Thursday, March 2, 2006

I worked the Eaton Center site in the kindergarten for the first time today. They serve their kids snack and lunch there as opposed to having the children serve themselves and I had forgotten to ask why. Having the children (especially kindergartners) serve themselves at food times is empowering and teaches about the correlation between the gluttony/restraint dynamic and the waste produced at the end of the meal (the kids can scrape their own plates into a communal organics bucket to emphasize this) and I don't understand why someone would knowingly take that away from the children other than, "oh, it's easier." Sigh.

One of the teachers there actually taught one of my classes at Mothercraft.

I also worked an afternoon shift at Hester How. One girl was playing in the reading section (doing what, I don't know; happily or not, i don't know) when her grandma showed up to take her "for a little while." I was incredulous and was vindicated when Dawn began crying hysterically about losing "her spot" (all areas are limited in number of children who are allowed to play in them.) It seems to me that if someone is picking up a child from daycare, the idea that they might come back is one that can create problems. "Spots" are viciously guarded things, mainly because they are lost so easily. The girl must have thought that, since even standing up can give an ambitious child the opportunity to slide in and claim it for their own, this temporary absence from the classroom would spell doom for her spot.

I saw the most beautiful dolls today. Two Eurasian toddlers who were about twenty five years old and were made in Toronto. They had wonderful, black, curly human hair and well made traditional chinese dresses... And they were selling at $1250.00 each! I was telling the shop owner how nice his store was and especially those dolls when he asked me, "are you coming back for them?" I nearly laughed in his face. Me, with my torn shoes and uncut hair, "coming back" for twenty five hundred dollars worth of doll! I demurely declined.

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