Yesterday I volunteered to go with Megan’s class on their the-kids-know-Christmas-break-is-next-week-and-the-teachers-can’t-keep-them-in-their-seats-without-duct-tape field trip to the Rec Plex. Nothing screams We’re all effing ready for the Christmas break quite like letting the preteens spend an entire afternoon at an indoor swimming pool or ice rink. (summer/winter in one building. STL really does have it all).
It was my first field trip with either one of my girls. One of the many glorious perks of being unemployed, I now can go hang out with 120 5th and 6th graders who have money in their pockets, no parental supervision and free access to large amounts of caffeine. Oh and a huge HUGE swimming pool. The only design flaw I found in this Rec Plex? No open bar, and no “Adults Only” places to hide.
Turns out it was an educational field trip. Oh not for the kids. Their brains are already set for Christmas Vacation, which means you can’t teach them a single thing, such as throw your trash away when you’re done, don’t lose the key to your locker or you’ll have to go home in a wet swimsuit without shoes or a coat, or it is not nice to point and laugh at the older adults who are using the same locker room you are you’re going to look just like that someday. No it was quite educational for me.
I learned that
- No matter how many other mothers went on this field trip, or how many times I tried to engage them in conversation, it was the fathers who sought me out and wanted to chat me up. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. This was a field trip, for the kids, not a field trip/dating adventure for the parents.
- It takes a special kind of person to be a teacher who can openly and genuinely care about every single kid at their school. Especially the ones who are poor. The ones with broken homes. The ones with disabilities. The ones who need extra attention. The ones who *think* they need all the attention. The ones who have been raised in the My Parents Are Somebodies because we have a lot of money home. The ones who think just because they are short and cute, they can get away with anything. And the ones who know everyone has their own special needs and I’ll just wait my turn.
- Kids will sit and listen to every single word their teachers are telling them. They will even look like they are engaged and paying attention. The truth is, they know that they have to just endure this lecture on rules and responsibility and blah blah blah because that’s what is standing between them and the ice rink/swimming pool/unlimited caffeine. Once they are free to go everything you just told them is forgotten.
- If the pool doesn’t open until 11:00, you can bet that lunches will all be eaten at 10:30 and the locker rooms will be invaded by pre pubescent adolescents all trying to get their swimsuits on so they can be the first one in the water.
- No matter how excited and rushed they are to go swimming, no matter how much confidence they ooze at school, no matter how cool all their friends think they are, the second a tweenage girl puts on her swim suit, she instantly becomes insecure and worried about her looks. It’s like Lycra is kryptonite for self confidence. Even at 12 and 13.
- In 5th and 6th grade the boys don’t really notice or care how the girls look in their swimsuits. They are, after all, just girls. This will be the last year of their lives that this is true.
- The decision whether to wear a shirt in the pool or not will keep some kids in the locker room for a solid 10 minutes.
- Even at this age, it is not only possible but sometimes incredibly easy to tell who will be the jocks, who will be the nerds, who will be the mean girls, and who will be the class clowns. Some kids are still trying to figure it all out.
- Even though the kids were as well behaved as you can expect tweenage kids to be when fueled by the possibility of swimming and soda, I still felt a strong urge to apologize to all the adults who were there to use the facilities for legitimate exercise.
- That a bus full of tweenage kids who have spent the past three hours in an over chlorinated indoor pool smells like death. And ass.
- Also, the chlorine from the pool will permeate the overly warm, extremely humid air which will infiltrate my sinus cavities and jack them up in such a way that breathing through my nose will become virtually impossible 3.6 hours after returning home and normal air. Breathing again is now at the top of my Christmas wish list.
