Early Years: Where the Good are Really Good & the Bad Still Sing You Showtunes.

I always find it funny when someone tells me that they can't imagine me being strict as a teacher, or ask me whether I have a "teacher voice". I'm soft-spoken by nature, and admittedly, I always imagined myself as being the "nice teacher". But I learned very quickly that being "nice" does not equate to a smoothly running classroom -- you have to set up clear expectations, rewards and consequences, and continuously enforce them. Otherwise, you can be as nice as you want, but the kids won't hear your "niceness" over the sound of the complete and utter chaos that will most likely ensue.

As far as teacher voices go, I am still working on that perfect tone that falls somewhere between "Please walk all over me" and "You will hear this voice in your nightmares". However, I think it's more accurate to say that there are different kinds of "teacher voices" that I use on a daily basis. For instance, I wouldn't use the same tone with a misbehaving nursery student that I would with a year 4, or I could be crossing into "nightmare fuel" territory really quickly.

Since being back from Christmas Break, I've spent a lot of time with the younger grades -- Nursery, Reception and Year One. And honestly? It's been nice. I get to use my kind, gentle voice and rarely have to raise it. Also, young kids are quite honestly hilarious because they don't yet realize how funny they are being sometimes. I've been keeping some jot notes on my phone of the adorable things that kids have said or done in the past two weeks. Here are some examples:

• Year One: It's interesting to see the difference between a "troublemaker" in the younger grades versus the older. There's a boy in one Year One class that I have been to many times who always seems to get himself into trouble -- my Teaching Assistant warned me that he had been acting out more than usual that week, so I should prepare myself. The offending student walked into the classroom -- a tiny freckled red-haired boy with a voice that constantly sounds like he has a stuffy nose, which makes him sound even more adorable. As soon as he sees me, he gives me a hug and tells me he missed me. Then he says "Miss Hoffman, I have a song for you -- listen to my song!" and then launches into "Tomorrow" from Annie, but the only words he knows are "Tomorrow, tomorrow! I love ya, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow..." He sings his little heart out and all I can think is "This is the worst behaved student in the class, and he's singing me show tunes... I'm okay with this."
  
• Reception: I stand by my belief that kids telling jokes are the best thing. Here is one from a boy in reception: "Knock knock! (Who's there?) Justin! (Justin who?) A REALLY GRUMPY BANANA!!!" A grumpy banana... why didn't I think of that? Brilliant.
  
  
  



An artistic rendering of Justin.

• Nursery: Near the end of the day, the playground inexplicably smelled like food. A little girl noticed, and came up to me and said "I want pizza." I told her "Me too, if you find any, let me know." She proceeded to spend the entire rest of outdoor time following me around, saying "I want pizza..." in a quiet, sad voice every few minutes. I feel ya, sister. You are all of us.
  
• Nursery: There is a little boy in nursery who I lovingly refer to as "Hulk Kid" because he is obsessed with the Hulk and wears an Avengers jumper basically every day that I've seen him. Here are some Hulk Kid moments:
  
  HK: "Did you know, I met the Avengers??"
  Me: "Really? What did you do when you met them?"
  HK: "I gave the Hulk a hug, because I like the Hulk."
  
  Precious. Also:
  
  HK: "I'm gonna SMASH the Avengers!"
  Me: "I thought they were good guys?"
  HK: "No, they're bad guys."
  Me: "So if the Avengers are bad guys, then who are the good guys?"
  HK: *thinks about it* "My mummy and papa"
  (Of course.)
   
• Nursery: A little girl was playing in the sand tray with a toy dinosaur and a toy pony. She buried the dinosaur in the sand. "I'm burying him because he died", she tells me. Okay, cool, little kids are trying to understand the concept of dying, whatever. Later, she is burying the pony too. "He died too" she tells me, "Because he loved the dinosaur so much". Okay...this is turning into a sandbox version of Romeo and Juliet starring a dinosaur and a pony and I am not sure how I feel about this.
  
• Year One: We had an activity where the students had to introduce themselves to the circle by jumping up, saying their name, and an animal that they wanted to be (e.g. I'm Holly and I'm a lion!) However, somewhere down the line, the students decided that  being inanimate objects was much cooler than being animals and so it turned into: "I'm Ollie and I'm a piece of jelly!!" "I'm Lily and I'm a stick!" "I'm Aaron and I'm a cucumber!" But my favourite was: "I'm Logan, and I'm a shower!!!" *does shower noises* (quietly) "I like being a shower." ...Hey, you do you, kid.
  
• Nursery: In the morning, we listened to the song "There Was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly", which contains the line "Perhaps she'll die". After lunch, I overheard a conversation between one very concerned little girl and a teacher. "Why does she die??" "It's just part of the song, darling, it just rhymes with fly". "...But why does she die?" says the little girl, with the saddest expression on her face. We had to spend a few minutes reassuring this poor little sensitive soul that the little old lady was okay, despite swallowing a fly, and that she did not in fact die.
  
• Reception: We were listening to a Disney CD, and "A Whole New World" from Aladdin was playing.
  Me: "Aladdin and Jasmine sing this song!"
  Girl 1: "They're in love!"
  Girl 2: "Eww that's yucky."
  Girl 1: "No, love is not yucky, it's good!"
  Me: "...You're both right."
  
• Nursery: There are some girls that I have played hide-and-seek with a couple times during outdoor time, which was apparently a mistake -- The leader of this little pack now comes outside and upon seeing me, runs past me and yells "YOU COUNT!" No "Hello". No "Let's play hide-and-seek". Like, come on guys, I have feelings too, am I just a human hide-and-go-seek machine to you?? ...But yeah, okay, 10..9...8...
  
• Nursery: There are a few children with special needs who attend the nursery, and sometimes they will inadvertently do something that another child doesn't like because they don't understand the rules yet. To which the teachers will say something like "It's okay, he didn't mean to upset you, he's still learning." But what's really great is that the kids have picked up on this. One of the boys was doing something he shouldn't, so I reminded him: "Don't do that please!" and another kid instantly defended him with "That's Harry, he's learning". How great is that? These kids don't fully understand the concept of sharing, and yet, they can comprehend that some kids might learn differently, and that they should advocate for them. So important.

That concludes this episode of "Early Years Moments". If you're reading this -- have a great weekend, eat lots of pizza, and try not to be a grumpy banana!


C.