November

Alex your posts sometimes make me feel like I am failing at being a helpful, productive member of the human race. I often come home from work exhausted, and I don't make good plans for educating the roomful of kindergarteners I am responsible for in an after-school environment. I will change that. I will. Although a failed experiment on Monday taught me just how difficult it is to teach a group of 5-year-olds how to tell time. Of all the arbitrary, somewhat abstract concepts in the human race, time-telling ranks pretty high. I remember Justin on Wicasa asking why there were sixty minutes in an hour. No one could answer. It's a pretty lame thing to say to a kid. "I don't know...there just are." It's along the lines of "Why? Because I said so!" which is another thing kids really don't appreciate hearing.

November is here, the weather is lingering in the fifties in NJ. I can't remember what it felt like in GA at this point. I think I was concentrating on the fact that I was completely overwhelmed service-wise. There's nothing like walking into a classroom to observe and being told to dive in. There's nothing like realizing that most of the kids don't know how to rhyme. There's nothing like having a successful 15 minute assistance session turn into a 2 minute tantrum which turns into an empty chair next to you. I am sometimes overwhelmed here but it's so different. Everyone knows how to rhyme.

There are some kids who are difficult. One who could conceivably wind up at an IH-type place if no solutions are figured out for him. I am frustrated by him, but not in the same way other people are. It raises my blood pressure when the other people I work with call him a bad kid. It led me into a playground argument when a random mom called him a bully to his face. I risk coming off as holier-than-thou in my stance on him and other kids when I find myself thinking that the middle of the venn diagram of my four year criminology degree and my year at IH have granted me a perspective that some other people don't have. But I can't be the only person besides his mother to see the light in this kid. There are others out there, I'm sure. If I had him in a real classroom setting I would probably feel less zen about it. So I guess I should appreciate the degree of perspective I have while trying my best to not judge others for their lack thereof. (Seriously, I'm trying. Tried. Still trying.)