Service with a smile

Throughout the school year I've been volunteering at Rhiannon's school about 2.5567 hours a month in the student store.  Kids come during the two different lunch hours and blow their money on everything from composition notebooks and pencils to Oriental Trading rubber duckies and kneadable erasers.

I'm going to be completely honest here--most days I dread it.  I've found many middle schoolers to be loud and awkward.  Some are rude and manipulative, or dishonest.  Some kids just plain scare me!

About a month ago I showed up for my "shift" late and the volunteer coordinator was there.  The student store was HOPPING!  There were kids crowding in the place not just to buy stuff but to hang out with this lady!  People were smiling and happy and joking.  The middle schoolers looked, well, they looked less scary.  I quickly realized two things:

1)  This was normal for my new friend.

2)  This atmosphere was the EXACT opposite of the mood I experienced  created when I was there.


It was eye-opening and very humbling.

So today I showed up, relaxed and ready to have fun for an hour and 15 minutes, or, heck, maybe I wouldn't even watch the clock this time.  I joked around with the kids, tried to be patient, and did my very best to be kind.  The results were magical.  The kids were fun, and the ones who were being obnoxious either didn't stay long or caught onto my good vibes and suddenly had better manners. 

Time flew by, too.

As I was getting ready to close shop, the last group of girls were gathering their things together.  One gorgeous girl looked at me and said, "You look really pretty today!"

Ah, shucks.  Turns out middle schoolers can make you feel good, too!

Parts

Last night I went to bed at 8 and found myself dragging this morning, too.  After I took Oscar for a walk and did laundry/housecleaning, I took a little cat nap and thankfully found my second wind this afternoon. 

I went to Wade's classroom and worked with 4 different students.   Three boys read stories to me and then I "quizzed" them on what they read before they took Accelerated Reader tests on the books.   I especially enjoyed working with this one kid who'd chosen Tedd Arnold's book Parts. I guess I was in the mood for that one because we laughed and laughed through it!  Then I helped a girl with counting money.   

The kids in Wade's class make me feel like a million bucks:

Kids:  "Mrs. Cushing, when are you subbing in our class next?"
Me:  "Next week on Thursday."
Kids:  "YAY!!!!  YAY!!!!"

If they're faking the enthusiasm, they've got me fooled! :)

Rhiannon came home tired, too--she ran a mile in PE and found out that one of her friends is moving to New Mexico.  She's pounding out the blahs of the day through the piano. 

Jason also volunteered at Wade's school today--he was invited to participate in the Career Lunch program and present info on engineers/inventors.  I can't wait to hear about it when he gets home!

Career luncheons...

Jason and I did something interesting this week.  We were both roped into the Career Lunch program at the kids' school, where different people from the community come in and describe "careers" with groups of kids over a pizza lunch.  Even though Jason was crunched for time and I doubted my qualifications, it was a fun experience!  A co-worker had suggested Jason, and then the person making arrangements for Jason asked if I'd do the teacher one.

Jason went yesterday and described the life of an engineer.  I wish I could have been a fly on the wall--I'll bet he was great!  He talked with about 13 kids.  I did my "teacher" presentation this afternoon and had fun.  The 10 kids I had were extremely well-behaved and attentive, and you could tell that most of them really wanted to learn (I think the others just wanted the pizza, but they were still polite! :)).

The most frustrating thing for me was the 20-minute time limit.  There was SO MUCH I wanted to share with them, from college classes to my actual classroom experience to how I still use my degree even though I'm not teaching full-time.  The minutes flew by--hopefully I managed to condense it all in a way that wasn't boring and gave them a good idea of what it was like!