Child Psychology

Hey everybody so it was an interesting day today. Teaching is a rather draining activity and I really feel like I never gave my teachers enough credit for the difficulties they endured due to my behavior. It is the whole walk a mile in my shoes dilemma, only problem is that I am tired enough dealing with my own problems that I don't have time to deal with these other issues I've got plenty of my own. So let's give a quick recap of Wednesday, April fool's day, I should have known something was up but hey I'm not always quick on my feet. Wednesday begins with yet another change to my schedule and a few additions to my classes. I am now teaching about 60 kids of various ages so you would assume a few more or less would not really cause too much trouble, well you would be wrong. It seems that the delicate balance of my Kindergarten classes was tipped with the addition of three boys, 2 of which are very intelligent if quiet, and the third who well maybe he is bright but I'm just not asking the right questions.
My morning begins with a new student in my class and my first issue arises, this new boy doesn't have a name. Now he has a name don't be fooled, but its more of the problem that he has 3 names, his Korean name, his class name, and the name his classmates call him. The kicker is he doesn't respond to any of them, and it's not that he doesn't know he just doesn't respond out of sheer spite I think. He is really just a wrench in my classroom design, and my lesson plan is out the window within minutes of my arrival. I pretty much spend most of the class period making sure that he doesn't get out of his seat and bother the other kids. I have been thinking about instructing him not to move from his seat under any circumstances, even should the building catch fire. I would want him to stay seated until I came to get him, but I think that is overly ambitious of me, seeing as he doesn't listen to his own name. So my other kindergarten class is much better compared to my first ones, except that my kids begin to cry. Now when I say my kids begin to cry I am not saying they are tearing up or sniffling but usually full on wails and sobs that leave a lot to the imagination about their cause. Take for instance Rachel this adorable little girl (who my colleague says has a triangular head) who is incredibly bright and talented, only she has this penchant for breaking down into tears at any point what so ever. I have "made" her cry by saying she couldn't go to the bathroom, when she answered a question incorrectly pretty much you name it can set her off. So Wednesday she is holding tough and I am talking to this other girl Karen. Karen is a small flight space cadet of a child but is nonetheless very sweet. This day I have been asking her to stop playing with her back pack and sit forward and pay attention. After about 5 or so warnings I finally go and take the backpack from her chair. Apparently this was not to be advised, as what unfolded was not a proportionate response. So I take her bag from her and she begins to tense up and latches onto the bag. I manage to pry her loose and set the bag on the counter out of her reach and head back to teaching. She follows me and jumps up on the counter to get back her book bag and runs back to her seat with her prized possession. Me not to be bested by a 4 yr old go and take the bag from her again. This time she latches onto my legs in an attempt to immobilize me, now really she might be accomplishing something if she wasn't the size of chopsticks, but A+ for effort right? So she is wrapped around my legs and I begin to walk to the door to put her bag out of the room. She disengages my legs and rushes to the door and is forcibly trying to keep it shut off from me, now once again good effort but ultimately a losing battle, I manage to wrestle the door open and place the bag outside the room. All the while telling her that she will get it back at the end of class. Now once the door is closed and her bag is out of her sight, it all goes to hell. She begins to stutter/hiccup/cry/convulse all at once, and rather loudly might I add. This would be pretty terrible in its own right but it is at this point that my other students begin to laugh at poor Karen and start to point.

I am thinking what on earth have I just done?

So I bring the bag back inside and show Karen that the bag is OK, but I don't want to give it to her and teach her that you can cry and get what you want (I know that girls will learn this anyways, but I will have no part of it...) I am no consoling Karen when Stuart starts standing on the table. I escort Karen back to her seat with a fistful of tissues, and go and tackle the Stuart situation. I get Stuart off of the table and I am tickling him as punishment (I think it is punishment maybe fun punishment but still) when he trips. Since I am tickling him I don't realize he is falling until about mid-fall and I fail to catch him in time, his head thwacks pretty loudly upon the ground. He seems to be OK for all of about 3 seconds before he starts wailing, it is at this time that Rachel, who must be wanting to join in on the fun goes off like a roman candle and I am standing in a room with kids laughing at a poor kids misery, while another boy is half concussed from my misguided attempts to teach him not to stand on his chair or table, and another girl who wants to cry simply to see if she has tears. Definitely one of my more memorable classes.

So my afternoon classes are rolling around and my boss asks to see me, I of course say sure Michelle what can I do for you? She explains to me that she has just gotten off the phone with one of my students and that I have a problem. The problem is that one of my classes is basically just a den of swearing and she doesn't want her child submitted to such a moral less hell hole. Now these children have been swearing in Korean and yes it is OK that I haven't caught them at it but I am now supposed to have a new 3 strike your out policy. Speak Korean three times in class you get kicked out of class. Sounds good to me, so when the class in question rolls around I inform the children of the new policy and how I am going to be the law. Not five minutes into class I have some of my kids speaking Korean so I tell them that it was their first strike, now two of the kids are OK with it, but the third, Richard is not. He begins to cry and hide his face in his hands. Yay another instance where I have made a kid cry awesome! I want to bang my head into the door. I attempt to appease this child and explain to him that it is going to be alright and that I will not expel him from the class but it doesn't appear to be working, so he cries for another 10-15 minutes or so while I am just dumbfounded and really just dead to kids crying. I didn't sign up to be a monster and it appears initially that I am having a poor effect with these children, but hey good days bad days right?
So after that debacle in a day filled with them I head into my last class, which is a class with all teenage girls and one boy. The one boy who happens to be absent today. So I enter the class room with my usual bravado, well lets be honest 10% bravado and ask how the kids are doing. The response is the typical silence, so I begin having one of my many conversations with myself. "Oh me well my day is so-so a bunch of bad things happened but at least it will be over soon" once again silence or if not that muttered Korean. I begin to try to teach the kids but something is just missing. I give the kids an assignment and just sit at the head of the class attempting to figure out what has happened through the day. It is towards the end of class that I decide to ask the class what they think of me as a teacher and what they think that I should be doing to be better. They respond with this.

"Teacher is always angry, and we are scared of you."

Bloody brilliant.

Kids why are you scared and why do you think that I am always angry? Well as it turns out they think I am angry because my attempts at drama and fake indignation have always been taken at face value, while also my smile is not natural. They say that when I smile I am not smiling but am actually just putting a vicious grin on a malevolent act. So I try to showcase some of my smiles and see if any of them come off as non-threatening, it appears that some do, unfortunately they are all from pictures of me, and none are live-action. Oh well constructive criticism is what I asked for. Hopefully I can smile naturally with them tomorrow. :)

It's a real shame this all happened on April fool's day, but I get the joke now Korea. I get it.

Will "Child destroyer" Out