I'm a Belieber!

At least a couple times a week, a pink rubber bracelet adorns my right wrist. Written in huge green letters is the name of my favorite tiny-tot pop star, Justin Bieber. Though this middle school millionaire doesn’t need any of my money, I shelled out the three dollars and fifty cents to support his work. I have obviously gotten a lot of guff for it, but I really don’t care. I love the Biebs.


For years before returning to college, I worked in preschools. If you have never spent forty hours a week surrounded by four-year-olds, you might not know that pre-schoolers love to sing, and they sing, ad infinitum, whatever they heard on mom or dad’s iPod on the way to school. Imagine if you will, the following lyrics from the mouths of students who have only recently graduated from toddler-hood.


“I kissed a girl and I liked it. Hope my boyfriend don’t mind it.”



“How’d I turn my shirt inside out? … we’re all gettin’ hosed tonight”



“I see you drivin round town … and I’m like ‘forget you’” (If you’re lucky. Some kids' parents have the unedited version, and most four-year-olds are only just learning the concept of “cuss words”)



“Girl look at that body … I’m sexy and I know it”



“Last Friday night We went streaking in the park Skinny dipping in the dark Then had a ménage à trois”



“And I was like,“Baby baby baby Oh! Baby Baby Baby NO!” these songs are inappropriate for you! People who were recently three years old should not be singing about threesomes!



About this time, a friend dared me to create The Bieber Day Tweets, a project in which I created a Justin Bieber station on Pandora, listened to it straight for 12 hours and tweeted the experience live. Given that half the space on my iPod is taken up with Marilyn Manson and Nirvana, (what can i say? I love the 90s) I have to say that this was torture, but when one doesn’t drink, interesting bar-bets are hard to come by. I did get 4 new followers out of the ordeal so, I guess that’s a win. What I discovered during this aural assault, was that Bieber’s lyrics, though sometimes with a misogynist bent (referring to a girl as a prized possession) were largely family friendly. Annoying and repetitive as it was, I could listen to my class singing ‘Baby, baby baby” and “One less lonely girl” without my stomach turning.  I quickly added the songs to the Center Time Playlist, along with the discovery of Taylor Swift’s song about short skirts and t-shirts and other karo-syrupy teeny-bopper love songs. There’s really not much that makes a stressful day in kinder-land brighter than a chorus of boys, decked out in their dramatic play center finest, belting Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me”  In honor of taking my classroom from a pint sized musicall orgy to a place I was not disgusted to work, I support the Bieber. Baby baby baby, Oh Thank You!

Adventures in Pre-K, Stopped in his Bullying Tracks

Children can be cruel. It is difficult to witness kid-on-kid bullying and equally difficult to squelch it in your classroom. Picking on others is in the DNA of the grade-school set, and often it is not grown out of even in high school, even in adulthood. The seeds of meanness are sown early.

At one point ,while I was teaching pre-k, a snooty little five year old was practicing being a bully in my classroom. I called him on the carpet every time I heard and insult fly from his asshole-in-training mouth, and it was clear he was getting tired of it. One day this boy, sweetly said to me “Miss Becky?” And then, with all the I’m-the-Director’s-son-and-thusly-incorrigible attitude he could muster, proudly proclaimed, “You’re FAT!”

I looked down at his bespectacled grin and calmly said, “Yes, C*****, and you have blue eyes. What’s your point?”  The smile ran away from his face and he looked confused. Wasn’t I supposed to be upset? Wasn’t I supposed to yell, or to cry? Why didn’t his words hurt me?
The truth is, they did.

As a result of bad genetics, permissive parenting, and growing up in the American South, I was a chubby kid, and am a chubby adult. I was actually very slim as a teen, but that was mostly due to Adderall and an eating disorder. This preschooler’s words jolted me back to my own grade-school existance and the constant taunts of my classmates. Still, I couldn't let on, and I refused to let this bully in the making have any satisfaction off of me. To keep my own pride intact, and more important, teach this kid something, I got down on his level, and stared him right through his coke bottle lenses. “Why would you say that, C*****? Were you trying to hurt my feelings?”He stared at the floor. I could tell he wanted to run away, but my authority figure status glued his Tom’s slip-ons to the floor. “Is it any fun when someone else hurts your feelings? What if a friend said your glasses look stupid” He pushed the lenses back up on his nose, without looking up.

“I wouldn’t like it” came his meek response.
“No, I bet you wouldn’t. Why do we try a little ‘treat our friends like we want to be treated’ for the rest of the day?” When he saw that a time-out wasn’t headed his way, he looked up, eyes brightening. “But, C*****, “ I asked. (I always say the kid’s name a lot when I’m trying to make a point) “What do we do when we hurt somebody’s feelings?”

“Say Sorry.” came his rote response. then he paused, as though trying to figure out if hurting a teacher’s feeling was a worse crime than hurting a friend’s, and if it would be repaired by the same phrase. He then quoted chapter and verse the lines I had taught all my students to recite when they are in the wrong. “I’m sorry I called you fat. Do you still want to play with me?” Knowing I had the right, like I had taught the kids, to say “no, I am still upset,” and walk away, I considered it, but I smiled as I stood up and ruffled his blonde curls.

“Sure, “C*****, let’s go play some Legos”