At the park

So, I had to get up a quarter of an hour early today. Made the coffee, had a shower, went to the park. This is where I have volunteered my services as an educator of small children - of whom I have no experience - about wildlife - of which I know nothing. But I will. I was given an application form which I can take back tomorrow and which asks nothing about my immigration status. I'm still a British visitor and that's fine with them. I really enjoyed the morning session, Lori, the person in charge was a lot of fun, as was Joanne the other guide. I can see, and I knew, that while my teachery expertise will be of some help, I will also have to learn new skills, pitch it differently. For example, when secondary school pupils tell you they need to go to the toilet, you ask them if they are really, really desperate, they say yes, and you say,
'Well then you have just over an hour before your bladder bursts, lesson's 50 minutes, deal with it.' Whereas when small children ask, apparently you have to let them go.

Likewise, when teenagers say they feel sick you tell them they shouldn't have drunk so much the night before and to die quietly without disrupting the lesson, whereas with small ones - you have to listen and do something about it.
Seems like you can't just shout at them to shut up too.

One of the things which I knew was going to be an issue is physical contact. In British schools we have very clear guidelines about physical contact, in both of the education authorities I worked for, we had someone in to train us.
We were allowed to use reasonable force. We were not allowed to restrict their breathing, pin them to the floor, deliberately trip or strangle them, pin their limbs behind their body and a couple of other things. Mostly the restricting them on the floor amused me I guess. I think it was one of the things the police could do but we couldn't.

I remember Austen attending an information session given by his union when he was doing initial teacher training. They gave the example of a teacher who had punched a pupil full in the face because they were running along the corridor and wouldn't stop. That was deemed NOT to be the reasonable bit of reasonable force. Oh well, I'm sure they put up the best defence possible for their member anyway.

In Canada, it's completely hands off. Now you might be thinking, 'oh, for pity's sake, you're only doing a couple of hours a week volounteer work in the nature park, how much disciplining are you going to have to do?' Well it's more that the little kiddies want to hold your hand and get stung by bees and such like.

I will do my best. I wonder if I'll have to stop saying 'toilet' and start saying 'bathroom'. Not sure I would be able to remember to do that, on the other hand I can usually refrain from saying 'bog' although... the nature park is part bog anyway so that could get confusing.

There are visual aids to distract pupils and parents who talk, such as a dead bat and some toad poo. Stopped me from talking so I guess it works.
I also discovered that there are no venomous snakes in the Lower Mainland. Up in the Okanagan they have a very shy rattlesnake but I am apparently unlikely to meet him. Most of Canada is venom free as far as snakes go, I'm guessing St Patrick called here before going on to Ireland.

Like I said, I enjoyed my morning, really liked Lori and Joanne and I'm looking forward to going back tomorrow.
I have homework, I have to do a short presentation on an object. Don't think it didn't occur to me to take in a rutabaga and a turnip.