Sunday, December 9, 2012

Well...this is awkward!

So this summer I was working at a private preschool and child care facility where I was an assistant teacher who taught school age students who attended this facility for the summer camp program. The theme  of the summer was time travel and teaching the students about the different eras that were most prominent in our society.  I worked with two other teachers and we taught anywhere from 40-50 students each week but we all left at different time of the day. I was the closure most of the time so I would work from around 9:30am and leave at 6:30pm. My two coworkers left around 3 or 4pm usually but sometimes they would come in later and therefore close the evening with me. Now that you know my basic schedule of the summer let me move on to the topic of this evening. Awkwardness. What do you do in this situation sort of thing.

Towards the end of the evening on a day I can't remember, my coworkers had left for the evening and I was with 26 students. I had to wait until the students were picked up by their parents and therefore I had no idea when the students would be picked up as the parents were never consistent. I remember that it was a Friday afternoon and the Gym instructor was going to be coming in the afternoon to play gym games with the students. As the students were lining up to play a game called jump the river, I noticed two of my kindergarten students poking at each other and appearing to be agitated with each other. I went over and asked them to be nice to one another or I was going to have to ask them to sit out of the game. The two students moved away from each other and started to play jump the river. It was about 90 degrees outside and so I asked the students to take a water break since it was so hot outside. The gym teacher went inside with the students and I was in between the door to the outside and inside as I wanted to make sure I could keep an eye on my students. I asked my students to wait against the brick wall on the outside once they were done getting water so they wouldn't run around inside. The two students who were fighting earlier went to stand against the brick wall along with the other students and they were standing really close to each other. I turned my head to look inside for a second and when I turned my eyes in the direction of the students against the wall I noticed those two students kissing. KISSING.





And yes kissing isn't really that big of a deal...but when you're talking about two kindergarten students who are the same gender. They were boys. It puts me as their teacher in a very awkward situation! I will state right now that I am for homosexuality and I do not see a problem with a person loving who they want to. But as  teacher and my profession I was at a loss of words on what to do. I witnessed two of my students kissing which caused all of the other students to make remarks and gross comments. I did not like the comments as I know the boys were embarrassed but at the same time I did not think that the boys should have kissed period. It was not the time nor place and quite frankly they were just too young. I was in a panic since I did really know what to do in this situation.
So I ended up talking to the parents afterwards and my coworkers to let them know what I had seen. I was in a pickle since I felt bad as a person that these students might get in trouble with their parents since they were just kids and didn't know what they were doing. But as a teacher, they should not have kissed in front of their peers and I have no other words to describe this besides calling it awkward.

Which brings me straight to that point. What should have I done in that situation?! I did not know how to feel since I was a teacher and on the clock at that point. I was confused about what to do and I felt that this was such a weird situation to be in! I never thought that I would encounter sexuality issues with students. I did not feel comfortable dealing with that situation. So what would you have done in my position??? Get upset with the students, ignore the situation, distract the other students from the situation? I just did not know what I should have done. This basically how I felt in that situation.



I know there is not a manual or class on what to do in awkward sexuality issues with your students. But I hope if there is a next time, I will feel more prepared. Yikes!


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