Teaching Small Children

As some of you may already know, I have chosen to teach primary level children for the next few weeks in London because the secondary aged ones were doing my head (and vocal chords) in!

There are many aspects to teaching the little children that make it preferable to secondary over here. Firstly, they have a little less attitude. They also still hold a certain fear/respect/wonder for adults, so they tend to listen to you more readily. They are also more willing to laugh.

There is a down side however. Grade 4 children are loud. The boys do silly things, like karate chop coloured pencils. The girls gravitate towards you and they stand around desperate to do jobs for you even if all you want is for them to go away so you can have two minutes piece and your playlunch. (Hehehe... playlunch!) They also touch you. Not in any kind of wrong way... I don't feel violated, but constantly. They lean on you like a lazy greyhound you're trying to take for a walk. They touch your watch or your stuff because they're fascinated by it. All perfectly normal and healthy, but my goodness I really hate it.

Earlier I meantioned playlunch. They don't do it here. The kids do have a break where they go outside and burn energy and sweat and then come back into the classroom all hyper. It happens at about 11am and goes for maybe 15 minutes. But they don't get to eat until lunchtime which can fall at any time between 12 and 1pm. Bizarre. I don't know how they function. Actually, they don't really function that wellafter about 10am. Either because they're wilting or because they just loaded up on sugar and crisps. Hmmm. Odd.