For the last 2 weeks I have been at PAC every day. Last year one of the kindergarten teachers invited me to come and watch her class in their first few weeks of kindergarten (if she ended up having kindy again, which she did) this year.
PAC went back on Jan. 28th, a Tuesday, although Kindy didn't start until the following day in the afternoon. I spent the first day watching how the kindy teachers get their classrooms organised for the first day and helping where I could. Let me tell you, even I underestimated how much has to be done to get ready for teaching 25 children! The amount of work is phenomenal!
Anyway, Wednesday rolled around and the teachers spent the morning running through the final checklist: setting up desks and namecards, putting up posters and colour charts etc. At 11.00 the kids and their parents started arriving even though they weren't meant to be there until 11.30! Wouldn't you know it, they were all very curious and dying to see the new classrooms (PAC built a brand new building for the Preparatory School - that is, Kindergarten to Year 2). No one knew of the classes their children were in, so they were all trying to guess and see which one they liked the most. Of course, the parents were worse than the kids and it started to feel like the teachers and I were exhibits in a zoo by the way everyone was jostling, peering in through the windows and pointing at us. Eventually the headmaster Mr Roots had to come down and settle everyone and tell them to wait patiently on the lawn away from the classrooms.
Finally the classes were announced, the parents gone (after much hugging, photo taking and proud moments) and all that was left was the teacher, Mrs I & me. Oh, and 25 children, 2 of which were sobbing and wanting to go home immediately. We did some colouring and some cut and pasting to try and distract them, but just when you thought they were doing okay, their little faces would start to crumple and they'd be crying again.
At lunchtime, I had kids I didn't even know come up and ask me "when's Mummy gonna be here?" and "when's it gonna be home time?". I had one little girl, E, follow me around wherever I went. She would just sneak up on me and stand near me wherever I went. I don't know how she found me! I'd tell her she had to sit with her own class, she'd nod but then 2 minutes later she'd be back at my side. Another little boy, A, would cry every lunchtime without fail for either mummy or daddy and beg me to sit beside him. The first few times I did, but when there are 75 kindergarten children around you, you don't get the privilege of sitting still for long!
A little boy in Mrs I's class, D, we think is undiagnosed with autism. I have never experienced autism before so it was very interesting for me to see how Mrs I dealt with him from the very first day. Apparently he got "kicked out" of his pre-school after less than a month, and so he has had very little social interaction with others. He plays with the girls' hair because he's never seen pigtails before. He gets super excited whenever Mrs I plays a CD. He can't understand why he can't touch everything and run around the room whenever he feels compelled. He's escaped the room more than once and the first person me and Mrs I look for when we collect the class after lunch is D. Needless to say, by Day 2, everyone knew D.
On Thursday, Mrs I took the class on a tour of the new building. As we were leaving, D saw a horse in the paddock next to the school, and starting loudly exclaiming "I am cowboy! I a cowboy!" over and over. When we got back to the classroom, he spent the rest of the lesson riding his chair like a horse. After that, he was a a frog. At sport after lunch, he was a horse.
On Friday, all the staff were sitting inside when the teacher on playground duty came in to announce that D had pulled down his pants in the middle of the playground and peed in the drain! This was despite Mrs I giving him 'the talk' and telling him he was only to use the toilet. When Mrs I cornered him, he looked at her and said "Don't beeee ang-wree".
Needless to say, it has been a lesson for me seeing the techniques Mrs I uses to deal with him. D has his own special square of carpet that he must remain on at all times. When she talks to him, Mrs I uses the third person ("D must stop and listen") and bends down to his level to look him in the eye. She also rewards children who do what she instructs in the hope that D will see them getting stickers and copy their behaviour. We have discovered that D loves craft and so if he misbehaves, he misses out on craft. He has discovered tears, and sits there sobbing wildly when this happens, but if he is ever to interact normally with others, he needs to understand what behaviour is acceptable and what isn't. Of course, his issue is not really one of him being disobedient, but rather of him being in his own world and not knowing what is appropriate.
One of the reasons we think he has autism is that he sometimes he gets inside his own world and is totally unresponsive. He makes weird sounds and rocks back and forth. He fixates on one thing. He appears not to hear you when you address him. Mrs I often says she'd love to know what's going on inside his head when he gets like that. It's pretty obvious that he's going to need someone in the classroom with him, so I think maybe I might get to do that since I already know and have interacted with him and since last year I worked with Learning Support at PAC.
Anyway, those few weeks were very good experience for teacher-in-training me, but nevertheless I was exhausted by the end of the first full week (last week). Coupled with the fact that Mum & Neil were on a cruise at the same time and I had to semi-run Neil's company for him and have my own normal life, I was beginning to get really overwhelmed. I had intentions of going back to PAC this week, but with dancing going back, violin lessons starting again and having to enrol in my subjects for uni, I could foresee myself burning out before uni even went back and decided I needed a break.
At the moment I am trying to enjoy my last few weeks off before uni goes back at the very end of February. This past week I have been catching up with friends and just chilling out at home. I have dancing 4 days a week, normally at night, which leaves the days free for a bit of spontaneity.
I'm also beginning to organise and plan a bit more of The America Trip. I had my friends Claryse & Haylee come over last week and we started to look at booking activities for our New York trip. Less than 2 months to go and we'll be dancing at Disneyland!
We're taking over America, one purple shirt at a time!
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