Happy Chanukah!

I had an awful work day today. I was first position on Red (first-timers) again and there were only two of us on there, and a single instructor on Yellow (the next level up.) Someone really dropped the ball because there were loads of instructors there waiting for work, but many weren’t assigned. Tameca was around but on her day off so today’s supervisor was Alicia. Three kids of the Red level only spoke Spanish. The woman who was second position on Red spoke a little Spanish and so I agreed it would be best if she only take those three kids and not have a mixed-language class. I know there were a lot of Spanish-speaking instructors around, some without work, so I think this could have been solved better but we did what we could within our authority.

That left me with seven kids, who trickled into my class over the course of an hour. The first one arrived early, on skis, with her parents who had already done up her boots right and showed her how to put on skis and move around in them. She was a natural and just wanted to ski around. I let her wander a bit and do laps on the “magic carpet.” As soon as I could, I begged and pleaded with my friend Marcelo who was on Yellow to take her off my hands because she would be dangerously bored with my slower group. He’s a good guy, and though he feared she’d slow his group down, he eventually agreed. Two sisters showed up shortly after the first girl. They were all right in terms of patience and obedience (often big issues for me with younger children) and learned to ski pretty well during the day. The problems began when I tried to move these three girls around the beginner slope to keep them busy, but kept getting more students to keep track of.

I got a young brother and sister pair and had to start over from teaching about gear and the basic stance. By lunchtime I discovered the little brother was actually six years old and should have been in the Cats program. He was a real handful, unable to even stand in place without slipping away and crashing somewhere, and he’d always need me to run and pick him up. It took me a while but after lunch I tracked down a new instructor teaching a Red class of Cats, who took him into her group. She did her best but at the end of the day I do not think she liked me for it. His sister had a stomach ache at lunchtime, and I left her with a supervisor and some coloring books.

A girl was assigned to me who had skied once before but sucked at it and was back to Red. They promised her she’d ride the chairlift today, a promise that was not kept. She was also a challenge to keep in line and on her feet, but I got her skiing well enough by the end of the day that I recommended she move up to Yellow and go up the chairlift tomorrow. She’s the only one who I know will be back tomorrow and her parents asked if she could be with me again. Late in the morning, a little after accepting my fastest girl, Marcelo pointed out a kid who was just sitting alone in the snow near the top of the carpet lift. Turns out he was supposed to be in my class. For most of the day he was terrible about falling down everywhere and taking a long time to get up on his own. He’d only do it by taking off his skis, standing up, and putting them back on. He also fell off lifts and was not very patient.

Most of my kids had trouble getting up on their own, and I did a lot of running to help them up. I took them to the rope tow lift for some variation in terrain, and the six of them were sliding, crashing, and sliding away again when they tried to get up to the rope tow. This went on much more than they actually slid down the hill or succeeded in riding the lift, and it was only by the dedicated and patient assistance of Charlotte, the liftie on duty there, that I could even get them into a group to try to ride up it. There was no one but us on that slope and she really went far beyond her normal responsibilities to help me with my class. I only really made any progress after lunch, when I’d whittled my class of seven down to four who were close enough to the same level to work with. I brought them back to the magic carpet to learn how to turn, and took them to the button lift to refine it, which they were excited about and enjoyed a lot.

At lunchtime another instructor asked me to watch his group for a few minutes. One of his girls was Jewish and talked to me enthusiastically about the Hanukkah presents she’d already received. We can no longer get lunch from the restaurant anymore: they bring down pizza, fries, and foods like that and we are expected to serve the kids and take what we want from their kind of food. At least there was a bit of salad and celery for grown-ups too, so I had that and some mini hot-dogs in batter - I believe they call this thing a “corn dog.”

Two challenges showed up for me in teaching today: Group management was the key. With six or seven kids trickling in at different times and at different abilities, it was very difficult to maintain any sort of group cohesion. They chose a team name: the “Flying Saucers” and did get to waiting for each other and helping one another stand up about halfway through the day, but it was an effort to implant that idea in a few of them. The other problem was teaching a first-time lesson while keeping it fun for kids of those ages. I didn’t dedicate any time to drills, because most of the kids were only in ski school for a day and I was scrambling to keep them entertained and happy without letting them run amok all around the mountain. If I’d devoted the morning to exercises with all of them together I probably would have had them advancing more quickly, but the early-comers were eager to move around on skis right away, and even the very basic concept of getting skis across the hill and sidestepping up to the magic carpet was a serious wall that a few of them couldn’t get past all day. I would benefit from keeping a collection of “games” in mind that I can use to teach children the skills they need without letting on that they’re learning.

I stayed for a full hour after my work was supposed to end because some of the parents and guardians who came to pick up their kids came over without their tags, and needed to wait until spouses or whatever arrived. I was very patient, helpful, and friendly to the parents and I think I tried really hard today and earned every penny of my salary, but not a single parent gave me a tip. That kind of bothered me because I did more than my job description: I let them use my cell phone to make calls to the people who had the tags, I waited around a lot and had a snowball fight with one girl whose mother was late to pick her up and I brought hot chocolate to the last two kids, the brother and sister. Alicia said that I wasn’t even to be paid for the last half hour of it! Later in the day a coach told me I should not have stood for that, and just left the kids as her responsibility if she didn’t want to pay me a measly $4 for my time. I’m happy to put in the extra effort but I would have liked to get at least one small tip to see anyone appreciated it. Maybe I was spoiled by that one tip the other day?

I didn’t have time to free-ski at all because I only got out of there when the lifts closed. I ran back to the “rough” a few times because I kept forgetting things I needed first thing tomorrow morning for First Tracks, like my own jacket and my lift pass. There was a line of probably hundreds of people for the gondola down. I went through the singles’ line and just had to tolerate a sardine-can of a gondola with seven other people.

After work I went up to Smokie’s for some beers with the gang of Aussie coaches who have become my drinking buddies. I downed the first beer in a few seconds and immediately started to feel better. We all took the buses back when we had finished a couple of pitchers. On the bus I sat next to a pretty South African girl named Tracy who works a ticket desk at Park City Mountain Resort, and for the whole ride I regaled her with stories of my fascinating and eventful life.

It is the first night of Chanuka tonight! I cooked up a storm. I made latkes, or levivot, with coarse-grated potatoes and diced onion just like Grandma Sara used to make. I shared them with everybody who wanted some. Some were so crisp they shattered apart into shards when I lifted them to my mouth, but they were tasty for my first try.