Today I had my first opportunity at being a field trip chaperone. We managed to sneak in a trip to the zoo between rain storms. Taking a trip with a class of kindergarten students can be quite and experience. I really thought that I put out a lot of mental energy during the day when I am at work. After seeing what these teachers have to deal with I feel embarrassed about the times I have complained about being tired. I learned a few things today.
- Always make sure your camera is charged before leaving your house for an event. If not you have to take some shots with your phone that needs a data cable to download to the computer which happens to be at your desk and you weren’t going in there today so you have to post a blog with no pictures of the zoo.
- All teachers are grossly underpaid. They deserve six figures just for dealing with that many children at one time for five days a week.
- Any teacher that can do this without having at least one cocktail after work deserves more money and admiration for their self-control.
- After years of internal debate I finally realized today that not going to school for elementary education was the right move.
- After 29 years I owe Ms. Ford an apology. Ms. Ford was my Kindergarten teacher and back in 1980 I thought she was nothing but pure evil. She had to be because on the first day of school she took two sticks and wrapped them in masking tape in front of class declaring that the law. (That’s back when teachers could do that and not get arrested.) I looked at those little boys today and thought about how I was at five years old. Ms. Ford wasn’t evil. She just knew we needed the law upside the head a few times to stay in line. I’m sorry Ms. Ford for all the horror stories I told people about you. You were great and so were all my other teachers except for 3rd grade. She was mean for real. I would mention her name but I am afraid if I do she might find me and want to fight.
4 comments:
I'm laughing and crying! Too true and too funny. I hope you had a little bit of a good time because I think the kids probably did.
Anita,
They better have had a good time because they wore me out.
Teachers need to have better pay for their invisible kiddie hazmat suits they must don every school day: "I'm goin' in!!!!"
And boy, I swore off going to my son's outings as a chaperone for a while because of the tattling factor - seemed like every child was lining up just to tell me what sort of transgressions my son had committed against them. God bless those teachers, indeed.
Cliff, we must lead parallel lives. I too was in Kindergarten in 1980. I too have a kindergartener right now. I too chaperoned the zoo field trip.
Funny post. It takes a very special person to teach kindergartners. And it is not me!
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