Back to School

I just cannot believe that we're already into October. We've been experiencing a fabulous Indian summer here in Paris and I think I'm in denial that it will end someday. But apparently according to our weather app that someday is the day after tomorrow. Sigh. Of course, the last time the weather app predicted sunshine it rained so maybe there's hope. Or maybe these things only work in reverse (aka you get bad weather when good is predicted and still bad weather when bad is predicted). Oh well, in any case September meant a new school year. 

I personally would just like to say that I survived. Only the really crazy teachers look forward to the month of September. Yes, I know what you're thinking but no, I'm really not one of them even if my sanity is at times questionable. 

And as at the end of every September, I'm exhausted. At least I'm not the only one though! And yes, our kids do wear uniforms...we're one of those schools. 

And as usual, there have been plenty of shenanigans to be had. (ps. don't you love how even the I in my name has a smiley...sheer talent I tell ya) There was the boy who ran out of my classroom, grabbed our fire extinguisher, and proceeded to whip the nozzle around and try to shoot me with it. Thank the Lord for safety latches is all I have to say to that one. Said boy has a slight obsessive compulsive bit going on and has also been known to start yelling and rush me during circle time because I had a speck of glitter stuck on my cheek. Geeze, can't a girl just add a little bling from time to time without calling the fashion police?  

(My favorite part about this one is the peppy explanation at the bottom about my name just in case you missed the giant blue box with it at the top of the page)

Then there was the boy (a 2nd grader) who decided that he was angry enough at his play group to refuse to continue playing and instead started bawling for what seemed like an eternity. I tried consoling him but alas that didn't work and wondered why the second I turned my back the crying grew twice as loud. And that would be because it really was twice as loud. My crying friend had gotten called a baby by one of his comrades in crime and had therefore proceeded to punch said comrade leaving a second boy bawling. 

(Masks made by one of my students during free time. Don't you just loove the side pony? The kids have to draw on scrap paper so that totally is an old map of the Seine River that you see running across her face. Look closely though and you'll see some rad eyelashes. Oh yeeaah.)

One morning I heard some girls during small group discussing perfume. To be honest, I thought they were just making fun of mine or something so I course corrected and got them back on the math task at hand. But as the morning went on I kept wondering why the classroom was smelling more and more floral. And that's when I caught her: one of my girls had snuck women's perfume into the classroom and was spraying down anyone who wanted it. Oy vey.

(An apology picture drawn by one of the kindergarteners. The house is our school building and in case you're wondering Taalea sore translates into Talia, sorry. And please note just how red my face is in this pic. My goodness, you'd think I was the one with anger issues and not him!) 

And of course if there isn't anything going on, our special needs kids can always add a bit of excitement to the day. I've had one manage to figure out how to pull up all the water drains out in the courtyard, another who managed to get up on the second story balcony, and still another who managed to make running into the school office area such an art form that for the rest of recess we had to lock the door. 

But well, that's what makes me love this job--it's so gosh darn unpredictable! Here's to the new school year of 2014-2015! 

Not your average school day...

I can admit it: one of the reasons that I love to teach is a full on addiction to variety. It sounds cliché but literally every day is different. You just don't know what you're going to get. Every once in a while; however, events come along that take even the daily dose of randomness by surprise. And I'll remind you that we have a high tolerance for randomness at my school...

• There's the father of the boy whose assigned sticker (it helps the children recognize their name) was a snail; he adamantly believed that we were sending the subliminal message that his child is "slow" so therefore all of his name tags were changed...
• The student intern who has been caught playing (by herself, not with the children) with the beading activity, coloring, the dress up clothes (admiring herself in the mirror with her foam tiara), and snoozing in the nap room while the children played beside her. 
• The child who throws up on average 3 times a day
• The 2 1/2 yr old who has quickly become the school bully...giving a boy twice her size and age permanent bite marks on his nose (please, don't ask!)...

And this is just from the beginning of this school year! But today, I've got to admit, really beat them all. All I can really think to describe it as was epic. I'm not sure I knew whether to laugh or scream really--and it's probably good that in the end I did neither. 

It started with a scheduled school visit by a committee of Thai teachers to come observe the school/classrooms/teachers/etc. We have parents and business VIPs come through all the time so when my boss told me about their upcoming visit, I thought 'random, but why not?' And by committee, in my head I was sure that was about 5 people...8 if you want to get really crazy. 

So when almost 30 Thai schoolteachers poured into our courtyard with white lab coats and cameras the size of the Eiffel Tower, I started rethinking random and opted more for Help me dear Lord. And within seconds we were swarmed. Just like that. A sea of neon visors, flash photography, and plenty of hands for cheek pinching. 

While some of my children ate up all that attention (literally everywhere I looked I saw more lab coats than children) others seemed terrified of the Asian ladies oohing, ahhing, and drooling over them. My small group teaching moment was probably the most random that I'll have all year. A midst explaining the difference between a square and a rectangle, I suddenly felt someone's arm around me. Next thing I know a camera flash is blinking in my face and I'm posing for round after round with this woman who has decided that she is my new best friend. Modeling session over I try and get back to business only to have a new one pose with me. 

And that's how it continued: alternating between teaching and posing... But posing for somewhere around 20 pictures wasn't the only random thing. Everywhere I looked, our classroom was infiltrated: I tried to put my small group's math journals up on our counters to dry only to discover giant suitcases  instead that had taken up residence. The counter was nowhere to be seen. Somewhere in the crowd the crazy Asian ladies were cheering on two of my boys who had decided to take up drumming as a career and were performing their first big hit on our classroom puzzle box. 5 of them swarmed around my table and exclaimed over one of my girls from Korea. They thought she was Chinese and seeing all of them staring at me my mind totally blanked and out blurted, "No, she's Japanese."  Oh well--Japan is closer than if I had blurted out that she's Dutch or something even more stupid like that. 

But hey, in the end I got to pose with the whole group and their banner (yes, they brought a banner with them), and have a lovely school flier and key chain to treasure as keepsakes after a very memorable morning...So it's all worth it, right? ;) 

Here's to Friday and then the weekend! 

School's out!

Woo to the hoo. I know I've been a little MIA around here lately but now that summer vacation is finally in full swing (yes, in Franceland we only get two months of vacay unlike you lucky three-sters in the States, although something tells me we make up for it the rest of the year...)! And seeing as how the school year is officially over, it's gotten me thinking about what an odd bunch we teachers are. I mean, you could definitely argue a case for us being the odd ones (you'd probably win that argument btw) but what I really want to say is that our job is kind of an odd one in that it exposes us all the time to a rather odd group of people: parents and their children.  Yes, (God willing) I'll be one of those someday (heaven help us!) but you've got to admit that very normal, average people, when it comes to their offspring, can very easily turn into crazy lunatics given the right child stimuli. So I thought I'd compose a bit of a 'best of' list in tribute to our crazy children and even crazier parents this past year: 

• Best illogical parent complaint: Getting told off for putting a healthy food sticker on a child as a reminder of what we'd learned after a science lesson on the food groups. Her mother misunderstood and believed that I was praising her lunch which apparently was not very healthy (Which leads me to ask...isn't the problem the unhealthy lunch and not the sticker? Just askin'...) 

• Most random parent complaint: Not digging into my box of chocolates fast enough that a child had given me as a thank you present. (You see, the real problem had been that I had actually not seen it because the child had forgotten to give it to me and thus it was sitting in the school entryway. Her mother did the mature thing and called my boss to complain and ask why I hadn't yet touched their box of chocolates.) 

• Most surprising cultural parenting discovery: Wearing turtle necks under the school uniform and a winter hat in June. Apparently Indians are terrified that their child will get a chill. (Dying from over heating doesn't seem to be a problem though)

• Pushiest parents: This is a tie between the mom who's been prepping one little girl in our school over what to say for Show and Tell every Friday (she's not a native English speaker so this becomes painfully obvious as soon as you deviate from her memorized text) and the dad who came in to film his daughter's Show and Tell so he could go back home and analyze his daughter's presenting strengths and weaknesses for the next time around. 

• Most scandalous parents: Once again a tie between the mom who posed for her Facebook profile pic (my boss, the school principal, is Facebook friends with her) naked and pregnant (there were some appropriately placed shadows) and the coffee table book that one little girl brought in as her show and tell object for family day showing her mother au naturale. (She's a dancer and one of those 'be proud of your naked booty' artistic types) 

• Most confusing parents: Yeah that would be those Indians again. It only took us half the year to realize that when they're agreeing with you they do this affirmation nod thing--only to the side, like a head bobble... Aka, when they're trying to say yes to you what you're seeing is a bobble headed no. (trust me, this can lead to real communication issues...) 

• Best bad gift givers: Haha, this is my favorite category because let me tell ya, there were some good ones this year. Let's start with the second runner up: That would be the silver moose candle extinguisher that my coworker Lindsay got (which we later discovered on sale in the holiday selection at the Habitat store). First runner up would be the ornamental dagger from Yemen that my boss got (awkward...is she supposed to use it or just display it at school?). But the winner would definitely have to be the gift for my other coworker Jessica: white sexy lingerie...which really begs the question: who in the world would give their child's kindergarten teacher sexy lingerie? Not going to lie, I'm rather happy with my house plant and hand lotion thank you very much. 

I could go on and I'm sure that any other current/former teacher could as well. What can I say? We just cross paths with an odd bunch of folks sometimes. And that is why we teachers so desperately need those summer breaks as a chance to recover and reflect a bit on all that parental randomness. So here's to another month and a half of sun soaking and catching zzz's before it all starts up all over again in September!