My Itty-Bitties

As you may know, I teach a wide range of students and abilities, but by far, the most challenging class I have is my itty-bitties.

It’s a small class with only 3 students, but don’t let that fool ya, they’re a handful! The oldest student is my boss’s son, who I have christened Christopher.

Christopher enjoys the color grey, giving me hugs for no apparent reason and whispering secrets to me in Korean. He’s by far the best reader I have, which surprises Mr. Shin, who’s told me on more than one occasion that his son is not very smart. And I dunno, maybe he’s not the brightest kid in other subjects, but at 5 years old, his English skills are pretty impressive.

Jenny just turned 4 years old. She loves the color pink, ring-around-the-rosies and repeatedly cops a feel of my *whowho’s* which inevitably turns me a startling shade of pink.

Daniel. Daniel, Daniel, Daniel. Don’t let this smile fool you, he’s definitely my naughty student. He likes to answer my requests with no, putting color pencils up his nose and drawing on the desk and wall. But he is a funny little guy, and when he’s not being naughty, he’s a lot of fun. And he LOVES ‘head-shoulders-knees-and-toes.’

So many of you may be wondering what do I know about teaching little kids? Absolutely nothing! When I found out I had a new class, and that they’re pres-school, well, I was about ready to hand in my resignation right then and there. But then I reasoned I’m up for a good challenge, and it’ll look great on a resume, so I gave it a shot.

Mainly, I just teach the book, Smart Phonics (why is phonics spelled with a ‘ph’ anyway? Someone was just having a good laugh at that one.) But occasionally I’ll throw in some of my own wisdom.

Because they’re so little, I have to prepare a lot of activities for our 55-minute class. I prepare more for this one class than all of my other classes combined! The first few minutes they have the wiggles, so I try to do something active or get them naming various objects around the classroom. Then when we start practice writing letters and they’re quietly concentrating, I slip in a reading lesson. By far everyone’s favorite time is reading. It’s funny, it doesn’t matter how old you are, or what language it’s in, all kids love reading!

They’ve had some exposure to English, but not much. I’d wager they had a 15-word vocabulary when we first started. Now it’s about 300 words! Little kids pick up language lightning fast, but sometimes it doesn’t seem fast enough! But oh my goodness, it’s oh-so cute when they tell me they have to go ‘beebee’ instead of ‘peepee.’ Makes since though, B and P sound similar and they’re both letters in the alphabet. It took some pantomiming on their part to tell me they had to go potty, but we got there in the end :)

As you can imagine, there have been a few notable experiences with this class, like, one day the boys were showing each other their belly buttons, one has an innie and the other an outtie. This totally fascinated them, and when I turned my back for a moment, I noticed (almost too late) that they were in the process of taking off their pants to show one another other body parts. I quickly replied, ‘oh, no, no, that’s for after class. Let’s play a game!’

Another day, out of nowhere, Jenny stood up and pulled down her pants and underwear in the middle of class. The boys just looked confused, and I asked her if she needed to go pee-pee. She told me no, and readjusted her underwear, apparently it was riding up.

Last week Daniel was being particularly naughty. I’ve had to send him out of class on one other occasion, and he had to sit with his mother in the lobby for 5 minutes. The receptionist translated for me that he wasn’t listening and had to wait outside until he was willing to behave. His mom, not speaking much English herself, put her fingers to her head and made little devil horns and said ‘teacher angry’ and had him apologize to me, after which he skipped down the hall merrily. But last week, he started coloring on the wall, and that’s not a ‘go outside for 5 minutes’ offence, that’s a time-out. Obviously these little kids don’t understand a lot of what I say, and for that reason I only hold them accountable for what is reasonable. Having explained to Daniel countless times that he isn’t to color on the desks, I felt it was reasonable to hold him accountable for intentionally drawing the wall.

At first I was just going to give him a firm reprimand, but that kid is seriously impervious to such things, and he just sat there laughing and smiling away. Now, I should say, when I don’t want the kids to open their books or play with a toy, I never just grab it, I always ask first. This is always a lot more tedious, but I figure if I don’t’ want them to grab things from each other, than I can’t do it to them. So there’s a lot of pleases and thank you’s in class, and they almost always comply on my first request. Anyway, I HATED the idea of picking him up, especially since he’s so little and the last thing I would ever want to do is physically dominate him, but it had to be done.

We got to the corner and I told him to stand there, and when he tried to move I told him no firmly, and waited. I should also mention, sometimes I’m surprised he hasn’t started crying when I’ve had to get firm with him, but like I said, he’s rather impervious. Until now. After he realized he couldn’t move from there, a temper tantrum soon ensued. And in came his mother.

She’s always been really great, and knows he can be a handful, so when the receptionist translated what I was saying, she took it well, and stepped outside with Daniel as he continued to have a complete melt down.

I resumed class and after about 4 minutes, I went out to the hall and told Daniel I really like him and he’s a smart boy, and I would love to have him back in class. Poor little guy, he was totally beside himself. But he was a sport and came back in class.

And as much as I hated having to be the disciplinarian, the next time we had class, and he was winding up an impressive punch, I told him no hitting or else you go to time-out and pointed at the corner. He stopped mid-punch, and I asked him if he wanted to go to the corner, and he shook his head and we resumed our lesson plan. Ah, thank heavens!

And the day I had to put Daniel in time-out, Christopher peed his pants and then pretended he didn’t. I’d venture that was probably the most productive lesson I’ve ever given.

This isn’t so much a story about my little kids as much as it’s a story about my neurotic co-worker who scares the children, Deborah. So I’m the only teacher who has this class. Incidentally, I’m the only teacher who doesn’t speak Korean, so on occasion, the kids will act up and be loud and I just have to make do. Well, one day, Deborah invited herself inside my class and was speaking Korean to the kids, which ticked me off because they were actually focused on me. And then I caught wind of what she was saying, and it included the word ‘ice cream,’ so I asked her to repeat to me what she had just said. Apparently she told them if they behave they get ice cream after class. Oh man, was I mad!

Okay, first of all, there is no refrigerator in the school, so there couldn’t possibly be any ice cream, so don’t make promises you have no intention on keeping. And secondly, if they behave in class they get praise and stars, NOT ice cream! I’m not about to bribe them with sweets! But seeing as I was in the middle of class and her intentions where good, I didn’t make a big deal out of it. Maybe I should have though...

On Pepero Day Deborah tried to give these little ins some Pepero right before class and I just about had a conniption fit. In my very stern teacher-voice I asked her what the sam hill she thought she was doing? She just looked at me like a deer caught in headlights, and tried to explain that the kids looked hungry. My response, ‘if they’re hungry, I have an apple they can share. They do not get sugar 2 minutes before class!’ Some people, sheesh! But that encounter made me wonder, when the hell did I become that person who offers fruit instead of sugar?

So yeah, my itty-bitties... they’re cute aren’t they?