First Day Jitters

Running five minutes late and dragging a giant black duffel bag up the stairs, my team and I burst into the classroom like a red Jumpstart t-shirt clad army. Before the seven of us could even get past the doorway we were greeted with hugs and smiles from the trusting, excited faces that you can only find in a preschool classroom.

As we settled into Welcome and Reading I bustled about, readying our centers and making sure we stayed on schedule. I watched on as Corps Members read Oonga Boonga and taught our new students what a lullaby was, excited that the children seemed as enthusiastic about Jumpstart as we were. In what felt like 30 seconds, but had really been more than 15 minutes, it was my turn to teach. “It’s time to put the books away, books away, books away,” I began to sing, a smile pasted on my face. Quickly, just as we had practiced, six other voices joined me and everyone made their way to Circle Time on the brightly colored carpet in the corner of the classroom.

As the children began to gather around me I suddenly felt anxious. I had experienced stage fright before, but up until that moment I had never thought that I could be so nervous in front of a group of preschool children. I am not an overly outgoing person. I am not the first person to raise my hand and share with a group and my voice shakes every time I have to give a presentation in front of my peers, but I have never been nervous in front of children before. We sat cross-legged on the carpet and eighteen little pairs of eyes were on me. I suddenly felt the overwhelming weight of my responsibility. I realized that it was up to me to teach these children that we could figure out how many parts there were in our names by clapping, or explain how I knew that my name started with an uppercase “E.” In those first few minutes I fought my own conscious to keep on going. With each new activity, though, it got a little bit easier and I managed to recite “Ten Little Fingers” near perfectly, despite my shaking voice.

As I released the group into Center Time I took a quick moment to look around. All of the students were smiling and making their way to their next activity, busying themselves with books, dolls, and crayons. As my heartbeat began to slow to a near-normal pace I realized that it did not matter if my voice was shaking or that I did not know every child’s name yet or that I might have missed a hand motion in “Ten Little Fingers” the first time through. I realized what mattered was that my team and I were there and our students were as exited to learn new things as we were to teach them.



~ Elyse Evkhanian
Team Leader
Team Joy 2