My shift visits one of the local elementary schools once a month to teach
safety classes to fourth graders. This particular school has some sort of
word of the week program. Every week, there is a word that no one is allowed
to say. Instead, the students are supposed to replace it with a synonym.
There are posters with the forbidden word all over campus. This week's word
is funny. Of course, I think a "no funny" sign is pretty funny. Perhaps I
should call TBS.
What wasn't funny was the absolute debacle otherwise known as my lesson.
The deck was stacked against me to beging with. I hate batting lead-off but
was responsible for the first lesson of the day (we teach the same lesson
to three different classrooms). Also, Tuesday was the day after St. Valentine's
Day -- the biggest candy day this side of Halloween. I'd bet money
that two of every three of those kids were tweaking on chocolate and candy
hearts.
I like to think that I do well with the youngins. I am the master of the
fire station tour. Fletch talks. Children listen. I've taught plenty of safety
lessons before without serious consequence. I always thought I did a fine
job of being on their level. Sure, I see 30 on my horizon... but I remember
quite a bit about being a fourth grader. I'm probably the most animated person
on my department and am anything but boring. But none of it was good enough
for Tuesday's class. They felt the need to ask every ridiculous question
possible. They made up stories that were completely unrealistic and tried
to pass them off as though they had happened in their very home. Oh, yeah,
and they refused to be quiet for more than about 2.1 seconds.
The general topic was burn safety. In discussing electrical burns, one kid
wanted to warn everybody that if they were arrested by the police and taken
to the police station and did something terrible that they would be put in
the electric chair and that would give them an electrical burn. And yes.
He told the story much like that -- no verbal punctuation. Another time,
we were talking about burn dangers in various rooms of the home. When talking
about things that can burn us in the kitchen, a kid proclaimed to the class,
"that's why they say if you can't stand the heat, you need to get out of
the kitchen!" I had to shut down one kid when he started in on a story about
how this man he knew got shocked or something and fell out of his window,
landed in the street and was then run over by a car. What the hell?
I guess I'm painting a pretty bleak picture here. They weren't all bad. But
it's easy for one or two or ten to bring the rest of the bunch down with
them. Several of the students had good topical questions and appeared to
be interested in the lesson. Unfortunately, one of those students -- a little
girl on the front row -- must have had some terrible arm injury... because
she always chimed in with something appropriate to say but never, ever raised
her hand. Did it matter that I was pointing to someone else in the back of
the room to answer? Nope. She was going to answer, too. I guess she's just
a team player.
When we finally left that classroom, I felt physically drained. I had been
defeated and I don't much like to lose. One of our rookies poured salt in
my wounds when he taught the same lesson in the next class in about half
the time with none of the trouble. Of course, our captain referred to that
second class as something along the lines of "East Berlin." It seems the
teacher runs a tight ship and her students don't fall far out of line. I
think I'll call dibs on East Berlin for next month.
