Back in the Classroom

I am a first time tutor at a Classical Conversations Community for homeschoolers.  I hadn’t taught in a classroom for eleven years so I was a little nervous when I met with my students for the first time.  I found that it all came back very naturally, and I was really loving it when one of the kids raised his hand and said, “I feel like I’m in public school again!”  I immediately looked around to see if there were any parents around.  Some people are serious about their homeschooling after all!  I had to wonder, though, exactly what made him say that since I presided over the class a whole forty-five minutes with my almost-two-year-old on my hip at times pulling—even eating—my hair, chewing on the button on my shirt, and once even slapping me right on the face.  Did that ever happen to you in public school?  I felt so good when the time was up and several of the kids said, “It’s over?  That just felt like five or ten minutes!”  I think I can handle this!

The families ate together on the floor afterward, and I went around asking my daughters how it went and if they liked their teacher.  When I got to my four-year-old, she said, “NO!” just as her teacher sat down beside us!  I hope the teacher didn’t hear.  Later on my daughter explained that there were no toys and she missed her mommy!  I hope this is not a taste of things to come!