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I am helping with Community Bible Camp this week. I approached this with some trepidation. See. although I love my church, I have a few problems whenever I have to interact with groups of people other than my community group. (It's like Bible study, but more funner.) There are several factors at work here; many of the women of my church are either much younger or much older than I am (except for a few, like dear Kat), and most of them are mommies. Don't get me wrong--I think mommies rock; they keep me supplied with teachable children, after all, and they are the first and best teachers any child can have. The part I get tired of is explaining why I, at 43, am not a mommy. I have lots of reasons, but I am weary of feeling like I must justify my childless status. I am tempted to start telling people I have 2300 kids. (That's my current approximate total of kids taught.) The other thing that's really starting to smoke my belfry is the response I get when I say I teach public school. Many of these folks home school, or send their kids to private school, and were themselves either homeschooled or private schooled. Again, I have no beef with either route, but often folks who have never set foot in a public school buy into some of the horror stories one hears about such places. I can tell tales, true, but the majority of my kids are nice people from good homes who behave well and learn stuff. My classes are multicolored and represent many economic levels, but 99% of them are decent human beings. My school is orderly, clean, in good repair, attractive, even. It's a nice place to be. Haven't had Satan visit lately, either. So the gasps of horror from my fellow Presbyterians are starting to wear on me. What all this has to do with CBC is that I'm helping with the music activities, with a very sweet group of Young Mommy types who can't quite figure me out. They acknowledge my teacher skills (I did all the posters and overheads) but aren't sure if I'm a Mommy or not. They sort of ignore me, until I stick my nose in and suggest stuff. Mostly, I'm doing crowd control--singling out the rowdies that want to play around instead of singing and threatening to give them solos, or make them lead the Interpretive Praise Dance (which does not exist.) It works, but the Mom Squad can't figure out why kids begin frantically singing and clapping whenever I get too close. I sort of prowl, too, instead of planting myself up front. I'm having loads of fun, though. The kids are sweet, the music is good stuff, and I get to play with percussion instruments. On Friday, I get free hot dawgs, too. What more could I want? |
 
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