On Tuesday, November 4th, which was a short day at the school, I spent all day in kindergarten. The day was filled with various class projects. The teacher played a video about Canada, and assigned a project to use red crayons and maple leaves in order that everyone could make their own Canadian flags. Quite nice!
I escorted the kids to lunch. As the kids stood in line for food they started rocking back and forth, particularly their shoulders and arms. "Six seven!" they all chanted. I saw a clip from "South Park," showing kids at their elementary school doing the same, and that looked exactly like this (except the Peter Thiel part).
I monitored recess as well. One of the girls presented me with a gift: a wood chip cut into the shape of a Perfect Rhombus. It was striking, and sweet. There is something almost ethereal about this girl.
Meanwhile, a few girls were playing a favorite game: chasing boys and making them kiss them. The boys ran away, but not very hard, and they were frequently caught.
A group of four girls were hanging upside down from the bars at one end of the play structure. Their tops fell over their heads and they showed off their nipples to each other. I didn't need to see this, and so monitored more-boisterous play at the other end of the play structure. Still, I could hear much of what the four girls were saying. The leader of the four girls wanted to correct her playmates, who were making no distinction between boy nipples and girl nipples. As she explained: "Boys have nipples, but girls have boobies."
After recess, a strange thing happened. A kindergartener from a different class was moved into the classroom - usually done to throw a misbehaving kid off-balance, and thus more compliant. The teacher asked me to take this boy along with three other kids into the recess yard for an extra recess.
The boy immediately began misbehaving, with language and action - acting more like a 12-year-old rather than a four-year-old. He started trying to climb the fence surrounding the recess yard. His first attempt failed. I pulled him off the fence (contact with the kids is discouraged, but escape from the recess yard is even more strongly-discouraged). The boy started climbing again. Each time he failed, but he was getting faster and more assured. The boy then turned began attacking the other boy in the yard. I stopped that, but then I got distracted - I think another adult had entered the area - and suddenly, on the fifth attempt, the boy was gone.
The office responded very quickly. They were alarmed. What is it with this boy?
Post-school recess then started. The boys particularly liked a game on the slide they called "You Can't Catch Me Old Man!" The boys went down the slide as I lunged clumsily after them, with the pretense that I couldn't touch them. As the kids slid down the plastic slide they became charged with static electricity, so as they escaped my grasp I was still able to zap them with electric shocks.
And, as sometimes happens, by the weekend I had come down with a fever and a cold. Working with kids can take a toll.
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