My day as a primary school teacher

Today I was an official chaperon on a grade 1 field trip to see the painted turtles at the provincial park - a job otherwise known in the industry as 'the official hand holder and nose wiper'. I arrived at school at 9:30am, just in time for the daily revision of numbers, days of the week, caterpillar cycles and the weather. After careful discussions between 5 year old billy and his buddy's, it was decided that counting backwards from 100 by 5's was not possible today, which was Thursday and that although it was cloudy and raining, there probably wasn't going to be any lightening... With my size 12 ass notably hanging over the sides of my plastic little persons chair, I settled in to show and tell which today featured a light/whistle for finding your home when you've lost it and a heart shaped necklace that after question time was discovered to have been found in the bedroom but not on the bed, or under it or next to it.

Finally it was field trip time, which as a primary school teacher means all kids must put their inside shoes in the basket and get their outside boots on. Next it's to the hooks where jumpers and coats are put on while Dora Explorer, Barbie, Spiderman and Spongebob backpacks packed with lunch, change of clothes and towel (as the destination was a lake...) are strapped to backs. Last stop is the washroom. 'Even if you don't need to go, just give it a go because we are on the bus for a whole hour and wecan't stop the bus once we're on it.

A full bus of excited kids on the way to a field trip... I'm not sure any amount of university training can prepare you for that. My 5 year old seat buddy said it best when she turned to me, chewing on a cheese stick and said, 'it's pretty wild back here.'

 
 After arriving at the lake we sat down for the turtle presentation. The turtle woman, talking in a slowed down theatrical voice, was making statements like 'the male turtles private parts are hidden in his tale...' With a tiny hand instinctively pressed into mine, I bit my tongue to stop a little giggle escaping and realised that in order to be a primary school teacher, I would need to learn how to speak 'kid'.

Talking kid is not something I've really done since my ass did fit in one of those little chairs and I thought plasticine was a breakfast food...

I learned pretty quickly that 'stop running around and sit down' doesn't work. If however you start chanting 'if you can hear my voice put your hands in the air, if you can hear my voice stop talking, if you can hear my voice put your bottom on the ground', pretty soon you've got 50 quiet kids sitting on the ground, granted they have their hands needlessly hanging in the air but it's a small price to pay for silent seated children.

  

 

I soon discovered that saying 'you can only point, don't touch', although sounding completely reasonable to the adult mind, is another big failure as moments after the words left my mouth I was surrounded by five year olds swirling their arms like windmills in every direction yelling point, point, point, point!!



I also now know that if you want kids to walk in a row and hike around a lake, you will need to convince them that Mrs Fraser is the engine and Mrs Taylor is the Caboose and that they are all carriages in the middle that can't overtake each other... the downside is the random 'choo choos' that you will hear in between the flora and fauna facts; but this is really nothing when you're speaking kid in a provincial turtle park...


 

After the turtle presentation and the lake hike, we had a bit of time before the bus came back to pick us up. Empty time with no activities is a dangerous thing in the world of a primary school teacher because this is the perfect time for sally to give Mr duck swimming around in that lake a quick pat and for johnny to figure out exactly how many acorns he can fit up his nose...

Luckily these primary teachers were old hats at this and had prepared an activity. With brown paper bags stapled with little lists in hand Mrs Fraser said 'ok kids, now we are going to go on a scavenger hunt.' To which in perfect 'kid' a little girl replied 'We're going to kill stuff?'. With the biggest smile on my face I then spent the next half an hour running around with my team of little troopers collecting shells and rocks and feathers and rocks and acorns and rocks and wild flowers and rocks and... bless them, we ended up with the heaviest bag of them all... and rocks wasn't even on the list!! 

To be a primary school teacher you need to hold a degree in primary education. But more importantly you need to be extremely patient, creative and be utterly fluent in 'kid'. You are probably not going to make your millions in this profession either but the pay off is that teachers can get up to three months of holidays per year. The biggest payoff however seems to be the sheer joy that you get watching these kids learn, be fascinated by rocks, fall and get up again and take it all in their little people strides.
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