Week 5- What I am experiencing and what it has made me think about

What I have experienced...
I have met numerous great people in my placement, staff and children.
The staff environment outside of the classroom is one that I hope I have when I begin my career. They are very helpful and supportive of each other and communicate well.
I have seen good days and bad... and by that I mean days when the children in my class are "on" and days when the children in my class are "off". I did expect this because everyone has a bad day... but my experience so far is that when the children are having an "off" day, I have to be "on", whether I showed up like that or not. The "off" days are the days the children need my attention and care the most and if someone would have showed me what an "off" day looked like before I began my experience I probably would have said, "No thanks. I can't do that. I am not strong enough". As it turns out though, I am. "Off" days make me feel stronger, more patient, accomplished, and happier for pushing through the day one activity at a time and not just giving up on the children and saying, "Fine. Drink your milk through your nose while you're running down the hallway". That example was a little extreme, but still.
I have found what seems like will always be my biggest struggle; enforcing rules that I don't believe in.  Just a few examples...
During circle time, the children must sit crisscross apple sauce. There are some cases in which I understand why this would be a rule... like one child does not have very much core strength and sitting crisscross helps build that strength. It is when the children get excited about something so they sit up on their knees, or the kids that need to move more want to stretch their legs out in front of them, that I find it difficult to enforce the crisscross applesauce rule. I honestly do not see a reason why a children should not be allowed to sit on their knees if they are listening.
During recess when we go to the gym, the rule is that the children must run 4 laps on the blue line. The blue line I understand to be a safety rule so the children don't run over someone else playing. However, the 4 laps rule is strict. I assume the idea that the children should run about 4 laps to release some energy and help them stay calm throughout the rest of the day but at some point the reason for running laps became lost and the rule stuck. So all of the children must run 4 laps. Period. They cannot play until they have ran their 4 laps. Some children are very calm and don't need to release so much energy just to sit still during circle time after recess and some kids could probably run 10 laps and still have a crazy amount of energy.
The topic I have chosen for my final project is about how children with incarcerated parents are effected academically and ways a teacher can help. I'm working on this with Karen. I chose this topic because a few of the children in my class have one or both parents that are in and out of jail. However, these children don't usually act the same. Some lash out in anger for small reasons and others don't seem to be physical when they are angry. I wonder if it has anything to do with when their parents get out of jail or when they go back.