A Day in the Life of ... a Primary Substitute

Today I got a call before church to see if I would be willing to sit in and substitute for a primary (children's) class, and I agreed. Lately I have been substituting for the older primary children, but today they wanted me to teach JoJo's class, the six and seven year-olds. No sweat! Last week I had had a blast teaching the ten year-olds (Katie's class), so I was excited to help out. I had absolutely no idea what I was in for. As we were walking to class JoJo told me that he was super excited to have me as a teacher because I always sub for Katie and Hyrum's classes, but I've never been his teacher. I could tell that he was really excited to have me there because he would not stop hugging me and kissing me and trying to sit on my lap. And JoJo is not normally a super snuggle bunny during church, so this was a bit different behavior for him.

As I joined up with JoJo's class in the primary room I saw that I was going to have my work cut out for me. There was a fairly large class (for junior primary) of nine students, and seven of them were boys. And those seven boys were full of energy. Oh man! They could not stay seated to save their lives. And they were talkers. I don't think I've every seen so many boys who loved to talk so much. My ability to keep everyone calm was severely hampered by JoJo who was hanging off of my body for dear life. Now I have done this while having a baby cling to me, but I've never tried to keep order while having a six year-old clinging on. We made it through singing time and sharing time without too much of a disaster, and I figured that things would be better for me when I could contain all of them in a smaller classroom and submit them to Sister Blau's power teaching. All I can say is ... it's time to pull out my old standard, the Herding Cats commercial, to illustrate exactly how class went for the better part of an hour. Enjoy!

And that about covers what my teaching experience was like today. Once I got one corner of the room calmed down another would erupt in talking or dancing or spitting (yuck!) or laughing. I pulled out every single trick about teaching that I have ever learned, but nothing ... NOTHING ... could calm these boys down. They were bouncing off the walls. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't distraught or unhappy at all. I was having a great time teaching. I was just having to work super hard to keep everyone engaged. Nothing like a class of hyperactive boys to keep me on my toes! 

The lesson today was on obedience. That's right ... obedience. Go figure! At one point in the lesson I was trying to talk to the kids about how Jesus was obedient to Heavenly Father's will, even when it was hard. So I was telling about the Garden of Gethsemane and how Jesus sacrificed for all of us so that we can all have the opportunity to return home to Heavenly Father someday. This was the one time during the lesson when I really felt like I had everyone's attention at the same time. Hurray! But then as I looked at the class I saw that one of the boys was crying. And these weren't just little silent tears. No. He was sobbing. Uncontrollably sobbing. Oh no! What had I said? I frantically went over the last few things I had taught, but I couldn't think of what he was upset about. So I stopped class to ask this little boy what was wrong, and he burst out with all the energy a seven year-old boy could gather and said:

 "I DON'T WANT TO DIE!" 

What? Oh no! No, no, no. I told him that he wasn't going to die for a long, long time. But he said that he didn't want to die EVER. I wasn't quite sure what to say to make him feel better. I just stopped class and gave him a giant hug and told him that it was going to be okay. None of my words were making a difference. But then the absolutely most sweet and endearing thing happened. All of these rowdy and practically uncontrollable six and seven year olds started talking to this boy and telling him why he didn't need to be worried. One little boy told him that everything would be okay when we died because Jesus and Heavenly Father would be right there when we got to heaven to give us a hug. Then another said that we would get to see our families there too. And another talked about how beautiful it would be in heaven. And another told about how there would be no sadness or evil, so heaven would be a fun place to live. Things got a bit out of hand when one of the kids explained how awesome heaven would be because even if our dogs got their heads chopped off they would immediately grow new ones and would be okay. But still, it was such a sweet conversation. I could have never, ever planned for that. This little boy who had been so upset was comforted by the words of his friends in primary, and it was such a blessing to me to be able to witness this. 

So today I learned that my classroom management skills maybe aren't quite as awesome as I might have believed them to be. A class of six and seven year olds can take me down pretty easily. But I also learned that those same kids can have such a sweet and pure testimony of the love that Heavenly Father and  Jesus Christ have for us.  What a pleasure to spend my Sunday teaching this fun class today! But I'm not afraid to admit, I seriously need a nap after that experience!

While I was teaching JoJo drew this picture of me on the board. He really was super happy to have me as his substitute today. Looks just like me, don't you think?