Last Week Of Courses!

I'm just working afternoons this week, and I've got 6 kids. 3 of which are known well by all the adults and most of the children for four reasons:

  1. They are always on a course (morning and afternoon for 6 weeks)
  2. They have therefore done all the courses before
  3. They need to be better than the others
  4. AAARGH I'M GOING TO GO MAD
In my second year, there were these four kids, we'll call them A, B, C and D - all nice children on their own, but put them with another child and they need to show off. If the other child is not one of them, they are OK; they can assert their social dominance and you only get the occasional shout demanding attention. But, put two from the group together, and it spirals; you have a week of the two kids trying to outdo each other. It gets insane. Put three kids together, and you can only imagine. In one of the afternoons in the second year I taught, I had all four.

This week, I have children A and B, and, according to the other tutors, a new addition to the group (lets call him E - although today he was fine). The best bit is that B has already been on the exact same course once this holiday. Exactly the same course. Which he had been on the past two years running. And he was down to do it in week 4 too. He got in there and said "I've done this before! I know what you're going to do!". It gets very annoying when you're trying to introduce things to kids at a level which will keep them entertained and yet not swamped in new information, and then you get this smartass kid in the front, pre-empting everything you do by about 20 minutes and asking how to get on the scooby doo website he went on last year, because he wants to beat his score on the scooby snacks game.

But then again, what do I really expect. This poor kid must be bored senseless by now. I'd love to show him how to use some other programs, but I can't do that without ignoring the rest of the class. You honestly have to wonder about some of these parents... "Oh yes, you can do the holiday courses this summer, that'll get you out of the house and give me some more free time... Hmm, you enjoyed computing last year, you can do it again this year. What do you mean he only does the same stuff? It'll be great, you'll know whats going on and you'll be able to follow it better.. Lets put you down for weeks 2, 4 and 6, that'll be fun for you". Poor kids. You see the same faces there in break, week after week, year after year, and you just know why they're there.

Anyway.

Today, child B was away, and I had A and E at opposite ends of the room. Tomorrow I will put B on the other side, but I don't think even that would stop the chaos; putting A and B in a room together with some other kids is a bit like setting two world powers against each other in some kind of a cold war, and then watching each side pump troops and equipment into opposite halves of a civil war in some crazy asian country.

In other words, it's going to be mayhem, and will very probably end up on the news.

But then again, I don't really care. I'm going to teach them the stuff, and I've only got 6 hours of holiday courses left.

I have a feeling that this week is going to be fun.

Leave a comment