Particularly when one lives in a state that tends to have snowy winters is
All
The Frickin'
MUD!
Seriously, between late February and mid-April, most of the ground in my immediate surroundings attains the consistency of a wet sponge. The bottoms of my jeans are perpeturally damp and dirty and Marley (a very, very blonde-verging-on-white Labra-Horse) needs near constant hosing down.
Still, being rather a homebody, the traditional spring mudfest is rarely that big a deal to me. And then weekends like this past happen to me. Don't get me wrong, it was fun and all...but I ended up with mud in places where mud ought not to be, I'm STILL doing the laundry, and I had to give a couple of camp counselors a subtle dressing down.
Yes, this Elf went camping.
I HATE camping.
I mean, I acknowledge that it's a great family-building activity, and the outdoors are something that people really should experience. Just--I don't like experiencing them PERSONALLY. I think my aversion has something to do with the last time I went camping. It was a week-long Ren Faire (Rennaissance Festival, for the unfamiliar), it rained like a son of a gun, the only bathrooms available were solar showers and port-o-johns and there was an outbreak of food poisoning.
But that's a tale for another time.
So Elf, one might say, if you hate camping so much how did you end up spending the first three days of your spring break camping in the middle of Mud Central and subtly dressing down camp counselors?
And to one I might reply: I have absolutely no idea.
Well, scratch that, I know how I ended up doing all that. Basically, my school was running an SAT Prep camp this weekend. It was open to juniors and it was just a last-ditch run through of test strategies, practice tests, etc, with some fun activities mixed in. We went to a YMCA campground, stayed in cabins, the whole nine yards.
This would've been wonderful and totally something I was not interested in doing ('cause I really, REALLY hate camping), but when I agreed to do the advertising flyers for it...yeah, my assistant principal thought I was agreeing to TEACH at it.
*sigh*
I'm not even going to get into how that misunderstanding came about. Any road, so, three days before we let out for spring break, my assistant principal comes to me and asks if I need anything for the camp.
And I'm all, "Do what now?"
And he gets this comical look of horror on his face, words get exchanged, and I end up agreeing to do it 'cause it's really too late for them to get anyone else, and I DO quite like most of the kids who are going. And he even agrees to let me bring Marley, as arranging boarding for a dog with Marley's unique health needs is not something that can be done spur of the moment.
That was pretty fun, by the way. Marley had a blast running all over the place and playing with the kids, and he was a big hit with pretty much everyone. Even a couple of kids who said they were afraid of dogs were utterly charmed by him. I think it's 'cause he's a big sweetie, and actually a pretty laid back dog once he's run some energy out. The last day, I even brought him into class with me.
Granted, I had a moment where I thought I was gonna have to strangle someone. Evidently, when Mr. S told me I could bring my dog, he didn't clear it with the camp. So I get out on check-in day with my Labra-Horse and the camp guy's all "Uh...what's that dog doing here?"
Fortunately, this Elf thinks quickly on her feet. "This is Marley...he's kind of a class project. Teaches inner-city kids about compassion and empathy. He goes where I go. Have you heard of Therapy Dogs?"
Total bullshit, but I've found that if you say something with perfect confidence and authority, people will rarely question you. And hey, technically nothing I said was a lie. For that weekend, Marley WAS kind of a class project. The kids totally shared responsibility for taking him out for potty breaks and playtime when I was otherwise occupied, he DID teach them empathy and compassion when I explained his health problems and why it was important for them to be gentle with him and not give him people food, and he DID go where I went. And I only ASKED if the guy had heard of Therapy dogs, I never said Marley WAS one.
Yeah, I'm really counting on the fact that I voluntarily teach middle school to keep me out of hell.
So, the weekend turned out to be pretty fun. The kids were pretty good (though it quickly became obvious that I was the voice of authority there. Five chaperones, one of whom was the assistant principal, and I was the only one keeping any kind of order. I had to enforce curfew by myself, make the kids clean up after activities by myself, and I was the only one inspecting cabins before we left...two groups of kids were going to try and leave their cabins in utter shambles! I was a little irritated by that) and we got a lot done. Marley was beside himself with joy at all the room to run around and new people to play with. Most of my kids adored him and would fight over who got to play with him, walk him, and feed him.
The only real black mark on the weekend came from the camp counselors who came by in the afternoons to do team building activities with the kids. Now, in their defense, my kids were pretty obviously a very different clientele than the camp usually got. And obviously, these guys were used to dealing with kids much younger (and frankly, much more respectful) than my kids. But the first activity day was a disaster. They dragged us out to this big field (and yeah, that mud I mentioned? I almost lost a shoe. Several times) where my kids were promptly horrified by how dirty their shoes were getting, and things went downhill from there. (That's a cultural thing that it takes a while to get used to...my kids, their prized possessions are their shoes. Two rules in dealing with my kids...never, ever insult anyone's mama, and never mess with someone's shoes). And then we get to the activity...and it's pretty elementary stuff. Maybe on a nicer day the kids would've gotten into it, but they were pretty lackluster in their response.
And the counselors? Got really pissy about it.
I'm sorry, but that's rule one in dealing with kids...sometimes your plans aren't gonna go the way you want, the kids aren't gonna react the way you want, and you gotta be flexible. Your team-building activity isn't going well? Figure out a new way to approach it, don't force the issue and make everyone miserable.
But yeah, the counselors forced the issue and plowed ahead with games no one was interested in and were really too juvenile for high school juniors to get into. And when my kids get bored, they get hard to control and it was just one vicious circle. I tried to step in and stir up some enthusiasm, but the counselors very obviously didn't like me trying to take over and the kids picked up on it (and enough of them liked me enough that perceived rudeness towards me put the counselors even further down on their shit-list and...yeah. Bad things).
But then the counselors started making these--comments. Really, really unprofessional comments and rude observations about my kids, and the way they were dressed, and their ability levels and I just saw red.
You don't insult my kids in my hearing and get away with it.
The counselors hadn't realized I was standing close enough to hear them, and it was kind of darkly amusing to see two of them jump slightly when I sidled up and cleared my throat. And I didn't yell at them or insult them or anything (that would have been unprofessional of ME, and I wasn't about to give my kids a show like that), but I very politely informed them that my kids didn't have the opportunity to do things like this that often and they needed to take that into account before they started getting huffy at my kids.
And let me state, I do teach in a school that primarily serves socially and economically disadvantaged African American students. My babies come from some hard situations. I don't use that as an excuse for them, I don't believe that they are any less capable, or should be treated differently because of their backgrounds...but it does need to be taken into account when planning these kinds of things. When I plan lessons, I keep in mind that a lot of background experiences that I'd take for granted in a different school need to be explained or shown, so that my kids can reach their fullest potential. Planning activities for a bunch of inner-city high school students the way you would plan for a bunch of private-school elementary students and then getting pissed when they didn't react the way a bunch of private school elementary students would was just irresponsible and somewhat insensitive.
And insulting my kids just pissed me off.
Other than that, though, pretty successful weekend.
And yeah, Marley had a blast.
But GOD, the mud was nasty!
No comments:
Post a Comment