School Stories

Christmas is coming soon, at least in Japan it is. Our Halloween Decorations came down and Sachiko had me brainstorm a way to make a Christmas tree. The finished product is minimalist but looks nice. I'm still bitter about it going up over two months before the holiday though!

The other day I was teaching superlatives to a pair of 9 year old girls. Big, bigger, biggest. Fast, faster, fastest. So I asked them if they could think of anymore, and they came up with a few, happy, happier, happiest; funny, funnier, funniest; Grant, Grantier, Grantiest.... What? Then they started debating, should it be Grant, Granter, Grantest, or Granty, Grantier, Grantiest. I leave it up to my loyal readers to decide what the proper superlative form of my name is.

A couple of weeks ago I was teach the Evil Class of Doom that I have. Two brothers, both of whom have a tendency to scream and generally carry on, luckily it's the only class that really gives me grey hairs. Anyway, we were playing Snakes and Ladders and the younger boy threw the dice at me to take my turn. They hit me and rolled to the floor, where I saw the magical 3 that I needed to win the game. So I didn't bother to reroll and just went with it, as class was already a bit over time. The youngest did not take this well. He took it so poorly in fact that he whipped down his pants and exposed his 'bathing suit area'. I felt suitably punished, and I think I said a very bad word and "Put that away!"

I have a class with a pair of two-year olds that can be a challange to teach. I was teaching them feelings, happy, sad, angry, excited and so on, and they got happy down pat. But when I flashed the card for sad, rather than use the English one of them just said "Happy ja nai!" Basically, Not Happy, in Japanese. I said, "Well yes but in English it is Sad. Sad. Sad."

"Happy ja nai!"

"Sad"

"Happy ja nai!"

"Sad"

"Happy ja nai!Happy ja nai!Happy ja nai!Happy ja nai!"

*Teacher Cries*