Dear Friend,
There is a distinct lack of blogging in my sphere of late. Have the blogs you've frequented experienced a drop in updates, too? I hope not. For some reason my regularly checked blogs (written by "real people" not celebrities or religious groups) have been very quiet of late.
Perhaps my friends have been inundated with hectic schedules just as I have been. I've been, in a way, "upgraded" at my job. I now regularly teach the students in our class. Each day, we divide the 20 three year old children into 3 groups, according to skill level. While one group plays, under my supervision, the second group gets a review from me, whilst the third group gets a new lesson from the teacher in the next room. After the lessons, they all switch, until we've each had time with all of them. I think that system would work best if we had another teacher in the room. However the ideal system for three year old children would be to stay home with a parent, in my opinion. Since that is either not the option or the choice of these children's parents I, and the teacher, are there.
I don't really understand people who think children are inherently good. I've believed for awhile that children are really worse than adults in their habits of selfishness, deceit and just plain sinfulness. You have no need to teach a child to lie, they will discover the talent on their own. Mostly they lie to cover their own butts, but they can even lie just to be awful to someone. You don't need to teach a child about racism or either. It's easy to see how someone is either the same as or different from you. Often you need to teach a child that differences are OK, really. A good deal of what we in our classroom is teach children to say they are sorry to those they've hurt and then forgive those who have hurt them. We try to stop finger pointing.
It amazes me that our biggest "tattletales" are the children who have the hardest time listening to the rules themselves. I can't decide if they're trying to draw attention away from themselves or trying to justify themselves, thinking, "Well, at least I'm not doing that like they are." One of our girls will outright disobey you the moment you tell her to do something, but if you tell a different child to do something she'll repeat it to them as though she's the authority. A different child, a boy, seems incapable of sitting still or paying attention, yet he's the first one to say "Ooh, look what he's doing." He is also frequently heard saying "I'm gonna tell on you."
I can't stand to phrase "tell on". I don't think it makes sense, "tell" followed by "on". Children have been saying it for generations, I've even said it, I'm sure. I also abhor the tone of "Ooh" that all children make when they see someone doing what they shouldn't. They often repeat it and it drives me crazy. If I never need to hear it again it will be too soon.
I couldn't believe when one mother told me her son had flushed his older brother's video game memory card down the toilet. Three times! And broken some of the video games. What got to me most was that she seemed not to punish her son for these actions. You've got to be kidding me! If that had been my son there wouldn't have been a second memory card down the toilet, let alone a third.
I don't get people. Maybe I should work with animals. They make more sense. But, oh, as awful as they can be I do love kids.
