Smiling cap.
It's been about three months since I've been at the Montessori school. I got sick around November 8th, and the cough lingered. Then there were the holidays, and anti-ICE activities. So, when I finally returned, enough time had passed that I had forgotten the names of many of the students. Time to recommit the names to memory!
In the last two weeks I've assisted in a lower-elementary class. Nice kids. I spent time checking in-class work, asking some to rewrite backward fives and threes. I listened to them sound out words, and trip over the many English words where that method doesn't work very well: words like "who."
One boy in the class seemed unusually boisterous while walking in the line heading to lunch. He liked my smiling cap, so he quickly grabbed it, and held it for a keep-away game. Another slightly-less boisterous student pretended to help me retrieve the cap but actually wanted the cap for himself. So, we had a lot of fun with the cap.
At lunch, the boisterous boy kept lunging at me to garb the cap. The other assistants seemed troubled by what first appeared to be an assault on an adult. It was OK, though. It's just how we roll. I swear, I'm just as much an instigator of trouble as the kids sometimes.
I amused the kids by gobbling like a turkey, which I do, in part, by shaking my jowls. The kids try to imitate me, but can't, because they aren't old enough to have jowls.
So noisy at lunch! A group of boys were collecting banana peels and grinding them in the floor between the lunch tables and next to the wall, to create a micro-environment where it was impossible to walk without slipping onto the floor. I collected the peels and foiled the project.
At lunch, I analyzed the play structure, trying to forecast the motives and moves of about 25 kids, to interject to foil rough play and help them avoid injuries. It's hard, though. For example there's one kid blocking the narrow entry to the slide. He had a friend helping him. Then there's another kid determined to break through the blockade and go down the slide. He has confederates too. Then there are kids glued onto the slide itself and trying to peel each other off of it. Not surprisingly, several kids ended up with banged knees.
Then I was diverted by another kid. This kid is unusually focused and wants to play only in a Star-Wars-like fashion - light sabers, clone technology, force fields, lasers, and all the other assorted weaponry, etc. Because of the strict Star-Wars focus, however, this kid often has trouble finding playmates and seems lonely. So I play. I have to remember that even though the kid is to all appearances a girl, he identifies as male. Easy to make faux pas.
Back in class, the boisterous boy wanted to show me his favorite classroom activity. He jammed a pencil tip into an eraser, then broke off the tip. He did the same with a number of pencils, collecting the lead from all the pencil tips. I found this activity irritating, since someone will have to sharpen the pencils again. "What is the point?" I asked. "To gather the pencil leads and grind them into a powder!" the kid replied. "But then what?" I answered. No good answer here. Some people may be incorrigible.
Good times!
