Kindergarteners

Little did I know that the Disney cartoon "Recess" would be more preparation for the world of kindergarten 
than 6 years of higher education and a lot of experience herding sheep.

Many of the more weathered teachers would tell you right off the bat that since the beginning of time, there has been no more of a degenerate and manipulative creature in the history of the world than the parvulus kindgartenicus.. otherwise known as the kindergarten child. I was also once told by a crusty old veteran teacher that teaching kindergarten students was akin to "herding puppies". Being a non-biased and individualistic soul, I accepted none of these remarks, and approached instructing kindergarteners with a completely open mind (yeah, right). 

Let me go back a step... my district is a little different than all the other ones.. let me break it down for you. We take every kindergarten aged youngling in a 30 - 40 mile radius and put them all in one building. Yea, one building. 400 kindergarteners. No kidding. Seriously.  Oh yea, they don't have a school counselor, so each elementary level counselor in the district takes a turn there one day a week. So, once a week, I take a walk up the road to the kindergarten building and experience a plethora of new emotions every 15 minutes or so.

Thing is, I kind of like it. It's been quite a learning experience to say the least and kindergarten students are kind of cute.. when they're not dirty, disobeying, climbing on things, spitting, talking about hitting people, talking about hitting puppies, talking about hitting their little sister, talking about hitting their grandma, picking their nose, chewing with their mouth open, crying over (literally) spilled milk, spilling their milk, talking about spilling their milk on another student's head, asking where milk comes from

.. or calling me "Mr. Fartkins". Which has happened twice now.

I love kindergarteners.