My Jeffery is a Two

Since September, I have been meaning to write down some of the silly things that have happened in my classroom this year so that I won't forget them but , now it's almost May and, I haven't written down any of them. So, instead of just writing them on a notepad, I have decided to write them on here so that you can enjoy them and so that, in 7 years when I want to remember this year, I can log on and find this post!

"My Jeffery is a two." Our classes have a number behavioral system. So, at the end of class, I give all of the students a 0-4 (4 being the best). On one of the days where I didn't have a Chinese teacher with me, the kids were going crazy but luckily I had my little pal Toby to help me keep everybody in line. Unfortunately, Toby's deskmate Jeffery was just not having it that day and neither Toby nor I could get him to do what he was supposed to do. So, at the end of class, Toby put his arm around Jeffery and said "Sorry, teacher. My Jeffery is a two." (He was actually a zero but I appreciated Toby's help).

"Teacher, this is VERY so cool!" On the day that we were learning the phrase "painting a picture" I showed the kids a movie of an elephant painting a picture with his trunk. Before the movie started I was trying to get everyone excited about it so that they would stop talking, so, I said "Guys, you're gonna love this. It's seriously SO COOL." While they were watching it, York stood up, pointed at the tv and yelled "teacher, this is VERY SO COOL."

"Is your dad Korean?" They love to ask me questions about my family. Unfortunately, they don't have enough English for us to talk about it easily but, between my little Chinese and their English, we get there eventually. This conversation took a little longer for me to understand because I couldn't understand where this even came from let alone why Toby would be asking me this but, apparently, he just had to know if my dad was Korean. (He's not by the way. He's American).

"Do you like....ARTHUR?" At the beginning of class, I ask my kids questions from previous lessons to get them talking. I had already asked Arthur to stop talking a few times but he just could not stop. So, as I was in the middle of asking "Daisy, do you like fruit?" Arthur let out a scream. So, I turned and I ended up saying, "Daisy, do you like....ARTHUR?" and then the whole class lost it. Arthur turned bright red (and he still hasn't totally lived it down) but it did make him stop talking!

"Ok....turtle." Jason loves turtles. And no matter how many times we play pictionary (or "guess what this is") and I give him something else to draw, he draws a turtle. The first time he played, I asked him to draw bird and he said "Ok teacher, a turtle" and I said "no, a bird". He whispered back "ok, a turtle". "No, Jason a bird!" Then he was drawing and when he finished, he looked at me and said "ok...turtle."

"Teacher....no." Paul is a very sweet boy. Every time I work with him, he holds my hand or he pats my hair. When he came out to take one of his tests during the first semester, he was patting my hand and looking at the test and I said "ok, Paul" and he looked at me, looked at the test, looked back at me and whispered, "Teacher.....no"

"A blue hop, teacher" During another game of picitonary, I asked Lance to draw a blue hat. He stood there thinking for a while and then he finally started drawing. When he finished I said "umm, Lance. What is that?" "A blue hop, teacher!" And it absolutely was....

"Teacher, I have no friends." After lunch we have an extra five minutes of English with each of our classes and we teach them a simple dialogue outside of our curriculum. One week, it was "How was your holiday?" when I asked one of my students this question he looked at me said, "Teacher, I have no friends", and then walked away. So, I'm thinking that his holiday wasn't that great.

"Beautiful teacher, I beg of you,

Pick me!" I have no idea where Belle learned this phrase but it has become her go to saying for when she wants to participate in class.

"One minute, teacher!" Scott always wants to participate. He raises his hand, he screams and he jumps up and down in an attempt to get me to call on him (even though it usually does the exact opposite) but one day I did call him. He was sitting nicely (which usually means he's up to something) so I asked him to come to the board. As he was standing up, the cover on his desk came up with him and he yelled "One minute, teacher!" There was a rip in his desk cover and a long string had come out of it. Scott had taken the string and used it to tie the red scarf from his uniform to his desk cover and now couldn't get it loose. So, we waited as he unraveled the string from his dangling desk cover and scarf and finally made his way to the board.

Lastly:

"No, you are like a beautiful, young flower." This one is my personal favorite. During the unit that I was teaching the words "young, old, beautiful and ugly", my students started using "ugly" and "old" to describe me. I laughed along because I had known it was coming but then one of my students stood up and said "No! You are like a beautiful, young flower! Like is same, right teacher?" "Absolutely!" Thanks, Neil. Good looking out!

I'm hoping that as I remember more stories, I will also remember to write them down. So, hopefully, another one of these blogs will be coming soon!