Sundays

I teach Second grade Hebrew School on Sundays. Sometimes this strikes me as funny, since I never went to Hebrew school as a kid! But then again I never went to preschool, and so far I've done pretty well with that!

Why would an uber busy woman add one more thing to her list? In this case, I wanted to get into a classroom again and experience first hand the situations that my teachers can get into. I had this idea that if I could video tape the classes, you would see how to deal with specific discipline situations, or how to diffuse a potentially emotional moment. I assumed that you would see me role playing how to "keep the emotion out of it", or how to use "SPICE" to create a learning environment.

I was dead wrong.

Teaching these kids has taught me more than I could ever, EVER, teach you guys. Just a few examples...

The first day of school, I announced to the kids that THEY were going to have a large part of the responsibility for running this class. I would come up with the ideas, but they were going to have to execute them. So the kids decided to create a job chart. One of the kids wanted to create the role of line leader. "OK, I said, what is the job of the line leader?" He tells me. "Is that all he can do?" I asked. "Well...." started a great conversation, and the ultimate change to the title. We now have a weekly job called President, who, other than leading lines, can help break ties when a decision needs to be made.

These kids are 7. They came into the class expecting to be treated like 7 year olds. What that looks like I don't know. I don't have a 7 year old at home. While I really really "get" 4 year olds, I don't remember 7's. So, I treated them like partners in this class. When behaviors were challenging, I asked their advice. Shared some feelings, and voila, community! This system works. About 90% of the time, we are in total harmony. But the other 10% is the best stuff....

Today we were practicing the Shema. It's a very important Jewish prayer that reminds us that God is the only God. Can be a very reflective prayer, and is said both in the morning and the evening. Ok, so, how do you teach that to 7 year olds? I know... Let's try meditation.

16 kids, laying on their backs, trying their best not to touch each other's feet, giggle, slap a friend, snore. I couldn't get past the initial "Let's breathe in with our noses...." before they started with the oinking and snorting and hacking and laughing. Couldn't help myself. Started laughing out loud with them. Snorted a bit, too, I think. After a few minutes, we were done. After the awkwardness of it all was over, they were able to relax and breath, until I told them to say nothing, which caused a beautiful choir-like sound as several of them slowly said, "Nothing...."

One more. Beautiful 7 year old girl has a teeny, teeny mosquito bite on her face. It's under her eye and near her right ear. Teeny little thing. She is weeping, sobbing , how she doesn't want people to look at her. What to do? I've never had a daughter and never saw such intense emotion in my life. We stepped out of the class (I thought it would make her feel less "stared at") and as I rubbed her hair and tried to get her to relax, she kept crying. I honestly was at a loss for words. (Would you like to take a moment to think about that last sentence?)

I leaned over, tried to get her to look in my eyes, and told her that if she didn't stop crying, I too might start to cry, since this was so sad, and that she just needed to be ready in case I did.

That's all it took. She started to giggle, (why don't people take me seriously?), we skooched her long hair to the other side of her face to kinda cover the bite and went back into the class.

Guys, there is no way I could have thought this stuff up on my own. These classroom experiences have to happen. Need a piece of advice? When in doubt, punt. Relax, enjoy them, and stop worrying about the class lesson. Focus on the Life Lesson.