Respect for Teachers

Yesterday was quite interesting. I worked as a lunch monitor at a local school. Upon arriving everything seemed fairly normal. The children arrived from library and got out their lunches. I was told that some students would be coming in to assist soon and was told my basic duties. The teacher left and I was left with a class full of five year olds. I had no idea what their names were so I tried to introduce myself to as many as possible, in between opening containers, and telling a little girl to stop drinking continuously from the water fountain as she was getting so wet she was near drowning. Then I realized I had no idea how many children were in the room and started counting. Sixteen kids in all!
Well, no one ended up showing up to assist me. The children were done eating within five minutes and mass chaos ensued. They were sward fighting with cardboard tubes, throwing balls and wrestling each other. one of the little girls was a head wager with attitude and I was about to have a panic attack all within fifteen minutes of my arrival. I managed to get the children seated on the carpet for a story which took about five minutes to get them to stop talking and pay attention and three minutes into the story the bell rang for recess. Of course there was one little boy who didn't want to put his coat on so all the other children were standing in line pushing and shoving each other. I finally managed to get both arms in his sweater and get out side. Recess was mass chaos as well with children fighting over balls and arguments needing to be brocken up. And oddly there was a Carny in the parking lot emptying his van. I don't get that one.
After this hair raising event I went back to my other job to learn the joys of STI's. I think that's a safer place to be to be honest. If a teenager does something stupid everyone blames the teenager. If a child does something stupid it's always the fault of the adult in charge.
I definitely have a new found respect for teachers.

Sally