Working with children. To some people, this sounds like a dream job and warms their hearts up. To others, it is a nightmare. They cringe when they hear the words “work” and “children” in the same sentence.

But picture this: Children of many different ages come and go in the span of 3 hours and 30 minutes. The younger ones run around and pretty much do whatever they want when you are not looking. The older ones are not as rowdy, but you must pay attention to every child. You must try to learn all of their names — and make sure they do not fall off of the high beam. This is what my job is every Tuesday and Thursday.

The Powell Rec Center hosts this gymnastics program every fall and spring and it lasts four weeks. There are five stations in which the children rotate to. After stretching, my adviser Starla Craig seperates them into groups. They will either go to the mats, low beam, uneven bars, vault or high beam. I spot children on the mats and on the high beam.

“Teaching gymnastics for the last three years had helped me a lot with being flexible – literally and mentally – and has encouraged me so much. I mean, you see these 4-11 year olds overcoming so much mentally and physically, and it’s easy to see it all. It really shows me that anyone and any age is able to overcome anything, as long as the determination is there,” Mary Lynn, another coach, said. She spots the children while they are participating on the uneven bars.

Teaching children gymnastics is hard work, no doubt, but it is one of the best experiences I’ve had. As a child, going to this gymnastics class was the only thing I looked forward to. It was very important to me, and it still is. This is why I teach. I teach because there are so many children that only look forward to their hour long gymnastics class twice a week.

It is as stressful as it is fun. There are always new challenges I must face every class- whether that be running after a child, comforting the ones who are crying or making them do somersaults on the high beam. Sometimes, you don’t always get it right.

For example, I experienced what could’ve been an awful tragedy last season. It was the performance and I was spotting children on the high beam as usual. In order to help the child do a somersault and let their parents see at the same time, I had to switch what side of the high beam I was on. Well, when I did this, the child had to stand on the beam by themselves. Sadly, one specific child fell off of the beam when I was switching sides. There were mats around the beam, so they thankfully did not get hurt. I am grateful people understand that you cannot prevent bad things all of the time.

We train them on the equipment for their grand performance. This will be on April 26 in the Powell Middle School gym. I hope there will be no mistakes this time around unlike the prior season.