You know last night was one of the most challenging Pee Wee classes (ages 4-7) that I’ve taught in a while.<\/p>\n
Here’s why…<\/p>\n
First, I usually have an assistant or two to help out. Junior students make great assistants. They learn, you learn and the class learns. It’s a win-win-win.<\/p>\n
Anyhow last night I had 14 yellow to blue belts in one of my Little Ninja classes – yes all aged between 5-7… and for the first time in a LONG time, no assistants.<\/p>\n
=(<\/p>\n
Within the first 5 minutes of class I had:<\/p>\n
one boy with a blood nose thanks to an accidental head butt
\nanother two kids run into each other because they were not looking where they were going – the result – a bloody and wobbly tooth
\n2 kids arrive late of which one went on to wet his pants within the next 10 minutes<\/p>\n
Two years ago, this would have freaked me out – I’m not sure that I would have coped all that well… I probably would have just curled up in the fetal position and cried…<\/p>\n
For a few minutes it was a tornado of activity, but thanks to some experience, calm behavior and the class actually DOING WHAT I ASK THEM the rest of us got through it unscathed.<\/p>\n
Now as I had to attend to the most pressing problem first (the blood nose) I had to leave the floor…<\/p>\n
I know what you’re thinking – 13 kids left unattended for a couple of minutes equals a disaster. The room would be in worse shape than when I left right?<\/p>\n
Wrong.<\/p>\n
Thanks to the Early Learning System, my kids tend to behave a lot better than before I was using it. When I came back, sure they were talking quietly, but they hadn’t moved from their positions. I was proud of them and congratulated them for behaving so well.<\/p>\n
I later had to leave the floor again to help with the child who wet his pants – oh man, where were my assistants?? – this time I employed a very useful game.<\/p>\n
I said, “Ok, we’re going to play a game right now, it’s called ‘Quiet as a Mouse’. Remember you have to be as quiet as you can and the winner will get 5,000 points when I come back.”<\/p>\n
Within 2 seconds my entire class sat down cross legged or in seiza and not a peep was heard. This allowed me to attend to the other problem, and when I returned, points were awarded.<\/p>\n
Try this method for yourself whenever you have to leave class unattended for a minute – it works like a charm. =)<\/p>\n
To your success!<\/p>\n
– Jason<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You know last night was one of the most challenging Pee Wee classes (ages 4-7) that I’ve taught in a while. Here’s why… First, I usually have an assistant or two to help out. Junior students make great assistants. They learn, you learn and the class learns. It’s a win-win-win. Anyhow last night I had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,23],"tags":[98,124],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":631,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions\/631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}