Teach Me Not

This morning I volunteered at Sofia's school for couple hours. Although I am glad I did it, and will likely do it again, I have to admit it served as a reminder that I did well not choosing to be a teacher.

My job was to work with computers, with two children at the time. I was not sure exactly what I was expected to teach them, so I just showed up. Sofia's teacher told me that there was a website, starfall.com, that teaches phonics to little ones, and that she thought that would be a good activity to do with them. She then went back inside the classroom while I setup shop in the common area where the computers are located.

Once I was ready to go the teacher sent out the first two kids, a boy and a girl. They were both pretty sweet, worked on what they were supposed to, and listened to what I had to say. They had the longest turn of all because I had assumed the teacher would come out and tell me when time was up. This was clearly not the case, as the teacher had her hands full back in the classroom.

The second pair was my very own Sofia and another little girl. When we first arrived to school Sofia had cried when she realized she was not to spend the entire time with me, but ended up calming down and patiently waiting her turn. While she and the other girl were still with me the mom of the other girl showed up. Apparently the girl had forgotten to take her medication and, according to what her mom told her, that would have made for a really bad day for the teachers. Hmmm, I did not even want to know. And since the mom didn't really address me at all, which was awkward, I guess I wouldn't know anyway.

My third set of kids was ... well... a handful. Two boys by the names of ... who knows. When I asked their names I swear they said "I am three" and "I am four". That did not make any sense to me at all, so I asked again. "I am three" and "I am four". That's again what I understood. So I decided to let it go. Heck, I thought, three and four it is, at least for the next 15 minutes.

Four was kind of sweet, but he had no clue how to use the mouse. So patient me tried and tried again to show him how and that he was to only click on the left side. But he never quite got it right, so I had to just take over and click on his behalf.

Three was the little terror. He also kept clicking on the wrong side of the mouse, which caused all kinds of menus to keep coming up. He also wanted to click in places where he was not allowed, and managed to even completely close out of the website one unfortunate time. He also repeatedly pressed the keys in the keyboard even though I told him, also repeatedly, that for this activity we only needed the mouse. So needles to say, I felt compelled to shorten a bit Three and Four's lesson.

My penultimate group was comprised of two little girls, one that kept talking about everything princesses and inquired if she would be allowed to play a princesses game on the computer. She also showed me her sparkly shoes, and was wearing pants with sparkly things on the side. Definitely a girly girl, just like my very own.  The other little girl was sweet, but she also had dried snot on her face, which did not seem to bother her at all. I wish I could have felt the same. Clearly I did not, but being that I was only a visitor it did not feel like it was my place to point it out, fix it, or otherwise mess with it. So I tried to look her in the eye instead.

I do not really remember much from my last group, maybe because by then I was tired and eager to get out of there. I was worried that something urgent may have happened at work while I was exercising my patience and good will with Sofia's little friends.

Overall I am glad I went. Sofia was happy and proud to see me there, and I got renewed appreciation for all the good teachers out there.