Teaching

My students are doing a Christmas Around the World activity.  They were each assigned a country to research and then they have a little book to fill in about the Christmas traditions in that country.

One of them wanted Japan.  He said, "I know everything about Japan.  There isn't anything about Japan I don't know."

Awesome, but you still got India, kid.

(He is the same student who earlier in the day said he didn't need to learn to read because he was going to be a professional basketball player.  I've seen him play basketball and I'm not stopping those reading lessons yet....)

At the end of the day, I said, "Something happened 80 years ago today.  Does anyone know what it was?"

They wanted to know if I was alive back then.

That has ceased to offend me because they also think I'm younger than their parents.  They have zero concept of age.

They didn't know what happened.  I told them it was the only time we were bombed by another country.  So then they all thought it was September 11.  (Do you hear yourselves kids?  On December 7 we are commemorating September 11?)

Man.

I said that wasn't a country attacking us, but terrorists.

Finally someone remembered Pearl Harbor.  I said, "Do you know who bombed us?"

Even my Japanese expert didn't know.

I said, "Japan."

He insisted, "Well I still love Japan."

I said that was good because they weren't our enemy now.

He said, "As long as we didn't nuke them."

Then I had to share the bad news that we did, in fact, nuke them.

I told them a little about it all and then I realized it was time for them to clean up.  One of the other students, a mischievous boy who I love even though he causes problems daily with his shenanigans said, "No!  Keep talking!"

I love being a teacher.  Janelle sent me this the other day and it cracked me up because it is absolutely true, but I still love it.

And I'm going to take some of Braeden and Mark's World War II books to school.  When someone wants to know more about something, I am on the case.