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Thursday, April 14, 2016

Labelling Kids

No idea what any of this is about...


L is for Labelling Children




Since I’ve been working as a relief teacher, working in random schools and teaching drama to a new class of twenty-five kids every hour, six times a day, I’ve been developing a labelling system to get a grip on how I should approach my behaviour management strategy.

In other words, I’ve developed a creative plan ensuring how I will get through the hour without ending it with, (a) children swinging from the ceiling fan (b) me stringing children up on the ceiling fan (c) me hanging from the ceiling fan by a piece of string, with a blue face, choking out the words, ‘I actually wanted to be a hairdresser when I left school, fudge my life.’

My first clever strategy is to get to know their names. I go around in a circle and get them to say their name and ‘what they love’. 

I can instantly tell who the little fudgers are by their answers. For example, if they say their name is, ‘Jeff’ and they love killing guinea pigs, I instantly know they are a fudging trouble-maker.

Apparently, saying your name is Jeff to the relief teacher, is supposed to be hilariously funny. What the fudge? Is there a reasonable explanation for this? Anyone?

So anyway, my first ploy is to identify the ‘Jeff’ in the class and make him (it’s usually a him) the leader of the first dramatic activity.

‘Jeff’ is usually so fudging SHOCKED to be given an actual job with responsibility, he falls into line for the rest of the lesson.

Once his shady amigos click on to the fact that Jeff seems to like the relief teacher, they all fall into line too. Booya!

Of course it doesn’t work if Jeff is super ADHD because then he forgets he likes me ten seconds after the first activity and then he and his mates all turn against me like wolves on a fudging stupidly blinking rabbit in the head lights of an oncoming semi-fudging-trailer.

There’s also always a Miss Bossy Boots (and it’s always a Miss) in the class who tells everyone to shoosh and tries to tell me her life story (all six years of it) when I’m desperately trying to explain to the other twenty-five rabid hyped up kids, how to sit in a circle. I never realised that five year olds don’t know what a fudging circle is???

Miss Bossy is always my BEST ally. Get in sweet with her and it’s almost as good as having a teacher aide in the room. As long as she doesn’t try to take over the lesson by chastising Jeff, who invariably takes extreme offence and starts cartwheeling around the classroom in a violent fashion and winds up kicking someone in the eye.


And we all know that it’s always fun and games until someone gets kicked in the eye.


Linking up with Grace from With Some Grace for #FYBF