If I Were A Dancer

Sub jobs have been slow to pick up steam after the winter break, so I was reduced to accepting elementary school assignments again, and took on a second grade classroom on Friday.

It was... amazing. One of the better days ever, and not just elementary school! I realized I completed the whole day without having the urge to tear my hair out from the roots, and I think I know why! I finally figured out what I have been doing wrong in elementary school... I have been too nice!

When I showed up, my only goal was to get through the day. No frills or jokes, let's just do this. I laid out our day, I didn't take unsolicited questions, I put names on the board. And the great paradox was their great love and compliance. They were quiet, obedient, and yet still joyful and aimed to please. They were drawing me pictures and asking me to come back to be their substitute, and I was stunned. I guess it's the whole boundaires-setting. It's one thing to uphold boundaries for the middle and high school kids who get it, but quite another to be consistently setting them and reminding the kids of them, and that's what I wasn't good at with the classrooms of students, until now hopefully.

I should have known they would win me over from first thing that morning. Their journal prompt was "If I were a dancer..." and maybe I brought it on myself because I did try to stretch their imaginations a little bit. I told them they could write about any kind of dance... ballet, ballet folklorico, breakdancing... and after awhile, a little girl had her hand up as high as it could go, squirming to burst until I came over and begged me to let her read hers aloud to me. I tried not to laugh too hard, but I certainly told her I loved her imagination and fun ideas, and when they went out to recess, I snuck in her desk and took a picture of it

In other news, I was talking to an admission counselor for a university with teaching credential programs and we were going over the checklist of requirements and she asked if I had taken the CSET. I said yes, this month. She asked when I would take the others. I said I didn't plan to take any others. She she said she meant the other subtests. When would I be taking the other subtests? I said I took all three this month. She said "Oh my, all three? Really? Wow." So apparently you're really not supposed to take those all at once. This is proving to be more and more interesting...