kids trainers SOS

The following is an actual email to my support staff in osaka:

[ dear kids trainers, it looks like i just wrote you a book - please consider my situation and offer me whatever support and advice you can. * first, on a business note, i have MK, A, B, and C level pre-lessons next week!! i have the materials you sent for A, and B, but was alerted today that MK (and maybe C) level pre-lessons are not standard issue. we've sold these classes and i'm expected to teach them. please save me! ]

i got a marvelous good look at my ass today as it was being handed to me on a silver platter by a room full of darling children..

i had my first kids lesson today and it was a triple-fat model-lesson with major sales potential. i had plenty of advanced notice and took special care to be as prepared as possible. i flipped through the KEW teacher's handbook this week as a review and committed my three lesson plans to memory. i had seen trainer john do something not unlike this a few weeks ago and it didn't look like anything i couldn't handle.

i arrived early and found my wonderful staff girls making the room ready - they had already pulled my materials and made photocopies for me (they are so great). my director asked me to entertain/distract the kids while she took their parents money and i cheerfully agreed.

my first lesson was an AL, just 2 kids - twins in fact, and identically dressed. they were shy in the lobby, but max helped break the ice a little bit. when we stepped into the room and got started, the girls would have nothing to do with me. thing 1 was totally lost in space, unreceptive to any outside stimulus. thing 2, bless her heart, had it in for me. throughout the hello song and head,shoulders,etc., she screamed and wiggled refusing to compromise my survival! mom and grandma did everything they could.. she wasn't going to have it. she finally brightened up at the prospect of throwing a giant die at me for 5 min, though touching her nose was clearly asking too much. she ran out of breath for teddy bear and fumed silently. thing 1 just lay there like a slug.

then the strangest thing happened.. the pair of them were completely captivated by the damn alpha mats. each paired with a guardian, they were touching, understanding, and saying the names of the letters as prompted. i couldn't believe it! things deteriorated again as i intro-ed the good bye song, the girls reverting to their stunned and militant prior states, respectively.

[thing 1 personality i can handle - she eventually snapped out of it and joined the class as i hoped she would. thing 2, however.. - i mean, what can you do when a toddler screams at you for 10 min? her mom's right there and can't stop it.. ]

so, things didn't go so well.. i just hope their mother understands.. i walked out to the lobby with them and grandma seemed to have things under control, allowing mom to talk business.

next was MK - i had 17 min. i quickly set to throwing my outline up on the board and switching tapes only to receive a stiff reminder that i was asked to watch the kids - now a lobby of nearly 6 of them. i walked around but only frightened the children that weren't already face-buried in their mothers. legos were everywhere thanks to my new best friend (and we all know him well), yusuke.

[ i now recognize the dire importance of warming up to the students in the lobby before class, but find i'm at a total loss for words when it comes to kid's lobby talk and mom-side manner. i got "what's your name/age?" - but i could use some pointers here. ]

my new class fell into their student rolls as i pre-taught "let's have fun". on my right, dream child - a fabulously bright and outgoing little girl - followed along and repeated everything i said with boisterous laughter! yusuke followed along to a degree, but made it clear that he would only do so if he could have free run of the room and was occasionally allowed to open and close the classroom sliding door. his mom seemed to agree to these conditions, but was rather red-faced that she couldn't control him in the least. next was a small round boy who preferred to be a permanent fixture on his mother's lap, teetering on the edge of sleep. finally was a hand puppet of 15 months.. clearly just there for the exposure.

things went.. ok. the kids weren't nearly as hypnotized by the video as they should have been (personalities carrying them as they had at the beginning of class). the parachute was a big hit. i struggled to include the guardians and the two children that resembled furniture, but was betrayed by obscured nametags.

i'm not sure what kind impression/sale i made. i did, however, keep the kids in my room for the 20 min interim period, as to give the staff a chance to make said sale. well, that is, i attempted to keep them in my room.. anyway, i was able to get my next lesson plan on the board under elephant fire (yusuke has at least learned the word "catch"), but wasn't allowed a lobby opportunity to warm up to the my next three AM's.

I started out AM breaking in 2 shy kids with some commando. a third lurked outside struggling to crawl back into his mother's whom. my 2 kids responded ok and i did eventually elicit 5 fruit names from each. the third eventually made it into the room but opted to spend his lesson in the corner with his face in a cushion. every time i so much as looked in his direction, he flinched as if from an incoming blow to the head. i offered him fruit, feely-bag, you name it. my efforts were hopeless, my attention just made it worse. when i pulled the table out, he did huddle up to check us out revealing a full-grown una-brow.. likely the cause of all his dramatic embarrassment.

[ in retrospect, i should have invited mom in to coddle lil' una-brow.. but things went ok with the other 2. i did botch the timing a little (due to a small class and failing interest) but extended color time and covered for it ok. ]

so, i had a talk with my staff. they seem to be a little let down that i'm not so naturally talented at teaching kids as i am at everything else (hehe). the worst part is: i think their perception of my performance came directly from parent perceptions - eek. i was able to explain to them why lobby time was proving to be technically difficult, as i do need some of that 20 min. to prepare.

i'm not happy with the way things went today. i clearly lack experience in teaching kids (and experience with kids in general). i'm sure i would improve over time, but my situation here in okayama does not permit such a luxury. i have pre-lessons next week and it's time for me to shine! i've got more model lessons coming up and it's imperative that i do an outstanding job and do my part to sell this program!

now that i've at least done these lessons once, i'm hoping to spend more of my available brain power on classroom management issues. i will read what we've got on this, though (and you know) it can be more difficult to implement these theories in the actual classroom. of course, the pre-lessons are all new to me and will require some working memory allocation to the task at hand, time management, etc.

thanks so much, kids trainers, for hanging with my situation here in okayama. if you were closer, i would have insisted we have this conversation over beers.. but an obscenely long email will have to do. please again * note my pre-lesson requirement stated at the beginning of this email. hear from you soon. -mike!

ECC岡山の Michael Josiah Solo