I've truly been meaning to post another blog for quite some time but some things have gotten away with me... Prime among them - winter vacation, Istanbul, Florence and the Machine, children, and kitchen waterfalls. I'm going to leave the last one for a later date considering the voracity of my immediate wrath is already being heard two floors down. However winter vacation was fantastic and the trip to Istanbul was incredible. We were there for five days (which included three Christmas celebrations and much baklava) and saw Alex's friend from college whose parents live in Istanbul. We spent most of our time hopping from cafe to cafe...basically my perfect vacation. Also Turkey was freezing- only by my current standards of course - with the temp hovering between 6 and 10 Celsius which is a positively balmy spring day in Boston. Obviously I'll need to up my Jack London quota before I return to the Northeast Corridor. Also, if you've never heard of Florence and the Machine, check her out. She basically lives in my mental soundtrack these days.
Since this blog is clearly all about children I'd like to bring them back into the equation and stop pretending. First of all, I received a new student after the new term in January. Literally teaching royalty now. So strange to think that I live somewhere that a member of the royal family could be (and is) in my kindergarten class. Also mildly terrifying. Granted the royal family here is gigantic...but still. Hello, microscope.
I love that most of them have some capacity for English now because they are obsessed with telling me stories. For example,
"Teacher!"
"If you need to ask me something, raise your hand. *Pause* Yes, Ian?"
"Teacher, Me I take you...me take you.... Me and Ghadi and Steve and Abbas...we take you...you come...my jet...we take you, we go...we go...we go to the Lebanon!"
"Realllllyyy Ian? We will fly in your jet to Lebanon?! You will take me?"
"Nods. Yes and we go *whooosh* too much fast."
"OOooooo thank you Ian! I've never been to Lebanon."
Or, after telling them that my stove is broken and that no one will fix it for me. (My wrath was seeping over into my workday that day. I woke up to an inch of standing water on my kitchen floor AND the bus was late. To give you some perspective I had just slipped a note under the Head of Maintenance's door. Written in red pen.)
"Now is it important to have a cooker (yes some of the things we teach them are so British) in your house? Why?"
"Yes Teacher! To make hot the food!! Cooker! (Cooker was our vocab word last week ('In the Kitchen') which is how I justified this incursion into classtime.)"
"Yes, very good! Excellent! Now when it is broken shouldn't we fix it? Yes, Ghadi?"
"Teacher me I fix for you!"
"Ah ah! Me I fix??" **I'm waging a serious war on "Me I..."
"Teacher, I fix for you! Me I bring you...PURPLE cooker."
"Oh Thank you Ghadi!" **Couldn't even bring myself to correct him that time.
I've also taken to dispensing with 'song time' because there are more important issues discuss. Maybe you can learn good lessons from The Wheels on the Bus... life goes on? Don't miss the bus? Moving on, instead I now shed insights on some of life's bigger questions. For example:
1. Why it is disgusting to pick your nose. Yes I use the word disgusting and not yucky, gross, or icky. Yes they try to repeat it. Yes it's hilarious. But yes they will have a real vocabulary and not that baby talk drivel that I desperately hate. I also told them their fingers could get stuck that way. I AM MY MOTHER.
2. Why it is forbidden to play with guns in my class.
3. Why the most important thing to do is try their best.
4. The difference between the right thing and the wrong thing and a good thing and a bad thing.
And finally, my favorite thus far....
5. The difference between the truth and a lie.
Yesterday I actually posed the question, "What is the truth?"
This is what happens when you hire a Philosophy major to teach kindergarten.
