Little bro: Knot Expert ;)

So, I just need to brag about my littlest brother for a minute here. As I may have mentioned before, he is 11 years old.

Yesterday, I took him rock climbing. It was actually a lot of fun. He did a great job, trying a lot of walls and making it to the top of one or two of them (a great feat when it isn’t something you normally do). We weren’t there for very long (we’re working on endurance ) but the thing that impressed me most is what he did learn in the time we were there.

Here is an article on the basic climbing knots, the figure eight and the fisherman’s knot.

And this is the sequence of events:

1. First wall, I tied little bro in (doing the knots for him to climb)
2. Second wall, I demonstrated (just once, mind you) how to tie the knots
3. Third wall, I told little bro I wanted him to try the knots and see how he did.

In a word, flawless. Absolutely flawless.

This video is when he was tying in to his fourth wall of the day, his second attempt at tying the knots. Again, flawless. I was super impressed. When I was working at the gym, there was rarely a person who could tie-in flawlessly on their first attempt, adults and children alike, and here is this 11-year-old, tying-in with all the deftness of someone who has been climbing for years.

So cool. After the move, we definitely need to invest in a membership at the rock climbing gym

also, I really like the song playing in the background—anyone know what it is?

Perhaps

I read a quote once that said (basically), “To become an expert in any field is to become intimately acquainted with its dark side”. I’m going to suggest that there probably isn’t much of a “dark side” to teaching in an elementary school, but it does have its own problems and difficulties. But I think you’ve found the place you are supposed to be when discovering the “dark side”, whatever that may be, doesn’t turn you away. If it makes you want to find a way to change things for the better, if it inspires you to make a positive change, then perhaps you are in the right place.

It’s not my fault

I was speaking with a friend of mine the other night about the topic of personal responsibility. Specifically, we were talking about how North American society seems to have decided to give up on personal responsibility. No where am I presented with more blatant proof than on the schoolyard.

Incidents happen on fairly regular basis at a school. By “incident”, I mean arguments between children, name-calling, pushing, hitting, exclusion, gaining up on each other, yelling at each other, etc. During any given lunch monitor duty, I have at least one, but usually several more, such incidents to deal with. Children come to me complaining that so-and-so called them a name, hit them, pushed them, won’t play with them, won’t stop following them, won’t leave them alone, has stopped talking to them and on it goes. In those scenarios, I can usually tell pretty quickly who is the instigator and who is the victim. I can also usually tell when it is a case of a fall-out between friends and when it is a matter of “enemies” (as great as enemies can be in elementary school) getting into each others’ space. But it doesn’t matter what the incident is, and it doesn’t matter what kind of clash it is, for uniformly, when I am being told what happened, it is always the other person’s fault.

“But he said you hit him. Is that true?” I ask.

“Well, but he was calling me a name!” Bobby will say.

“That’s because you wouldn’t stop following me!” Bobby’s former friend, Teddy, will say.

“You didn’t have to call me that name!” Bobby will protest.

“And then he hit me,” Teddy repeats, trying again to tell me what happened. “And it wasn’t fair, because I didn’t do anything to him.”

“He called me a name!” Bobby will add. “And all I was doing was trying to play with him, because he said he would play with me this recess!”

“I didn’t want to play this recess!” Teddy will say. “Tell him to stop following me!”

“Tell him to stop calling me names!”

I usually try to cut through the argument before this point is reached.

“Guys!” I say. “I don’t want to hear it. It’s really simple. Bobby, I don’t want to hear again that you were hitting someone–”

Bobby will try to protest.

“And Teddy,” I will interrupt before Bobby has a chance to speak. “Don’t call him names.”

Teddy will usually mumble something like an agreement.

“I need you guys to give each other space this recess. Don’t go near each other–”

Protests usually erupt at this point.

“He was the one coming near me!” Teddy will cry, at the same time that Bobby says, “If he hadn’t [some obscure and heretofore unmentioned offense here], I wouldn’t have had to!”

“Guys, seriously,” I say. “Just give each other space. You don’t go near Teddy, and Teddy, you don’t go near Bobby. I don’t want to hear anything more about anyone hitting someone or calling someone names. Understood?”

By this point, usually there is some level of begrudged agreement.

I’m sure that you’ve caught this, but not once did either child admit that they had done something. They didn’t deny having done it, but they never admitted it, and the implication in their words was that they never would have done it, if the other person hadn’t done something first. There is no indication that they accept that what they have done is wrong, and no indication that they realize they can control their own actions, or, regardless of what the other person does to them, that they can avoid escalating the situation simply by choosing to do what is right.

Oh, do kids ever have a handle on justice and fairness. Oh, do they ever. But it is always justice for themselves and fairness in their own lives.

I have accepted that this is normal for kids. In psychology, there is whole stage of development devoted to the time when children finally learn to think about things from another’s perspective. Rather than automatically assuming that the way they think is the way everyone else thinks, children begin learning that people see things from very different perspectives, but until they have a very firm grasp on this (and even sometimes long after this point is reached), they still think about things primarily as how they apply to themselves. And that’s fair. But our job as adults is to teach them how to consider other people. Our job as adults is to teach them how to take responsibility for their own actions. Our job as adults is to teach them how to make good choices.

We need to get there. We need to be teaching our kids this. Imagine what our society will look like when no one is willing to stand up and take responsibility for what they’ve done. Instead of having only the occasional person refuse to admit when they’re wrong, or refusing to apologize, or blaming everyone and everything else for what has happened, it would be everywhere. Oh I shudder to think of the chaos that would be.

What do you think about all of this?

Tales from E.S.

Being an adult can be scary sometimes, mostly because now, you’re not supposed to be scared of anything. That’s what we believe growing up. Our parents are invincible: nothing can touch them, and they are never afraid of anything. It’s always unsettling the first time you see your parents genuinely afraid of something, or the first time you see them cry. But that isn’t what this post is about.

There is a rule at the school I work at. It is, as I’m sure most can guess, and would hopefully concede to be reasonable, a hands-off policy, essentially a no-violence policy. The kids aren’t supposed to wrestle, push, punch, poke, tickle, swing, etc, etc, other kids. As I’ve been going about this job, and watching kids (mostly boys) work off excess energy through wrestling matches, I have, of course, told them to stop wrestling and to go play something else, but I haven’t ever been concerned about it. It wasn’t for my reasons that I told them to stop play- (or real) fighting; it was because it is school policy. Especially after the group of guys I hung out with at University, and their need to burn off steam that way, I’ve come to the conclusion that boys will be boys, and sometimes boys just need a good, old-fashioned wrestling match. But anyway, I have always stopped that kind of play-fighting when I’ve seen it, and this past Wednesday, I was presented with a compelling reason beyond school policy for why I stop these fights.

The bell had just rung, signaling the end of lunch recess, and as I normally do, I started walking to the back of the playground to begin encouraging kids to start making their way inside. As I did so, I noticed a group doing exactly what I have just been talking about. In this case, it was a mixed group, and the girls were the ones rough-housing. One girl (we shall call her Kara) was holding her friend’s arms (Lisa) behind her (Lisa’s) back. Kara was swinging her back and forth and Lisa was giggling as she tried to maintain her balance. I was easily ten steps away and was strolling towards them to tell them to stop, when I watched as another girl tried to pick up Lisa’s legs. Kara was unprepared for the sudden shift in balance and weight, and both Kara and Lisa horrifyingly fell forward. Lisa’s arms were still being held behind her back, leaving her with no way to catch her fall. She hit the ground seemingly face first, by the time I had quick-stepped five more paces. Trying to keep a playful tone in my voice, I said, “See, this is why we ask you guys not to wrestle in the playground, okay?” Kara picked herself up, still laughing from the fall, and I, still 2 or 3 steps away felt my heart sink as I realized that Lisa wasn’t getting up.

There was no rush of adrenaline, no panic, nothing. The emotions presented themselves, but only briefly. By some bizarre, overbearing practically, my mind weighed out the merits of them, and, deeming them useless and in fact distracting, they were quickly discarded.

I was kneeling beside her head seconds later.

“Are you okay?” was my first question. I could hear the kids around me, no fear or panic in their voices, as there might be in ones who were older and had more understanding, or younger, who had significantly less. There was just bald curiosity. “Is she okay?” “She’s not getting up.” And one voice, Kara’s, above the rest and at my shoulder, “Is she dead?”

Her eyes were staring forward, and she wasn’t moving, but the fluttering of her throat and lips were enough to convince me.

“No, she’s not,” I said, addressing the question I could answer. “You can see her moving.”

I turned my attention to Lisa. “Are you okay?” I repeated. “Can you move?”

Nothing.

“Can you say something, hun?”

Finally she caught her breath. “My shoulder really hurts.”

The giggles that sounded from the group around me at first had me wondering. Had she been okay this whole time? Was this a joke? In hindsight, I should have realized that they were not old enough for so sophisticated a prank, but there was still a niggling of doubt. And so I asked them, again with a teasing tone to my voice.

“Were you guys just pretending this whole time?” Looking around the group. I glanced back down and watched a tear slip from Lisa’s eye across her nose to the ground. No, they were not joking, but she was awake and talking, and so it was okay to laugh again. They were laughing out of relief.

She assured me she wasn’t pretending and in a softer tone, I reassured her that I believed her.

She was moving her head, her legs, and her good arm. Her weight was all still on the arm that she obviously fell on, so,

“Okay, hun,” I said. “Can you sit up?”

She struggled for a moment, so I talked her through moving in such a way so as to not further aggravate the injury. Her friends were all still giggling and talking, rather carelessly, but that they were all still standing there, and that, when I asked one of them to escort her to the main office, there was a chorus of voices, spoke of their loyalty and desire to help.

I never heard if this girl was okay, or if she had broken something. I went to the office with the girls. I wasn’t sure what to do. They were given ice and sent on their way, even after my assurance that the fall had knocked the wind out of her. The problem is, on a playground, there are so many, many injuries that it is really hard to pay them the appropriate amount of attention. For some, even sending a child to the office for a bandaid is more attention than the injury needs. And then for others, there is no way of paying near the appropriate amount of attention to it. There are one or two things that I think I should have done, could have done better. I wish schools still employed nurses. None of us are really equipped to deal with the in-between cases, the ones that are too serious for just ice or a bandaid, but not serious enough to merit a call for EMS.

But anyway, I don’t think I experienced anything more than that brief tinge of, oh God, what if…? (in the literal, praying sense of the phrase), but still. Suddenly you’re an adult, and you’re the one who is invincible and never scared of anything. Isn’t it interesting how that usually comes just as you finally overcome the stigma of “fear”? Just when you get to the point where you can finally admit to yourself and your friends that you are afraid without feeling weak, you find yourself in a position where you can’t admit that to anyone else. And that almost drives out the fear. Good and bad. I’m just grateful that she was okay.

Overheard in sunglasses

Overheard on the playground from an eleven-year-old kid to his posse of friends:

You’re not going anywhere near my sister again. She’s too good for you.

Made me smile

It’s strange going to pick my little brother up from school now. I recognize about half of the kids pouring out of the school doors, and that’s saying something. I had a couple of the kids give the almost-hi – you know, where you take a breath and half-raise your arm, before your self-consciousness takes over the greeting instinct. Once the self-consciousness kicks in, you’re suddenly very concerned about accidentally greeting someone you don’t know, and so you drop your hand or do the wave-psych-I’m-just fixing-my-hair thing, and the intake of air for the verbal greeting dispels with nary a sound passing your lips. In the kids’ defense, I was wearing bug-eye sunglasses (the ones that practically hide half of your face… the $8 variety…), so their unsure responses are justified.

But I am confident that, hopefully, after a few more weeks, they will recognize me so that we can avoid the awkward almost-hi. With or without sunglasses .

Teaching: Day Three

Kids are ingenious! At lunch recess, I walked past a group of boys, who were each kicking off one of their shoes into a pile in the centre. Then one boy got on his hands and knees, eyes closed, and started randomly throwing the shoes to either side.

“Okay,” I said walking up to them, “I have to ask, what’s with the shoes?”

“We’re making teams,” several of them piped up, and then turned back to the more important task of finding their own shoes.

None of this eenie-meenie-miny-mo stuff from when I was a kid, or nominating captains and having them each pick someone, no more of this fear of being picked last for team sports. They now use shoes. I thought it was very clever.

Today was a very different experience. I spent a lot more time working one-on-one with kids, and doing out-of-classroom tasks, such as photocopying and preparing for later lessons. It was still good, but I cannot boast knowing the names of more than a third of today’s class (whereas I learned everyone’s names on Wednesday). Wednesday’s class was a fun group of kids. Today when I strolled into their classroom during lunch hour before they went outside for recess, there was a chorus of “Hi Miss Tara!”s around the room, and an eruption of chatter towards me. It was cute. (And yes, they call me Miss Tara…)

I was also struck by the compassion some kids have. It was pizza lunch today and in another class I walked into, some of the kids were chirping at one boy to not throw out his slice of pizza. He began defending himself saying that he was finished and that he wasn’t hungry, and then being confronted more forthrightly, he began sobbing, saying that he didn’t like it. I managed to get from him that he was supposed to get a cheese pizza; the slice he was holding was pepperoni.

“Did you try taking the pepperoni off?” I said. “Why don’t you try that and see if that works.”

“I already tried it,” he sobbed. “And I don’t like it…”

The pizza was being distributed by a couple of older boys, and one of them, clearly affected by the younger boy’s distress, said, “Here [student's name], I’ll go and see if they have any more and I’ll get you a slice of cheese pizza.”

Within moments, he had returned, and the younger boy, no longer under threat of having to eat pepperoni-tainted pizza, sniffled quietly and enjoyed his pizza.

Teaching: Day Two

Scene: The playground at lunch recess

Characters: Myself (teacher’s assistant and lunch monitor), Girl A, Girl B

Girl A and B skip up towards myself

Girl A: Teacher, can we walk with you?

Me: Sure! What are your names?

(They tell me)

Me: What grade are you in?

Girl A: Grade one

Me: What kinds of things are you learning right now?

Girl B: We’re learning about money.

Me: Like counting it and stuff?

Girl A: Yea… (pause) Do you have a son?

Me: (in that mock surprise voice that is true surprise, but trying to pass itself off as teasing) A son? No! Do I look old enough to have a son?

I’ve been asked the question before, but the usual silly giggles as the asker realizes that, no, in fact, I do not look old enough to have a son, do not come; instead they look at me with wide, honest eyes and say,

“Yes.”

“I do?”

And then my internal voice kicks in: You’re twenty-two, hun.

“Oh.”

I look old enough to have kids… huh. That’s a weird thought to get used to.

Why I want to be a teacher

I’m assuming this is a question I’ll get asked eventually, if teaching is the direction I go in. It’s something I’ve thought about in generalities and with ideas and impressions, but not something I’ve actually vocalized.

I explained here my reasons for why I didn’t want to be a teacher, but I haven’t written my reasons for why I do want to be a teacher.

I am most interested in teaching at the primary level (that is, kindergarten to grade 3). The word I would choose to describe teaching at this level is: discovery. At this age, children are discovering everything. Everything is new and exciting and interesting, and being a part of this discovery process is very refreshing. I have a brother who is currently 11 years old, and I remember him being at the age where every concept was new. And of the day camps I’ve volunteered/worked at, it is always so much fun watching these kids discovering new things.

Kids have entirely different ways of reasoning things out than what we learn as adults. I think, in a lot of instances, adults listen to children and just assume they aren’t being logical or making sense, but the truth is, their path of reasoning has just taken a different route from what we expect as adults. I think it’s so interesting hearing the reasons behind the conclusions children arrive at.

I also think that I would make a good teacher. I know that I can be patient with children, to listen to their stories and to adjust my teaching style to how they are learning. I think that I would be able to understand how they were learning and teach accordingly. My experience at the camps and with my youngest brother has also prepared me as far as maintaining order with a group of children.

I know it would be a lot of work, but I know also that I would enjoy it, and I’m pretty confident that the kids I would be teaching would be able to learn and enjoy the material as well.

Teacher’s college?

I’ve been doing a lot of research into teacher’s college lately.

I was convinced from about grade one to grade eight that I wanted to be a teacher. I didn’t really think about my future an awful lot then, but when asked, that was my answer. From grade nine to the beginning of grade twelve, I was convinced I wanted to be a computer programmer. In grade twelve, I realized that I liked English an awful lot better than math and computers, so I decided that I would apply to University for English. But at that point, I wasn’t thinking as far ahead as a career. I just knew that I loved English. I didn’t think about teaching again, because English was the stereotypical degree for those people that didn’t know what they wanted to do with their lives, and then what does one do with an English degree but teach? All of those snappy little phrases, like “those who can’t do, teach”, turned me off even further from teaching. When I would tell people what program I was in, their response was uniformly, “English, eh? So what are you going to do with that, teach?” And my response was always to list off the people I knew of who had English degrees who did things wildly different from teaching, and to explain the merits of English, that it provides an excellent foundation for whatever direction you choose to go in. I always felt like I had to defend my choice in English, to somehow prove that this area of the humanities was just as valuable and intellectually difficult as the other areas, and even math, engineering and science.

My conclusion now is that the programs truly cannot be compared. English requires a completely different way of thinking from math/science/engineering. I will admit that the latter group of programs are significantly more work intensive. English is primarily consumed with reading, and the occasional bouts of crazy-constant writing. But at the same time, since English is something I love, the reading and writing do not feel like work. I suppose if someone was in English and really didn’t like reading, this would be a lot of work that they would find overwhelming. However, I digress.

The point of all of this is to explain why it took me so long to even consider teaching. Most of the people in my classes are going into teaching because that’s what you do in English, not because they actually want to. I was determined not to go into teaching just because that’s the next logical step. So in this determination, I looked into nearly every other possibility first. But now I am looking at them all side-by-side and truly? Teaching is the thing that excites me most right now. It’s very possible that this will change again, but at least now I can truly say that I am pursuing the option of teacher’s college, not just because I am in English and not because I can’t think of what else to do with my life, but because it is something that I want to do.