Hanging with the Kids





Teaching kids can be hard. I've already mentioned that a day with five kids is one-part instruction, one-part daycare (with a strong emphasis on daycare — obviously kids aren't going to do much if they're not happy). And rumor has it that kids here in America are even more out of control than your average youngster. As one of my Japanese friends puts it, "American children are completely out of control!" A lot of foreign instructors choose to teach adults over kids simply because they can't stand trying maintain control of American children.

I've certainly had plenty of interesting days with kids, but in general I seem to relate to them pretty well. I recently realized that my strong connection is probably due to the fact that I still have mental capacity of juvenile. Today, for example, I got into an in depth discussion with two ten-year-olds about the best candy in the world. And I felt validated that everyone agreed the Nerd Rope (see picture above) is indeed a very underrated creation.

Of course, having the mindset of a ten-year-old isn't always a good thing. At the end of the day one of the kids in my class saw a big hill near the kids' corral (where we drop everyone off at the end of the day) and said, "Hey can we slide down that on our butts?!" Looking at it I thought, "Wow that looks awesome!" and all three of us slid down it. Of course, after dropping the kids off my boss walked by and casually informed me that maybe we shouldn't be sliding all over the mountain on our butts. Apparently it doesn't present a professional image for the ski school.