I Want To Get Better At [X]

I returned to the Montessori School on Thursday, substituting as an instructional assistant in a different lower EL (grades 1-3) class than I had been in on Wednesday. The teacher here was more focused on compliance than the teacher on Wednesday had been. I was puzzled, because I thought this class was better-behaved than the other had been. I had no strong opinions on how the class should be managed, but there certainly were strong opinions out there. No one has a stronger opinion on a class than the students taking the class. 

At lunchtime, I led the class to the cafeteria and we waited in line to enter. One of the students, who apparently has autistic tendencies, complained that several girls had cut the line when I wasn't looking. He seemed genuinely hurt, not so much by being pushed to the back, but by the injustice of disorder. I heard his complaint, and tried to comfort him. 

Because of the heat wave, outdoor recess was cancelled, so recess was held in the classroom. The teacher said there were various games in the classroom, but she wouldn't be there - she had a teacher meeting to attend - so It was up to me and another substitute to find these games. One of the older girl students knew where the games were located, so she retrieved them, and borrowed my authority to impose her vision on how indoor recess should be conducted. 

Every Montessori class has a Singing Bowl, used with a striker to get the students' attention. I rang the Bowl. The girl announced that there were to be no more than four people per game. Seemed reasonable. I showed her how to ring the Bowl - it's a bit of skill - and she rang it more times, with a commanding, almost-cruel edge to her voice, to announce that certain online learning games were allowed and others were forbidden. This was a level of detail I didn't understand, and judging from the students' reactions I think they didn't understand it either. The girl rang the Bowl more times, and learned that if you ring the Bowl enough times, no one pays attention to you anymore. 

The teacher returned, and another teacher got added during rotation. Some non-compliant behavior emerged in the afternoon. Kids get cranky when they get tired after lunch. 

At the end of the day the teacher assigned a sentence for the students to complete: "I want to get better at [x]." She offered several suggestions for "x", like "soccer," or "helping others," or "dancing," etc. I heard a slight undertone in the class, adding a "t" to the word "soccer," to get "stalker." I'm not even sure that was deliberate - young kids sometimes have trouble with words. 

There wasn't enough time available to finish the sentence, so the teacher suggested thinking about it as homework for tomorrow. This caused a panic for some of the first graders, because they had never written a sentence down before in their lives. They didn't know how to write down the word "want." They didn't know many things. Could I write the sentence down, so they could at least copy it? Poor guys! I know that academic panic well! 

At day's end, I put my cap on my head. I recalled my musical-theater training and placed my nearly-empty water bottle on top of my head, balancing it there a la "Fiddler on the Roof." Four students who had been watching me closely immediately placed whatever they had in their hands on top of their heads. Cute!