Stickers

Dreams where my teeth fall out always make me nervous.  I can never remember if it means I'm going to loose all my money, die, or I'm going to become rich. I don't know why I would think that having a dream about loosing all your teeth would make you think you would become rich, but for some reason I always feel like that is a legitimate option for the meaning of that dream. Like I'm so rich I don't even need teeth anymore. Everything I eat will be in a pill that isn't available to the public that I will be able to swallow with a nice cup of water. I walked out of my apartment complex last Friday and watched a chicken get its head chopped off and then its organs pulled out. I've never not missed a bacon, egg and cheese so much in my life. Rise and Shine!

 I put the clamps down on my classes so hard this week. They were getting out of hand. We were having a lot of fun but the kids were bugging out. I had to flip it back into, I'm the boss, we need to learn, I'm from NYC, now sit down! My second class of the evening tonight I laid into really badly. I told them that no one was getting any stickers at the end of class. The only way they could get stickers is if they had a total of ten stars next to their name at the end of the class. Kids like stars here like ants like sugar. They can't get enough of them. I told them if they had eight starts, too bad. Seven stars? NOPE. Five stars? NO WAY. One little girl said, Nine? - -NO! only TEN! Things got serious real quickly then.  

Class went a lot smoother. I hit kids with stars when they deserved them, but I wasn't giving any freebees out. No one had more than 5 by the end of class. My supervisor is all about finding the intrinsic motivation for the children's learning. OK. but I'm still giving stars to get my kids quiet.  It worked like a charm. I made a few other changes during class that caught the kids off guard as well. Gave them less time to answer questions. Told kids to sit down. Real teacher shit. Less day care shit. We got through a lot of material and everyone focused lovely.  Success.

I lined the kids up at the door. I reminded them about the stars. No one had more than five. Let's make that better next week I urged them. I walked over to the fresh sticker sheet. Not one sticker was missing. It's like looking at that new purchase in your living room that you haven't even taken out of the box. It still smells like store. You're so excited it's yours that you don't want to ruin the feeling by taking it into your room and putting it in the closet,or the drawer or wherever it should go in your home. You marvel at it because it's yours now. Except this wasn't.  I held up the sticker sheet. Little bunnies and bears, all so happy and smiling. Balloons! Lollipops! Oh me Oh my. Now class say goodbye Michelle! - Say, goodbye Nathan! Say: goodbye stickers! Overwhelmed with desire, they reached and pointed at the glistening, satiating, endorphin inducing sticker sheet! NO! TEN STARS!  Pausing, the small children, no bigger than my thighs, my knees even, got back in line. They understood and walked out of the classroom in single file.