Consider The Position
Back in what is now referred to as The Day, when I worked at Borders (now referred to as that corporate drama hellhole that I can't stop referring to), there were some days where I'd walk in the front door and then just stand stock still, trying to comprehend the sheer amount of media in front of me. Standing there, by the entrance, or even up on a ladder, I could see the store spread before me. Countless rows and rows of books and cds and dvds. The shelving reaching from purple-carpeted floor to elevated ceiling. Stacks of books on the floor, plastic shelves on the end of wooden shelves in order to fit even more in. Understock, overstock, cabinets, cupboards, and the warehouse behind. So much merchandise. I could be surrounded by it for weeks at a time before stepping back and just staring at the sheer innumerable gross of it all. The feeling would fade, and I'd get back to what I considered work, and not think about it for a while.
Nowadays, my equivilant to that, the feeling where I suddenly realize what I'm surrounded with, happens during circle time. We'll be halfway through a story about the little critter and his father camping, and I'll just pan back and take in the amount of nervously moving energy that I'm sitting behind. We have about eight or so kids in the Social Skills Class (how ironic, isn't it, that I'd teach a social skills class), and if you stop and *look* at them during circle, the lack of stillness can almost be uncomfortable. They can not, for the life of them, remain still. The chairs they sit in are plain. Some have only four pieces of smooth wood arranged for sitting, but the kids still slump and twist and fidget and stand up and pull at their pant legs and wrap their hands in the ends of their sleeves and pull their feet up onto their lap and sing to themselves and fake sneeze and untie their laces and unsnap their velcro and finger the pull tab on their pockets and blink and twist their fingers in their hair and other countless small motor activities.
What makes me feel the worst, though, is when I realize that I'm an awful role model. There's no way I could sit straight through circle time. About two songs in, I stand up and go arrange something, or blow my nose, or visit the bathroom. If I come and sit back down, or if I have to sit back down because someone's misbehaving, I scratch my ear and then take my earrings out and put them back in and then adjust my collar. I feel like I'm just as bad at it as they are.
But the movement. So much movement.
Nowadays, my equivilant to that, the feeling where I suddenly realize what I'm surrounded with, happens during circle time. We'll be halfway through a story about the little critter and his father camping, and I'll just pan back and take in the amount of nervously moving energy that I'm sitting behind. We have about eight or so kids in the Social Skills Class (how ironic, isn't it, that I'd teach a social skills class), and if you stop and *look* at them during circle, the lack of stillness can almost be uncomfortable. They can not, for the life of them, remain still. The chairs they sit in are plain. Some have only four pieces of smooth wood arranged for sitting, but the kids still slump and twist and fidget and stand up and pull at their pant legs and wrap their hands in the ends of their sleeves and pull their feet up onto their lap and sing to themselves and fake sneeze and untie their laces and unsnap their velcro and finger the pull tab on their pockets and blink and twist their fingers in their hair and other countless small motor activities.
What makes me feel the worst, though, is when I realize that I'm an awful role model. There's no way I could sit straight through circle time. About two songs in, I stand up and go arrange something, or blow my nose, or visit the bathroom. If I come and sit back down, or if I have to sit back down because someone's misbehaving, I scratch my ear and then take my earrings out and put them back in and then adjust my collar. I feel like I'm just as bad at it as they are.
But the movement. So much movement.