Miss Moments

I was going to write about something else entirely. I promise. But I was reading this article and the precociousness of the writer's son struck me... I'm thinking about all the other little kids that have said the strangest things to me. And after a good laugh, I find my nose tickles and my eyes are close to embarrassingly wet. These are my Miss Moments because ever since I started teaching, I've been called Miss ocassionally and, now, more regularly. My adult students called me Miss too, sometimes. But they weren't half as wise. Or lovable... ;)

Way back, when I volunteered as a teacher in Vacation Bible School for the first time, I had a mischievous little 8-year-old who was always yelling and being rowdy and running around drenched in sweat, when he was supposed to be in class. He had the cutest smile. *lip curl~* They always do! :D Anyway, Miss Me was giving Little J a lecture on how painful it was to be running after him all the time, how he was choosing things that weren't going to help him... then Miss Me got a little sneaky and decided to use the old conscience to prod him into good behaviour. So I said, 'J, do you know you're choosing to do everything else but hear the stories about Jesus and how very much He loves us??' I meant it. I truly prayed they would find the passion of God young, if that was what God chose. And then he looked really sorry and said 'Sorry' again and again! Poor little guy - but what made me cry was when I told him he didn't need to be sorry to me. I didn't mean right then, right there... But Little J took one look at my face and raced up to the altar. He stayed there for a good five minutes. And not one of the other kids who'd skyved could call him back or even get his attention.

They can be pretty funny too! I'm in the classroom teaching eco-systems and food chains. And a lot of hands go up. They're shaking those hands about hoping to get my attention before I call on someone else who might 'steal' their answer and say it before them. I look around measuredly. I pick one hand. 'Yes, K, you have a question?' 'Yes. Miss, is teaching your job? Are you a doctor in real life?'. Wow, didn't see that one coming ;)

Haha, and recess time one day, F came running across the playground to me in tears and flapping hands. '*Sob... gasp... heave SOB* Do you know what happened?' I put my hand to my heart, go down on my knees, widen my eyes appropriately and ask the wailing six-year-old, 'No, what happened?!' And in between those sobs, out comes a barely decipherable complaint: 'She's breaking (broken?) my heart!!!!' and he pointed accusingly. 'Break__ *gulp* ... what?! How?' I'm struggling to keep a straight face, by now, of course, and hoping they haven't got some wild maggot of an idea of love into their heads at this age. 'She kicked me in it'... The defendant had been letting go of some mighty kicks that landed in the vicinity of that organ... LOL much?!?!?! In the interest of fairness (although they both got time out because 'We do not hit!'), he'd been bullying the girls and she was part of a concerted effort to rally back ;) You go, sistas?!

Then there was a special needs child in a class of three who were under my care... This little boy refused to go out to recess. He stayed at the altar in the old, colonial church with the large marble slabs and the broad steps to the altar. He just kinda sat there and hugged himself, y'know? And usually, I would repeat myself patiently with the same tone and the same smile three times at least for these kids. Then they would often repeat instructions after me. Then they would move to follow them, and I would lead them along - whether it was to the water filter, or the snacks section or picking up the crayons. Well, I said it. Three times, just like I'd trained myself to. And M said no, and rocked. And I said it again, expecting and dreading a tantrum any moment now! Eek. So I said: 'Don't you want to go, play with your friends? Run and catch? See? It's fun! This is boring. It's snacks time!' Maybe I wanted to just get out, you know?! Out of that classroom for five minutes. And so I think, I repeated, rather like an idiot who knows she's not being heard, 'Play, go, with your friends...' And M said what I never expected him to say. It was the lesson the previous day, but of course, Miss Me thought these kids may not have 'got it'. M said to me: 'But Jesus is my friend'.