By law

By law I am prohibited from instructing children without a certified teacher present. But sometimes the rules get a little fuzzy and I find myself in charge of 25 kids. Have you ever stood in front of 25 kids and tried to get them to do anything? It is truly a life-changing experience. And sometimes not in a good way.

Today I found myself in this predicament again. Don't worry, I wasn't explaining quantum physics, the string theory, or anything about Southern Gothic writers. Instead I was given a far, far more insidious task: explaining and then supervising a class of 25 second graders in how to make a snowman made of cylinders of paper. It was a madhouse. But I must have done an ok job. Everyone managed to make one. Only one or two children glued their fingers together. And no one got a paper cut. Score 10 points for me! It was really interesting to me to see the different takes on how a snowman made of cylinders of paper could look. Some sported snazzy candy caned striped scarves. Some snowmen had huge orange construction paper noses, while other had no noses at all. A couple of snowmen had sunglasses. One snowman looked distinctly like a Hasidic Rabbi. There was a snowman playing a guitar. And a suave one with no hat, green sunglasses, and his name was- get this - Rico. I'm not fibbing. Second graders are extremely creative. I made the mistake of deciding to introduce the snowmen to the class at large once a student was finished, which prompted the entire class to bum-rush me waving their snowmen in my face. All I'm saying is that I'm glad I wear glasses, because I suddenly heard Bob Vila in my head admonishing the use of eye protection during construction projects. Yeah, Bob - you may have had to tangle with PBS, but you ain't never had a solid wall of snowmen-waving second graders come at you hell bent for leather. Anyway, we had a snowman named Crystal, which I thought was appropriate, if not a little bit of a stretch of the word snowMAN. One was named, Luis, spelled Loyis. Two kids must be in the throes of Harry Potter because we had Harry and then Malfoy (I set them on the shelf far away from one another, explaining to the class that I certainly didn't want any wizard-snowman battles taking place while I was on watch.) One was simply named, Sara - I guess the pink paper scarf should have been a dead giveaway.

The good news is that I lived to write this down, but just barely. I love second graders, just in moderation. I now have a slight headache and my voice is gone. I've made a sort of informal tally in my head and here's what I came up with. I said the following phrases approximately this many times:

Sit down, please. - 2,732

Sit down. - 10,896

Sit. - 21,451

If you do not sit down, I will velcro you to your seat myself! - 234

Please pick up any scraps under your table. - 83,908

Who's scissors are these on the floor? - 650

Put the lids back on your glue sticks. - 864

No, you may not use the bathroom again. - 109,743

I have no idea, why don't you wait until your teacher gets back and ask her? - 11,952

All in all - a pretty good day. And now I feel prepared for absolutely anything.