First Grade Frustration

The other day I did my weekly hour of helping out in my son's classroom. I sat down on the floor with my group of six kids. It was hot as Hades in the classroom because the school turns on the bank of ancient radiators at the first sign of inclement weather, notwithstanding the fact that it's 68 degrees outside. I had to take off my sweatshirt and hat immediately, revealing my weekday hairstyle (unwashed, barely combed) and a stained workout shirt that I hadn't planned on exposing to the world.

The kids were restless so I brilliantly began to joke about the heat: "Boy, I feel like I'm trekking through the desert!" I said.

"I feel like I'm on the equator!" said a little boy. "I feel like I'm walking on the sun!" said a girl. "I wish I were in Antarctica!" called out someone else. "I wish I were naked and swimming in the Pacific Ocean!" "I feel like I'm on the sun's butt!"

"OK, OK, let's read the story," I said, trying to reign them back in. All of my group members were good readers, but two little boys were quite fluent. I was impressed, making a mental note that I need to work more on reading with my son, who was in another group. We proceeded to writing summaries about the book. Two kids got up to go to the bathroom, a diversionary ploy that drives me nuts. But what can you do? They left. Another wanted water. Then everyone began complaining about the heat.

"You know, if you focus on writing your sentences, your brain will actually cool your body down," I said. "Give it a try, you'll see." After a while, I convinced several children that this was true and they began confirming it: "Wow, I feel cooler now." "Look, my page is done and I'm not hot anymore."

But the exercises and the hour seemed interminable. I was fading, and the bathroom-goers were back and ready to cause trouble. One kid alternated between clinging to me, which sometimes is sweet but in this case was merely annoying, and saying inappropriate things like "I want to kill myself to get away from this heat." The conversation quickly escaped my control, culminating in someone pointing to my butt and said, "Look at her butt." "I can't, she's sitting on it." Etc. I was suddenly depressed. I sat in silence as they bantered a bit more and then I quietly said, "You know what, if you think this is funny, it's not. This kind of talk makes me feel like not coming back to your class again." Next thing I knew, the teacher, who like most good teachers was simultaneously monitoring every corner of the room through her invisible antennae as she conducted the lesson with her group, was sending the two infractors from my posse to their desks with stern reprimands.

I felt bad about the whole thing. In the past, I could handle any kind of interruption, usually fending it off with a joke and then a distraction. Now these kids (and my own son) drive me freaking nuts with their attitudes! And they're only in first grade!

After class, another mom said she'd had a tough time with her group as well--the heat and the rainy day had been a brutal combination. "I think I'm getting too old for this--I don't have any more patience," I said. "Well, they're getting older too. Now they really know how to push our buttons," she pointed out. That made me feel better. It also put my own son's maddening behavior in context. On the drive home I made him promise that, in the future, if he was in my group he wasn't going to ask to go to the bathroom or talk about butts!