WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEW! To all of the 1st grade teachers out there, I salute you! You all are on the front lines molding these young balls of energy and mischief into model students, and it’s NOT easy work! I loved my 1st graders when they were in nursery school, but I’m not sure what happened in between then and now, but they are just waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much energy for me now. They’re sweet kids, but let’s just say that after class today my ears were ringing from all of the screaming. Eek!
I had 1-nen during 3rd period this morning, and I went to take my supplies to the classroom. As soon as one kid saw me, I was immediately surrounded by a mob of 1st graders trying to get my attention, touch me, clap my hands, etc. I had forgotten something and had to go back to the teacher’s room, and the kids followed around me like ducklings, not letting go of my skirt, arm, or whatever piece of me they were holding onto…..until we got to a certain point. I’ve never noticed it before, but just beyond the 1-nen bathrooms is a line of red tape on the ground that apparently the kids aren’t allowed to cross. Since they are Japanese students, they obey this line. I didn’t realize it, and as soon as I crossed it, all of the kids let go of me immediately. Confused, I turned around, and the kids were standing toes-at-the-line reaching out for me. They waited for me to go to the teacher’s room and grab my forgotten things, and as soon as I had crossed back over the red tape line, they were once again pulling and tugging on me.
During class the kids were just…..everywhere. Screaming, yelling, standing up, and everything in between. I lost track of how many times the homeroom teacher had to calm them down. (Once again…just to re-iterate…I love this class. It’s just that they’re a little….MUCH for me.) During one of the games in which each team got points, she threatened to erase points from whichever team was yelling. That quieted them down for a bit. After that game, we started singing a song, and they were right back to wilding out.
There’s one kid in my 1-nen class who is a terrible, terrible troublemaker. In all honesty he probably has ADHD, but Japan doesn’t recognize that disorder. He’s the only kid in his class who doesn’t have a partner sitting next to him, and the teacher has taped Post-it notes to his desk to remind him not to act up and be a good boy. He even has a smiley face chart. 1 = a smiley face. 5 = the saddest frowning face possible, and 2-4 is a progressive scale downward. I suppose it’s to remind him to always stay at a 1 or so she can tell him, “You’re being a 3 right now. Don’t move up to 4.”
It didn’t take long for him to start acting up. I’m sure this is a daily thing that happens because she didn’t even give him a chance to straighten up. She yanked him out of his seat and took him to his time out corner in the back of the classroom. In the back right corner is a tall cardboard box wall with 3 sides. Whenever he starts acting up, he has to sit there and can’t participate in class. On the inside are notes about proper behavior taped to the walls. He stayed back there for about 85% of my forty-five minute class today. At one point in time, he ran out of the time-out corner and smacked a kid for no reason whatsoever. If looks could kill, that kid would have been soooooooooooooo dead. The teacher slammed her chalk down on the tray and raced to the back of the classroom to yank him up by one hand and drag him back into his time-out corner.
When I got back to my desk after class, my ears were ringing from all of the shouting and screaming that I had suffered through in that forty-five minutes. Ugh! I also ate lunch with my 1-nen kids. When I went to class at 10:30, there was a girl that had a nose bleed. She took her tissues out of her nose to show me, and I turned my head and whispered, “Don’t touch me. Stay away from me.” When I went back for lunch, the same girl was carting around a fresh tissue and wiping blood from her nose. I’m no doctor, but I think a two hour nose bleed is a bad thing! Not only that, but it was icky and grossing me out.
Above everything I feel really, really bad for the 1st grade teacher. Just as she was getting ready to sit down and enjoy her lunch, a kid spilled his milk, and she helped him clean it up. She had to deal with misbehavers, nose bleeds, shouting, slapping, spilled milk, and that was just a typical day. She’s one of the kindest and most patient teachers at the elementary school, but there has to be a breaking point somewhere. I don’t know how she does it day in and day out!
Since it was pouring rain all day, we didn’t get to go outside and play during recess. Sad day! Instead I went to the 2nd grade classroom. They were playing with Play-doh, and I joined in. Each of the kids has a huge tub of it that I assume they use for math or science class to make models or something. While I was molding flowers and food items, a couple of girls decided to play with my hair. I let them. They braided and un-braided, put it up, then took it down, twisted it into a bun, and then flipped it into a ponytail. Regardless of the fact that their hands were greasy from the Play-doh, I let them do it because it felt too good to tell them to stop.
And that’s it for today! Hopefully I can write another blog tomorrow because I won’t have the opportunity to on Friday since I’m heading to the city for a conference.
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