No, this is not me singing along to my favorite U2 song. It is instead an accurate description of my day. Fateful Sundays... the days of P.E., blood, and 'Chase the Teacher."
Today started out well enough - fairly normally if you discount the fact that one girl wet her pants five times. Five. Before 1130 am. How big is your bladder? The size of a corn kernel? No more water for you, Aisha*. In fact by the time swimming came around, we just wrapped her in a towel in her chair because she had gone through all of her clothes and all of the spare clothes for the entire KG1 hallway.
Then came P.E. Now, P.E. is mostly an exercise in patience for me and in laughter for my teaching assistant Miss Christine, namely because the babies (especially the boys) seem to find "Chase the Teacher" to be the best part of the week. It's much easier to have the girls play a game like "Duck, Duck, Goose," which is always an utter failure with the boys. Of course today the girls had swimming, which means that all 19 boys were outside with me plus 2 girls who don't take swimming lessons. We had just walked outside and I looked up to count and make sure none had escaped in transit, only to meet about 30 little eyes. About 15 of the boys were closing in on me, hands raised, with enormous impish grins plastered on their faces.
Now, have you seen Gremlins? You know, the one starring furry mischievous creatures? The most apt way to describe the effect 'Chase the Teacher' has on little boys is to remind you what happens when you feed Gremlins after midnight. They shed all semblance of their adorable selves and wake up as reptilian demons who try to destroy the town. I started running and after a few rounds, they took me down. It finally happened. I was crushed underneath a pile of children and actually knocked to the ground. Cairo, Philadelphia, Frankfurt, of the many cities I have lived and traveled in, the first time I have ever felt in danger of a mob rush was in a Doha schoolyard. I actually toppled over on top of a child - but all was well. The only lasting injury was a minor scrape on one boy's elbow. Now I'm the teacher who sends kids to the nurse for P.E. injuries.
There is an indefinite moratorium on 'Chase the Teacher.'
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