Why I Love My Job

     I'm sitting in the creek, having a conversation with a boy about the periodic table. He asks if I had to memorize it for AP chem in high school and I said no, but there were some elements I learned by heart because I had to use them so much (Carbon 12, Oxygen 16, etc) and he started reciting the different ways the elements are grouped (alkali, alkaline earth, metals, non metals, metalloids, noble gases) and I was like "Wait, what grade are you in?" and he said "Fourth" and I was like "Do you learn this stuff on your own for fun? Because I did not know all of that in fourth grade" and he goes, "Yeah, I LOVE chemistry" so I asked if he wanted to be a chemist and he said yeah and another boy floating near me said he wanted to be an inventor and the chemist boy said "Yeah, I kind of want to be an inventor too in a way...like I want to find cures for things." So I told him about a friend of mine who is a biology major and did research last summer and found out how to isolate certain cancer cells and he got really excited was like "Yeah, that's what I want to do! Find a cure for cancer." And it hit me that right there in that creek were 32 kids who were going to change the world, in big ways and in small. I might've been sitting across from the boy who will one day cure cancer. For now, we're just soaking in the sun on a hot summer day, floating in a creek in the middle of the woods, but I know that given the right amount of nurturing, love, attention, affection, and good influences, these kids really can do whatever they put their minds to. After our conversation the boy came up to me and said "You're really nice. You win the Nice Award." I might not feel like I'm contributing much to these kids' lives by sitting on a rock and telling them to not go too far past me, but they definitely show me that somehow what I'm doing is worthwhile.
     There are also times that the kids just make me crack up, like when a little girl told me that her grandmother found a dead baby deer and was going to nail the bones together to make a dead baby deer skeleton and asked me, "What do you think about that?" and I of course said "That's interesting.........." And another boy who said, as we were hiking to the creek, "No offense, but this place is kind of in the middle of the woods" to which I responded "No offense taken, because you are correct." I love it when siblings come to camp too. Today I had a girl come up to me at lunch and tell me that a boy was crying because a bee was flying near him so I came over and this little boy is bawling his eyes out while his sisters sit beside him and laugh at him. Another one of my favorite things is seeing how creative the kids can be at coming up with stories about how they hurt themselves and need an ice pack (but are really just hot and want something cool to put on their faces). I always give it to them because I mean, I would like an ice pack too. The only time I didn't cave was when a little boy told me he had sand in his eyes and it stung and I told him to blink a lot and if he needed to he could put some water in his eyes and he asked me, "Would an ice pack help?" and I told him "No, an ice pack would not help get sand out of your eyes." Lol. The first week I was definitely overwhelmed by the chaos but this week I'm learning to appreciate both the chaos and the kids more, realizing that they're not TRYING to be super messy and destructive and obnoxious (okay, some of them are definitely trying but they're the exception), they're just being kids, and that's what kids are, and I'm starting to love them for it. We'll see how I feel at the end of this week, but so far I'm pretty happy. It's kind of funny, because on Friday I cannot wait for the weekend and I wind up sleeping twelve hours or more straight through (on top of an evening nap!) Friday night but come Sunday, I'm itching to get back to camp. I hope this is how I am as a teacher too...

-SE Wagner