Thursday, May 14, 2009

Lockdown with kindergartners

When I got the call to substitute teach a kindergarten class, I was eager to accept. What better place to start than with the littlest kids in the school? I thought. I'm pretty sure I can take any kindergartner and at that age, they don't even know about spitballs.

But that was before I ended up being in lock down - a code gray with a class full of 5 and 6-year-olds for 20 minutes.

It turns out that not only was this my first day ever substitute teaching but it was also the day the school would practice "code gray": their procedure for what to do if something unthinkable happens and someone comes into the school with an AK47. I applaud this idea of preparing students, truly I do. We think it can't happen here but that's what everybody thinks until it does. But applauding it and carrying it out with two little kids are two different things.

The principal asked a first grade teacher to put the kids through the procedure, seeing as I was a newbie. The first grade teacher started out well. She told the kids that we would have something like a fire drill and that we would practice what to do if there was an emergency. "Say there's a dog in the school," she said. "A mean dog or a nice dog?" one little boy asked. "A mean dog," she replied," and the dog is loose. We have to practice what to do." Then she had the kids practice "squishing" themselves on one side of the room to get ready for our drill.

Well, the rest of the day the kids wanted to know where the dog was and when it was coming. They said that they didn't see the dog but they wanted to see it. They wanted to know when we were going to have a dog drill.

Finally, I sat them down with another teacher to try again. "There's no dog," I told them. They looked up at me, bewildered. "There's no dog. It's just pretend. Just like when you have a fire drill. Do you see a fire in the halls?" They shook their heads. "We're pretending to get ready for an emergency like a dog in the hallways but the dog was pretend. There's no dog."

We waited and waited for the drill and finally the announcement came and we herded about 15 small children into a small area to wait. "Why are we doing this?" one of the boys whispered. "I don't understand why we're doing this for a dog," another boy said softly. "I think I see a dog," another boy said. Troublemaker. "You don't see a dog," I whispered back. "There's no dog. It's pretend."

Twenty minutes later the children were fidgeting, lying on the floor and trying to climb into the cabinets. There was giggling and poking, all the things you would expect from a bunch of kindergartners trying to sit still. Finally, the announcement came that the code was over.

"Where was the dog? We never saw the dog!" said another little girl in a pink dress. Groan.

Maybe we can have a full out evacuation on my second day. It has to be an improvement.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The Case of the Missing Uniform

I could hear that my son was in distress from the tone of his voice. It was something between a wail and a whine with a bit of a sob thrown in for good measure. "Mommy," he pleaded. "Can you find my blue uniform? I can't compete unless I have it."

"Are you sure I don't have it?" I asked him. "Yes." "Check your gym bag and your backpack right now," I demanded. Shuffle. Shuffle. "It's not here."

"OK," I reassured him. "Where do you think your uniform is?" "I think it's in my top drawer." So off I went like the good mom I am to find nothing but mismatched socks in the top drawer and no blue uniform in the other drawers either or the closet or underneat the bed.

Then my husband got into the act after another frantic phone call. "He says it's in the top drawer," he told me. "It's not in the top drawer," I snapped. "Maybe it was last week but not anymore."

Half an hour later and we were still searching. We searched the dirty clothes in the laundry room a dozen times and the clean clothes half a dozen times. We overturned the hampers and searched through smelly socks and worse. We did everything but check the refrigerator.

We were unable to rescue my son from the situation. He had to face the consequences. We're so used to rescuing him but we couldn't produce the blue track uniform and R. came home feeling humiliated and nearly in tears.

I felt like crying too and my husband was angry at the coaches who let other kids play without their blue gym shorts. "Rules are rules," I told him. You can't tell a policeman that other people were speeding if you're caught doing 50 miles per hour ina 30 mile zone (not that I would know anything about that). You can't argue your kid should slide by because other kids are sliding by and it's the wrong message for your kid.

Long after R. had gotten over his disappointment and consoled himself with some video games, I was still searching for that darned uniform. I knew it could be hidden somewhere on his bed where you could easily hide an 800 pound gorilla under the blankets, animals and junk. But there were no blue shorts and shirt there or underneath or anywhere.

Finally I saw some papers underneath R.'s desk and underneatht he papers was the balled up uniform. I made him and my husband come in to see it before I fished it out. "What is the moral of this story?" I demanded. "To look everywhere?" my son ventured. "Wrong," I snapped. "To always put things where they belong. That was a hard lesson but you've got to learn."

And what was the moral of the story for us? The moral was that you can't always rescue your kid. And while it might be painful, it's the only way they learn for themselves.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

overscheduled kids

I have always railed against parents overscheduling their kids. Kids need time to be kids, I argued. They need time to run around. They should be out playing hide and go seek, not zipping from activity to activity.

But now my sixth grader is on the track team at his middle school, he's playing Little League and he's taking piano lessons. My fourth grader takes ballet three days a week (yes ballet), plays Little League and plays the piano. Add in homework and you have a recipe for stress for all of us.

We cheered my older son on when he wanted to join track because he never seems much interested in joining things. But now he's sometimes going from track to Little League (thank you Chauffer Mom) and barely getting a breath in between.

My younger one has been dancing since he was 6 and he's at a level where he has to go three days a week. He still loves dancing but by this time of the year, there's a lot of whining before we get to those dance lessons.

Even their beloved baseball, coached by their own Dad, can elicit groans. Sometimes they come back from baseball games complaining that they haven't played all day. "Baseball is playing," I say sternly. "If you think it's work, don't do it next year."

The good news is there's no time for computers or TV. They get plenty of time outdoors and all this activity makes them eat well and sleep well. The bad news is that down time has become a precious commodity for all of us. If there's a game or a track meet, we have to be there. Likewise baseball games, piano recitals. The ballet recital is a joy to watch but takes major coordinating of grandparents and relatives.

This is how our life is now. I'm resigned to that. But forget the moral high ground about overscheduled kids. Mea culpa. I'm as guilty as anyone.