Lessons from the First Day of School

Today was our first day of classes. Oh my golly gumdrop (yes, after two weeeks of struggling with my stubborn, dirty mouth that kept cussing, I finally switched to more kid-friendly language!), it was a major paradigm shift! This year I am teaching the toddlers’ class…yup, 11 two and three year olds!!!
It was not only the kids’ first day of school today, but mine as well. After two years of semi-retirement from the preschool world, it took some readjusting for me to get back in sync with being Teacher Ria. Some lessons and realizations from today are the following:

1. My internal megaphone isn’t working anymore!!!! Kailangan ko ata i-exercise ang aking vocal cords!!!

2. Velcro is an amazing thing. I just love it. Everything on my wall is held up by this marvelous invention.

3. Breakfast is the most important  meal of the day. Yes, apparently what mommy and daddy said is true…being a non-breakfast eater since time immemorial, I, of course, did not eat this morning. By playground time I was feeling faint…huhu.

4. The early bird catches the worm. Maybe this is not the best heading, but as a teacher, I have to get used to waking up early again because I have to be up-and-about for the kiddies…many of whom came in earlier than me. Thankfully they were not my kids hehe.  

5. Kids songs are catchy. Its 2:20 now and I will be heading to my undergrad class in half an hour and I still can’t get the Mr. Sun song out of my head…Oh no…

6. All the preparation in the world is never enough when you teach kids. I guess this is true even for teaching in college, but I thought I had everything down pat today but I found myself constantly shifting and adjusting to the situation. Haven’t done that in a while!!!

7. Time really flies when you’re having fun. Even if it was a bit difficult, it was more fun than I expected. Before I knew it, class was over.

8. Being silly can be fun. Teacher Grace likes making funny faces. As does Teacher Jam. I DON’T!!! I don’t know what it is about making kooky faces that I don’t like, but I can’t seem to let loose and allow myself to do it, especially when I know my picture is gonna be taken. But today, I caught myself making a fool out of myself and just having fun with it. With a camera,on the other hand, that’s another story.  

9. Preschoolers are not that different from college students. I must admit, however, that in many ways, my two year olds are eerily similar to my sixteen-seventeen-and-eighteen year olds….For one, half the time I talked to myself…another is the difficulty to get them ALL to focus AT THE SAME TIME!!! It’s like when I finally get one batch to settle down, the others get up and do something else (parang sa PERSEF ba!).

10. Smile and the world smiles back. Baduy ba? Anyway, it occured to me today that simply smiling, inspite of everything else, does help take away a lot of things. A big, bright smile, a clap of the hands and a silly song helps wipe away those tears that fell from my kids’ eyes. Then again, it could be that mom and dad were still around.

In all fairness, even though there were a lot of challenges during the day, it went pretty well.  Here’s hoping that tomorrow will be even better!!!