Tales from a Small Stars Classroom

I woke up today with a head cold and saw that it was 5 degrees F outside! Yikes! Plus, I had to be chipper and energetic for a group of three year olds by nine this morning... Not so pretty! I kind of like the fact that when working with young children you need to be at least acting happy, which usually leads me to feeling happier, especially on rough mornings.

The Winter Academy class that I am co-teaching with Cindy is made up of these tiny beings with such dynamic personalities. One little boy came into the class talking about how different the environment was compared to the group we had last week. He was also very concerned that a few of the tables were stacked into a different corner. One of the little girls in the class already acts like a teenager. While the other children were screaming with laughter after I accidentally "dropped" my fake ice cream cone and started to fake cry, she sat there just staring at me like I was a complete idiot! The other children excitedly scribbled their way through the coloring and creation of their own fake ice cream cones, but this little girl carefully sat there filling in every line. Then, there was little Amy.

When Amy waltzed into the classroom I knew I was in trouble. She's a bit infamous and the source of many water cooler discussions. She came into the room, demanded to have the Vic puppet, kept just yelling, "I'm happy, I'm happy" while running around through every activity. During our first break of the morning, I witnessed her, from the water cooler, run into one of the Customer Relations offices, turn off the lights, slam the door, and began barricading the door with a chair and a garbage can. She was so gleeful about it. I tried to coax her out, but failed before needing to get back to my other little students. Luckily, one of the customer relations staff members were able to coax her out with some cookies! She arrived back to class munching on her treat and trying to take away the fake ice-cream cones of as many innocent three-year-olds as she possibly could.

I use to get really nervous when things weren't particularly going well in a small star classroom, but after almost nine months of doing this job, I feel that I'm starting to really learn how to pick my battles and when to let some things go. Sure, these children's parents are paying a lot of money to have their children take these courses, and I want to honor that the best way I can, but they are still little children that act like little children. Not all of them are going to grasp all of the curriculum of the lesson I am teaching, and that's okay. We all learn at our own pace, and that is a beautiful thing, especially when you are a three-year-old. I think the most important aspect of the small stars courses here are not the English words and structures that we try to teach, but being exposed to another learning culture at such a young age.

The rest of my day was pretty smooth sailing. I did a bit of grocery shopping after my morning class and came back to work after lunch. The boss was out of the office, so I felt more comfortable just chatting with Cindy and Miles while we worked through our weekends' stacks of homework assignments and quizzes to grade, all three of us commiserating about our newest Winter Academy colds. I taught two uneventful small star classes (no ceilings crashing in on me this Monday) and sang the final "Good-bye Friends" song loudly and proudly, with dance moves! Bring on my "weekend."