Coming to Jesus Day with Kindergarteners

Things people never say about me:

1. Claire definitely knows her stuff when it comes to computer programming. She basically built the internet. 
2. Claire is a really good dancer. She should do Zumba in front of people more often. 
3. Claire is an awesome teacher for young kids--she can connect and manage little people so well.




And thus we shall focus on this last point, for I've spent January through right now trying out teaching German at a K-9 charter school in the afternoons before heading off to pursue a PhD in German Studies (so I can teach at a university in the far distant future). 

If we backtrack a little, we can remember that I taught German at BYU and loved it. 
I am, of course, wildly entertaining in my passion for German and relatively insightful as a teacher; generally, I seemed to convince my university students of this as well. Or perhaps they merely convinced me of this but regardless we all had fun together.

And then if we go back just a few months, we remember that I started teaching at this charter school and deemed my instruction of junior high age students adequate and of normal elementary schoolers passable. 

But goodness gracious we all know I was not made to be a kindergarten teacher. 

I won't go into the gory details of how my classroom looks like during the 26 minutes on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays I have my kindergarteners, but I will say that many chemistry teachers have come to show their students this living representation of how electrons works (only with more tears and flying cushions). #fakenews

Last week we had a slight pause in our normal frenzy of electrons though. By some miracle, we had an awesome 7 minutes of understanding and relative stillness.

Usually when one kid cries, the other kids don't care and they carry on in whatever world they've built for themselves.

But somehow one of my students, whom we will call Student X, cried magical tears right at the beginning of class that stopped every student in his/her tracks. In the quietest moment we've ever had, twelve students listened to Student X as she wept that no one liked her and Student Y was always mad at her. 

To which Student Y replied that Student X was always saying what she thought he was feeling but she hadn't actually asked how he was feeling and he was more sad than mad right now. And then Student Z started sniffling because he didn't feel loved or understood either and why were people such tattle-tells? 

So we all sat in a circle to sing figurative kumbayas together in what resulted as the pinnacle of their (limited) experiences with German.

In a stroke of brilliance, I decided that everyone had to say "Ich mag dich" (I like you) and then something they liked about each person in our class. It actually started out fantastically. Student T even started sentimentally crying after  Student H told her how awesome she was and oh yes let's not forget the excessive hugging and giggling and exclamations of "You're cute!" and "I love how crazy you are!" 


During this singular moment, I started to think, "Wow, this an awesome coming-to-Jesus-moment. Maybe I am good at this. I hope they remember how good they feel right now and this changes their whole world"<<BANG CRASH MWAHAHAHA!!!>>"ah well..."

Yeah, we lasted a glorious 7 minutes in community, quiet, and even some sense of learning German before the electrons resumed their speed and carelessness of the world around them. 

Which is 6 minutes and 58 seconds longer than usual so I'd still call that a victory both for classroom management and emotional therapy as I draw to the close of my teaching days. 

#temporaryteacher #reluctantgraduate #unreluctantgradstudent #abouttobeunemployed #cometojesus #ichmagdich


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