2009-10-15 - 5:46 p.m.

There are many reasons that I got my Masters in Secondary education. I can rattle them off to you in a thoughtful way (can you thoughtfully rattle? perhaps), but I would probably end with the clincher:

I do not want to deal with bodily fluids.

My first year teaching, a 6th grader peed her pants in class for some strange reason. That disillusioned me about my future chances of avoiding other bodily fluids, but the next two years, the 8th graders were, overall, remarkably able to control their bladders, which was nice. They might call me mean names when I told them to wait to go, but I can handle name-calling.

Since working at an ECE-8, though, I have slowly been more and more exposed to the primary grades, and I am more and more convinced that I never ever want to teach them as a class. Kindergarten looks like hell to me and I think the people who teach it are complete saints. I've also learned that there are other awful things about the primary grades, beyond just bodily fluids.

Like tears. (I guess, technically, tears ARE a bodily fluid, but they really aren't the same as what I was originally thinking of.)

Today I had a meeting with the secretary to register for the Scripps Spelling Bee (!!!), and I walked into the office as wails bounced off the walls and ceiling. A little ECE kid was being held/restrained by one of our secretaries, and he wouldn't stop. Minutes went by, we got him water, he refused it, but then he seemed to calm down. Rena is the quintessential hardass mother, full of empathy but well aware that you have to suck it up and deal. After he finally calmed down some more, Rena let him go, and then ...

He was off like a shot. I had no idea that 4-year-olds could run so fast!

Rena ran after him, and I ran after her. He ran straight down the hallway for the entrance outside which his dad wanders, selling Mexican ices and candies to the kids after school, and past all of the first grade classrooms. He made it past one teacher who tried to just glare and shush his cries, and then past his first grade brother, whose eyes got huge, until one final first grade teacher caught him -- she's done this before. Rena swung him up onto her chest and grabbed his brother as we all trotted back to the office, his loud complaint ongoing.

He calmed down some when his brother spoke to him ("Pepe! Pepe!"); it seems like his 6-year-old brother has done this before. But his wails and laments continued for nearly a half hour after that. I left and came back, only to sit with Rena and watch the replay of our dash down the halls on the security camera footage as we giggled and tried to ignore his continued cries from the assistant principal's office, just glad we didn't have to deal with him anymore.

I NEVER want to teach those kiddos. I can handle them one on one, but damn -- that job is hard.