I really get a kick out of my job working as a tutor. I work in sort of a computer lab/classroom setting; nobody is doing any lecturing as each child works on their own individual lesson on the computer while we supervise, but it is a great place to build up positive relationships with kids and it gives me a chance to be a good role model (me, a role model?! :eek: )
One thing I was thinking about the other day was that here there are a room full of 6 year-olds; fiercely loyal to us and more than willing to attempt any mundane or silly task we could think of.
What could we do with an army of 6 year-olds? The best thing I could think of at the time was mock battles, with padded weapons and everyone in roman or barbarian armor, duking it out in some park somewhere, with the tutors dressed similarly as ‘generals’ but since we’re full grown adults we’d litereally TOWER over the battlefield. It was a wierd but funny daydream.
“Home? I haff no home. Hanted . . . despised . . . liffing like an animal – the jongle iss my home! But I vill show the vorld that I can be its master. I shall perfect my own rice of pipple – a rice of atomic six-year-olds vhich will conquer the vorld!”
Well, it certainly wouldn’t be brushing their teeth and getting their shoes and socks on. It took me an hour to get ONE six-year-old to do that this morning. But then I’m just her Mom.
Small children are a unlimited source of energy, creativity, and curiosity. Unless you are late for work, in which case they become invertebrates.
Sheesh, I have an army of 6 year olds (I teach 1st grade), and lemme tell ya, they are absolute hell to organize into any useful type of squad or formation.
Examples:
Music program?
Field Trip?
Chaos and Disarray.
Threatening them with half rations does nothing. They will mock you and throw away unopened containers of milk and unwrapped pb&j sandwiches. Witness the horror.
clear a park of litter. (Yep, seriously, done it. Just arm them with a plastic grocery bag and promise popsicles if all the litter is cleaned up. The kids of course were told not to pick up glass or other sharp items. The park rangers talked about how litter impacts the wild animals and the kids were excited to help.)
Take over the world, of course. Oh, you might not be able to organize the little bastards, but the threat of invasion would be more than enough. All you’d need is the classic RTS game Horde formation.
If the country still resists, that’s when you bring in WMDs…Pixie Stix!
Ack. I just got done with a week of observing/helping out with a group of six (6) six & seven year-olds with language delays & disabilities (I spent recess with about twenty of them); I’m shocked that it didn’t kill me. My kids, you couldn’t get into an organized group. Though you could get them yelling in synchronicity.
Train them to fight space battles, and then have them operate a fleet of starships via a FTL remote control system which they think is just a simulation, a game.
Then, I’d push one of them so far that he decided “to hell with it”, and blew up the planet that he thought was simulated. Thus, I’d use the 6-year olds to commit xenocide.
Though admittedly, they wouldn’t be six at this point. But that’s when I’d start.
(Please, please tell me that someone gets this. I’m not a huge nerd. Really I’m not.)
Or, I’d strand them on a tropical island, along with some older children, and train them to be my most fanatical followers in a savage tribe distinguished by an almost sexual obsession with killing and eating pigs.
“One Million Dollars in small bills, all of the candy from the local SuperAmerica and complete Amnesty. In one hour. Or we let Suzy play with one old-timer per hour until they’re all dead.”
Heh, it’d take all day to feed an army of six-year-olds, and many won’t be up for taking any kind of commands until after snack-time. But after working a short time with disabled kindergarteners, I know that a 50lb kid with Down Syndrome could easily knock down a full-grown teacher or assistant when running full speed. So maybe you’d only need to feed four or five instead of an army.