Having been back at school for 4 weeks now, I’m hoping that
my life will become a little less busy so that I have more time to write. But,
who am I kidding? If it’s important I can always make time...so, really I’ve
just been lazy.
However, a benefit of waiting several (upon several upon
several) weeks to write anything new is that I am now armed with a plethora of
new (and mostly) funny occurrences and dialogues from my high school students
from this past month. Without any more ado, please enjoy this peek into my life
as a teacher to some creative Asian kids.
1.
While showing pictures of my family (after the
New Year holiday) to my 11th grade students, when my dad’s picture
appeared, one of the girls started to sing a Christmas song while another
student whispered, “Santa.”
2.
11th grade students in geography
class…I asked them to guess which Latin America country we would study in our
next class. Clearly without thinking, I had a student yell out “Canada.”
3.
In the next geography class, I had a student
guess that Brazil was famous for its kangaroos.
4.
I asked some students why the calendar in their
classroom was a month behind. One of them looked at me and said,
matter-of-factly, “we’re time travelers.”
5.
While passing some students in the hallway
assembling lounge chairs, I joked with them that I would not be using the
chairs because I didn’t trust their craftsmanship. One student looked at me and
said, “no teacher, it’s because you’re heavy.”
6.
In grade 10, one Korean student was explaining
why he had 10 cousins. His grandma had 7 children. Another student “complimented”
him; “wow, your grandma is good at pregnant!”
7.
During a review activity in grade 10, several of
the students were getting way too involved in the game. If their team answered
correctly, they could give their own team a point or remove a point from an
opposing team…yeah, this one was probably my fault for creating that game.
After the several rounds, teams finally started taking points from each other,
and the situation became very personal very quickly. One team (Team Sexy Cats…without
them knowing I had them create team names by choosing an adjective and an
animal…so we had some interesting team names) was begging another team (Team
Angry Dogs) for mercy. A student from the Angry Dogs stood up and yelled, “This
is war! I will take everything you have!”
8.
Later, the same student from Team Angry Dogs was
trying arguing with a fellow team member because she wanted to save their point
instead of removing it from another team. He finally looks at her and
passionately stated, “This is life or death. Do you want to die?!” She looked
shocked for a few seconds then turned to me to say that the Sexy Cats would
lose a point.
9.
In 10th grade, I had a student
confuse Santa and Satan. She told me that Hell was Santa’s house…
10. During a quiz in grade 11, I asked students who were finished to turn their quiz over so I would know who was still working. While walking around the classroom, I found one student with his head down on his desk, seemingly giving up, but his quiz wasn’t quite finished yet. I leaned down and jokingly asked him quietly if he was finished or just sad. He looked at me and said, “just sad."
11. In another class for 11th grade we were discussing how Mexico was home to the world’s second smallest rabbit. A curious student asked me where the world’s first smallest rabbit was from. His classmate said, “it’s in your stomach.” (This conversation took place after the class discussed a popular idea that Chinese people can eat any animal.)
