjoy learning for the sake of learning, or who felt they had better things to do with their time. When I was in kindergarten I asked my mom to "come to school and tell Mrs Fischer how to make those children behave" and I feel like I would want to call my mom to tell me how to make those children behave.
Oh, that would be awful. I bet it's kind of the same feeling we get when someone says they don't read. Like...at all. What do they do all the time?
JOE NEEDS TO BECOME A TEACHER IMMEDIATELY.
also, grading papers RULED. oh the power of the answer key!
There was a supply room at my elementary school. Floor to 14 foot ceiling shelves of all the supplies a kid could dream of. I LOVED the smell of it (mostly because of the huge boxes of erasers and the old purple mimeograph ink, which I think were probably toxic and intoxicating). We were never permitted in there, but one time, the door was ajar and I found myself like Alice, looking around in amazement, tempted to STEAL something. Geeze, talk about a mind trip. I was a good kid - STEALING was awful. But there I was, tempted, figuring out how to take something BIG, like an entire package of bluebooks. We wore dresses back then and I thought about sticking them under my dress. As if no one would ever see. Then, it happened, the school witch stuck her head in, and in an accusatory tone blasted, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?" I lowered my head and moved past her fully expecting a big T for "Thief" to be blazed on my forehead. She was a bitch.
Truth be told, I would have stolen those bluebooks if I could.
Oddly enough, I hated school most of the time, because I already knew everything (I was a little know-it-all) so I would just zone out and daydream and then get in trouble for it, but BOOM! I still knew all the answers, so take that, fascist first grade teacher! *ahem* I lived for all the books I could read, and when I moved to the US, I would get stacks of books from the library every week. The smell of books? Total turn-on.
I still LOVE getting new boxes of Crayons!
I am a kindergarten teacher, so at that age, most of them are excited to learn.
I STILL get excited about new supplies for my classroom. We got donations from all our students and the amount of crayons, markers etc., were SO exciting. Last year when I ordered supplies and they arrived at my school... it was like Christmas.
I also get that VERY excited feeling when I submit book orders and I get the books!
Crayons smell so good.
Ashley smells so good.
What I meant to say was: I give the wants and needs speech at least once a week. Plus THERE ARE CHILDREN WITHOUT MOSQUITO NETS GETTING BIT BY MOSQUITOES AND GETTING MALARIA AND DYING [double-all-CAPS]AT THIS VERY MOMENT[end-double-all-CAPS]. DO YOU THINK THEY'RE COMPLAINING ABOUT ONLY HAVING 2 HOURS OF POKEMON TIME ON THE DS? DO YOU?
ahem
Heeheehee.
That was SO CREEPY, Peefer.
Joe needs to become a teacher immediately.
And also what srah said. Teaching kids who don't care, try to fight you for grades, and write semi-mean things about you on the internet is lame lame lame. BUT little kids aren't THAT great at using the internet yet, and who really cares if you get a bad grade when you're six, so maybe the wee ones are better.
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