Storytime went ok – not great, just ok. The thing about being nervous is that it can wreak an otherwise great storytime: I’m not having as much fun, I’m doubting myself…and then everyone else doesn’t have as much fun, and they start to look at me a bit funny, as if they’re thinking, “She’s not all that. Hmmmm.”
And, there are the stupid errors. At the end of the storytime, I said, “Ok, let’s sing our closing song now!! The song we always sing at the end of storytime! [I inserted the name of the song here, and I’m honestly not sure whether I said “The More We Get Together” or “If You’re Happy and You Know It.”] Here we go!!” And then I started to sing “The More We Get Together,” which is our opening song, not our closing song. I caught myself halfway, finished the song, and admitted that it was the first storytime of the year and I’d made a mistake. And then we sang the correct song, “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” Sigh.
Let’s hope I’m not nervous again tomorrow morning, for my first Mother Goose on the Loose program in a while. Sigh. (And hopefully I’ll sleep tonight, too. That would be good.)
Ah, nerves. I’ve been teaching for — um, a long time — and I STILL get nervous before a class. Not “nervous” exactly, but tense, hyperfocused, something other than mellow. The only thing that helps is what I have learned from riding: stay in the moment. Be with the class, or the group, and what is happening in the room. I try not to think about myself at all — how I have chalk on my back because I leaned against the blackboard, or how my left sock is falling down, or how my stomach is making weird FEED ME NOW noises. If I think about myself, I’m doomed.
Good luck today!!!
PS
A sense of humor about things helps enormously too — laugh at yourself, gently, and you will relax, and so will everyone else.
I agree – a sense of humor is key. (But sometimes there’s the fine line between being human and looking like you’re incompetent, if you know what I mean…) But, yes, I laugh at myself frequently in these storytimes. 🙂