Time goes by...so slowly.

I don't know why I do it but my weekend was pretty much ruined by me silently fretting over my day in school today.Last week I was thrown into the pit of lions and had to pretty much wing it but this time I got the class teacher's planning on Saturday and I think that's what set my 'worrying' off.One day, three lessons...English, Maths and Art.For English I was to get the children to discuss and list the differences and similarities between novels and short stories, read and share a (given) short story and then discuss character traits and get them to write two character descriptions.Yikes! I found it very uninspiring and my Mother was too far away to be able to give me a note saying "Please excuse Mr Allen from English today as it will destroy his soul."I am used to talking about beginnings, middles and ends, plots and characters but here we were talking exposition, conflict, resolution and orientation. What?!(I just glossed over 'orientation' because I simply could not be bothered to find out what it meant in this context and I have nearly got to 55 without ever being worried about it!)Of course, as expected, try as I might to breathe life into the lesson I was flogging a dead horse. The 28 ten and eleven year olds just didn't need or want to know about it. Rulers and pencils were tapping on the desk and there was lots of unfocused chatter about things other than the lesson and I warned them that I would send people out if they did not concentrate on the task at hand....then a rubber went flying across the table and I snapped"OUT!"The boy sheepishly went to the class next door and I winced inside that I had sent him for throwing a rubber in a lesson I could not make interesting but I had warned them so I had to show them I meant business. It did quieten the rest down and as I pointed at a few others who were playing with fire (No not really, it was not that far out of control) I noticed my finger shaking so quickly put it down so they could not see my fear.It was slightly better after that and we made it to Morning Tea without further incident.I had a half an hour 'Duty' handing out pink stickers to those who were walking on the concrete...no, that was a good thing, to walk on the concrete. You didn't deserve a sticker if you ran!......and then it was back in for Maths.I doubt there is any Infant Teacher who has spent 27 years full time only ever worrying about number bonds to 10 who doesn't pale at the thought of Year 6 Maths.I was to start off with 'Odd and Even' numbers, phew, I knew about them and we played a game for that bit which they enjoyed. Then we moved onto 'Multiples'...in the Swimming Pool of Life I was still touching the bottom but the water was getting up to my chin and my heart was beating a bit faster.Again we made it a game where we went around the room counting in ones but as we were thinking of multiples of 5 , when you got to a multiple of 5 you had to say 'multiple' and not the number...so it went '1, 2, 3, 4, multiple, 6, 7, 8, 9, multiple' and so on. We tried multiples of 2 next but they couldn't cope with that...the remembering of the number after the multiple...so we just gave up and set them off writing the multiples down.The planning said give them calculators to work them out but I thought 'Nah'... it's not that hard.They did the multiples of 2 to 100, then multiples of 5 to 100, then multiples of 10 to 100 at which point they were all thinking 'Doddle!' but then I hit them with multiples of 3 to 100 and when I set them off doing multiples of 4 to 100 someone shouted out out "Child Abuse!""Listen," I said, "this is not me I am just following instructions and wait till you see what comes next." A girl burst into tears at that.Yes, next was multiples of 9 to 100...DUM, DUM, DUUUUUM!At the sight of the teary girl I relented and handed out the calculators.Of course there were a few who, again in the Swimming Pool of Life, were doing synchronised swimming and getting top marks even from Russian judges but we still hadn't finished....I had to introduce 'Composite' numbers. Somehow I have got to the age I am without ever knowing what a 'Composite' number is and am I ashamed. Am I bollocks! I'm sorry, like the differences between short stories and novels, I just don't care.Anyway it turns out the a 'Composite' number is on that can be divided by 1 and itself as well as another number or numbers. Has that knowledge changed your life? Has it Heck!Finally I had to talk about 'Prime' numbers and here an Infant Teacher in the Swimming Pool of Life swallows water and starts to panic and can't feel the tiles under their toes anymore....what do you do in this situation? Well, it's easy you grab hold of the nearest synchronised swimmer and hope they know the routine.The best synchronised swimmer in today's pool was called Nick and he spouted the 'Prime' numbers to 100 like a veritable dolphin and I trusted his expertise and scrawled them down for all the non swimmers to cling onto and copy. It turns out that Nick, though good in this particular water, was not spot on and added 6 extra 'Prime' numbers between 2 and 97.I had had enough by this point and got them out of the 'metaphorical' pool and we went and played games outside for 30 minutes until the next break.The final lesson was Art and I had been given free rein by the class teacher to do whatever I wanted. I handed everyone two 'Cicada' wings...sourced painlessly, I might add...and told them to create something including them but added that they didn't necessarily have to end up as 'wings' on something in their art work."Are these safe? They are not diseased? " Asked the pain who had thrown the rubber earlier."They are fine." I said."Are you sure? Have you had them tested in a laboratory?" He continued.More than a finger was shaking now. Both my hands were trembling and it was all I could do not to place them about his neck and squeeze the life from him.I was underwhelmed with the response of the work they produced. Most of the girls drew Fairies...yawn... but the boys did some aliens where the wings were eyes and the best synchronised swimmer, Nick, did a penguin and used the wings as feet.Finally three o'clock came and the day was over....it had felt so much longer than the six hours it actually had been.I walked them down to the gate and left them to be seen off by a Teacher Aide. As I was walking back I bumped into the 'Painful Rubber Thrower'again."When are you back?" He asked."Oh, I don't know," I said, "They might not want me back.""Oh, I hope so," he said, "You're Awesome!"