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 | Coverage Day: Tuesday, October 27th
Schools Visited: ES3
The end of a wacky schedule month draws to an end for me, but not before one of the biggest changes yet. Today marked one of the rare occassions (maybe even the first) in which I attended ES3 on a Tuesday. This was a welcome change because seeing any of the schools on different days is a sure-fire way to keep things interesting for me. And with Tuesdays being "Club Day" at this school, I had something to look forward to all throughout the day.
While I was happily enjoying my day, all the teachers around me were running around in a frenzy. Today was apparently the BOE's Inspection Day of this school, which meant some suits would be observing classes in-action. I was a bit nervous about this myself, though in the end, the only time I ever encountered the small wandering group was during the 4th-period with the 5th-graders, and they only stayed for 5 minutes, which was long enough to see me sitting with a group of kids while we were doing the clothing store activity.
Earlier in the day, I started off with the 1st- and 2nd-graders. I've seen this class so many times this semester that we're actually way ahead in the syllabus. Because we had some extra time, I turned today's topic into a short lesson about Halloween. The 2nd-graders already knew most of the vocabulary I was teaching them (pumpkin/candy/ghost/witch), but at least the 1st-graders got to learn something new.
The only moment of comedy I can openly recall from this period was when I was doing the opening warm-ups where I ask the kids "how are you?" One of the 2nd-grade girls got flustered as she stood up, and came out with the response: "I'm..... uhhhhh.... sorry....?"
heh heh heh... I guess this was bound to happen since that "I'm sorry. He is sorry" joke is so popular in this class. Well, it was up until it was replaced with "Mayonnaise (name)" as a way of saying "my name is (name)." In fact, one girl is so addicted to that joke that I think I'll have to grant her with the nickname, Mayonnaise-chan. Everyone, say hello.
During the morning recess, I played soccer with a very large group of kids. I was the goalkeeper for the Red Team. At one point, one of the 6th-grade boys made a charge on the goal, but when he went for the shot, he kicked so hard that his shoe went flying into the air...
... and over the fence
... into the woods.
He didn't get it back until after lunch when the 6th-grade teacher trudged in through the thick vegetation to fish it out, haha.
4th-period was spent with the 5th-graders. Today they were practicing colors and articles of clothing. For one of the examples, the teacher and I were demonstrating a conversation on shopping in a clothing store. The teacher was the clerk and I was the customer. She asked me what I wanted to buy. As a joke (YES, THIS IS ONLY A JOKE)... I picked the pink skirt. All the kids giggled, then were laughing heartily when I held it up to my body and asked them if I looked pretty (AGAIN... JOKE!!!). heeheeheehee
As you've probably noticed, the first half of my day was only made up of quick momentary quips and gags. The better comedy came starting with the lunch/recess/souji-period. Well, before comedy, I just want to note that one of the 2nd-grade girls was depending on my help for her unicycle practice today as I was playing soccer. She hasn't interacted with me much on her own since my arrival back in April, so I thought it was sweet how she's finally started coming out of her shell. Seems like I've reached that point in this school where the kids finally feel more comfortable coming up to me as individuals, instead of in small groups.
As for the funny stuff, I put on quite a show as the kids were coming out of the cafeteria and washing their hands... and brushing their teeth... without toothpaste. Anyway... some of the kids like Rock/Paper/Scissors 1-2-3, so usually as they're brushing, they turn to me and we duel. Most of them do it AFTER they brush, but not usually WHILE they are brushing. However, today one boy didn't want to wait, so he turned to me and put out "rock." I was saying the words in English, but he couldn't say it with me since his mouth was full. Or so I thought.
He began to hum the words as we went through the motions. After two or three matches, we had a decent-sized group formed of onlookers and new participants, including one of the 5th-grade girls who isn't too great at English, but seems to have a bit of sway in terms of classroom management. This was key since what followed next had her in stitches. The boy kept humming the words, so my thought was to mimic him. The kids thought it was funny that I would be humming instead of speaking, but what came next pushed them over the edge. When I won, I would hum really loudly while jumping and pumping my fists in excitement; when I lost, I would hum sadly, then turn to the wall and cry, also while humming. I couldn't see what the audience was doing, but I know of the 8 or 9 kids around me, there was plenty of excitement around. They wanted to see more, so we ended up going through this maybe 10 or 15 times.
I was wondering what the BOE inspectors would have thought if they turned the corner at this point, haha.
Inspector: Oh, is that your foreign English teacher over there?
Principal: Why, yes it is. He's really good with the kids.
Inspector: I wanna hear what's going on.
3 minutes of mumbling nonsense later
Inspector: uhhhhh... can he... speak... AT ALL?
Principal: Well... ummmmmmmmmmm, he gets punched in the throat... a lot, I think.
During the cleaning time, I went into the gym to see what was going on in there. The kids were messing around, mainly seeing how far they could slide across the room. The 6th-grade girl in-charge of the group was a bit frazzled that none of the kids were listening to her, especially the biggest delinquent, Mayonnaise-chan. After one slide, the girl went over to her and grabbed her hands, as she was still sitting on the ground. She was going to drag Mayonnaise-chan along the slick floor, but she didn't want to hurt her or something. This is when I came over and helped. I grabbed Mayonnaise-chan's feet while the others watched, and together with the group-leader, we carried her over to where the others were sitting. Of course this was wildly exciting for the little one (even though this is a pretty standard move in most American schools), but I guess it's not a good idea to "discipline" children using fun tactics that they enjoy since it just encourages them to be bad again, haha. Hey... Operant Conditioning strikes again.
I did teach the 6th-graders in the 5th-period, and though we had a lot of fun together, I can't recall anything that stands out. All is well, however, since this class lead up to the Club Period which I was so anxious to finally check out. This school has three clubs: Sports Club (today was kickball), Cooking Club (banana cupcakes), and Science Club. At first I was all gung-ho about the Sports Club, but I'm not all that thrilled with kickball (maybe if they didn't use a damn soccer ball... those hurt), so I decided to go with the more rare chance and joined the Cooking Club. The club is made up of about 9 girls, 2 boys, and 3 teachers. My self-appointed task was to help the two girls who were placing the foil into the cupcake dishes. They were two 4th-grade girls, and one of them is the girl from last week who was overly-excited that I was joining their Science Class. She'll have a nickname soon, if I can think of one. "Cupcake-chan" is waay too cutesy, haha, and probably doesn't speak much to her personality.
Anyway, we did our job, then sat with the others while one of the 6th-grade girls (the same one from the gym) lead some discussion in which they were voting on, like what to do next or something. The only word I knew was "mascot." Students were raising their hands, then getting called on... even kids who only raised their hands to stretch or make a point in a sub-conversation they were having. I thought it was funny since the girl I was talking to got accidentally called-on, so I capitalized on this. I raised my hand right after, and when I was called on, I stood up, cleared my throat, waited for everyone to be listening... then just as the kids do to me sometimes in class... I said "wakarimasen" and then sat down. Heeheeheehee... but maybe the joke was on me since one of the options, as I read the board after, was actually listed as "wakarimasen."
Comedy continued as we were waiting for the cupcakes to cook and the 5th-grade girl from earlier wanted me to continue my RPS123 over-reactions. In my first loss against her and like 3 others, I burried my face in my hands, then pulled my face mask up to cover my mouth, nose, and eyes. This got plenty of laughs, then even more when I took my glasses off, then put them on OVER the face-mask. We played another match of RPS123, but the obvious joke was now that I had no idea if I won or lost. I could hear cheering, which means they must have all won... legitimately... right? They wouldn't take advantage of my momentary blindness... right??
The next comedy came from one of the students in this group, and actually turned into a bit of a running-gag. One of the 6th-grade girls is always running up to me and poking me randomly. It catches me off-guard all the time since she's so straight-laced and serious during class and other activities, but apparently not above sneak-attacks and other mischief. As we were all leaving the room for dismissal-time, I felt a huge poke in my back. When I turned around, she was standing there, posed in a karate-stance. Before I could even be like "what are doing?", she started jabbing at me with her clenched fingers. Gah... girl's got fingernails, too. I had to instantly start blocking and smacking her hands away, but it wasn't working. When I started going on the offensive, she backed out into the hallway, then turned and ran toward the looby.
I was following quickly behind her, then she turned into the first aisle of shoe-lockers while I went to the second. In this school, the shoe-lockers are only about 4 feet tall, so they only come up to about my chest. I could easily stand in the middle aisle and reach over to her side, which was good since I could keep her from getting to her shoes. The RPS123 fangirl was there watching, and again, she found this to be insanely humorous. Even moreso when I would duck down, then pop up in a different spot. Taking it up a notch, I also stuck my head out around the sides. Probably my best hit was when I was able to come all the way onto their side without being noticed and poke the 6th-grade girl in the back, sending her startled self through the ceiling.
We messed around a bit more outside, but she had more help from classmates, plus she was hitting me with her hat, so I had to be more sneaky and wait until times when she had her guard down. After the kids left, I went to play baseball and basketball with the After-School Program kids until it was time for me to go.
And now it's time for me to go to bed. Until next time, see you!!!! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Notice
As a way of adding extra protection for my students (and my job), new entries will come out on time-delay so that my assistant editors, AJtheFourth and JackGrover, can help me edit out anything that might be taken the wrong way. We don't want people to think ill of certain situations, especially considering that I'm a 28 year-old male working with girls aged 5-15. Sometimes when I word things a certain way, it reads online as something different from how it sounded in my head. Hopefully my editors will catch these quips before the guys at Dateline: To Catch a Predator catch them, heehee. |
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