higgledy-piggledy
\ HIG-uhl-dee-PIG-uhl-dee \ , adverb;
1. in a jumbled, confused, or disorderly manner; helter-skelter.
1. confused; jumbled.
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Victor felt his eye start to twitch. He shut them hard for a moment to try and
still them. He hoped just passing it off
as blinking would prevent anyone from noticing how frustrated he was. Not that it mattered anyway. It wasn’t like anyone in the room with him
had any idea what basic body language meant.
With a room full f first graders, it was easy to hide what he was
feeling unless it was extremely obvious.
Looking
around at the chaotic gaggle of children, he had to wonder why he had even gone
into teaching, especially since it was only the first day of school. He had told the kids to stand in a neat line
to go to recess, and for some reason, they seemed unable to do so.
They
stood in confusing, uncoordinated jumbles, massed around a few of the better
behaved children into a loose line-like pattern that was anything but
neat. The fact that were unable to stand
still for more than a few seconds didn’t help either. They constantly moved in unpredictable
directions at random, which only served to increase the disorder of the room.
Is it always going to be like this? He thought to himself, hoping the answer was
no. I
mean, come on. It’s not that hard. He took a deep breath and started trying to
herd them into a straight line.
“Ok,
kids, remember each of you stand right behind another.” He called out.
His
words did seem to have an effect. It
just wasn’t the one e wanted. The kids
treated it like a game. Some of them
froze in place, and others would stand right behind them. This lead to quite a few bumping into each
other, and some even fell. None of them
were hurt, and even the ones that ended up on the ground burst out laughing
wildly. That was something to be glad
of, but it only made the room more jumbled and difficult to control.
Dear lord, do they ever stop? He asked
himself. He already knew the answer to that. His first instruction seemed to have an
effect though, he just needed a starting point.
He picked out the first kid he saw and went from there.
“Ok,
Zack,” He said, pointing to the boy who
happened to be closest to him. “Why don’t
you stand up facing me. That’s a good
boy.” He said when the small boy actually
did as instructed. “Ok, now everyone
stand in a line behind Zack.”
“Hey,
how come Zack gets to be first?” Said
another boy. Oh boy, here it comes. Victor thought as the chorus of children
demanding to be first in line issued forth from just about every kid in the
class. Victor did his best to sooth the
children by making promises to each of them, saying that everyone would get the
chance to be first in line at some point or another. He would have draw up some kind of schedule
for that, or else there would be hell to pay in the form of screaming children.
Once
the egos of the tiny perpetual motion machines were soothed, they started to
line up successfully. Victor breathed a
sigh of relief. He had done it. He had finally gotten them to make a more or
less straight line. There were some who
insisted of standing a bit further out to one side than others, but he could
deal with that. The fact that each and
every one of them fidgeted in place was also fine. H just needed them in something like a
line.
“Ok! Let’s move out!” He called.
The kids giggled at the over exaggerated instruction. Victor started leading them outside the
building to the playground. Once they
were there, their natural tendency to do whatever they wanted took over and
each and every one of them dashed off.
For the
next half hour, he was free. For one
blessed half of an hour, he could hold a conversation with other adults. And for that one half hour, he could just let
his mind go. Apparently, recess was for
the teachers as well as the students. He
could already tell this was going to be his favorite time of day.
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I'm sure every first grade teacher out there knows exactly how this feels. Every parent too, but on a different scale. Although, I suppose it balances out since teachers have more kids at once, but are with them for a limited time, while parents have a smaller number of them, but have to deal with the youngsters for quite a bit longer. My respect (and sympathy) goes out to both groups though.
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