Thrown

There are days when I was so frustrated I couldn’t go on, and I’m only on my second week of my teaching career. I hated being an elementary teacher to begin with. A high school teacher wouldn’t frustrate me as much, but I was “thrown” here. I didn’t mean that this job is so low or worthless; it wasn’t my call to be an elementary teacher. I wasn’t ready to face children since I’m not yet grown up. I wasn’t prepared to face the battle with children. It’s a big responsibility and big responsibility is only for grown up. Beside, I wasn’t trained to be an educator; I’m a scientist, a scholar. I didn’t have the weapon to face little people.
Yet, there are times I could tell that I feel so proud: Proud of my students, proud of myself.

Last Tuesday, I planned to introduce Living Things to 3rd students. This particular class has the worst students in the whole elementary section, the most notorious students and I’ve had them in my class on my first week and they got me freaked out! I have never met a student like them and with my lack of experience, it’s just too handful for me. In 34 students in a class, there are 5 of these problematic students. So on Tuesday, since they’re all seemed to have full energy from their breakfast, I came up with this bright idea to bring them out from class to do an activity I planned for them to do in the next day: A survival-of-the-fittest activity which required running and jumping. They would use up their energy and come to class calmer and exhausted. It wasn’t as I predicted, it’s a nightmare on Tuesday morning (so should I say a day-mare?)

Did I mention that there was student who just had a surgery and was on a wheelchair? And he wasn’t a small 3rd grader? So I went on bringing them to the soccer field to do our activity (my activity!). I wished this boy wasn’t heavier than I and I could at least piggyback him. Or I wasn’t this small I could carry him. Anyway, I had to bring him on his wheelchair and I didn’t know that the shortest way to access the soccer field is a jungle track with stairway, and…a jungle track. I also didn’t realize that elementary building was build on a higher level so going to the field is going downhill, literally and metaphorically.

An ordinary miracle happened when some of the most problematic students actually walked with me when the other students ran to the field and helped me bring the wheelchair and its passenger downhill and through the stairway and the jungle track. These smaller students actually lifted the wheelchair so it could pass the rough jungle track safe and sound.

Even though I almost got a heart attack when I saw the rest of the hyperactive students climbing over the 3m fence and refused to come down. The rest of the activity went hectic so I led them back to the class almost exactly like Moses led the Israelite to Canaan, with the “Levites” carrying the wheelchair up front. At the end of the day, even though I almost lost my patience when I found out that the notorious stole some magnets from class, I was so proud of the rest. I learned something from them.