You may not know that I do some work teaching in primary schools. Of course, children are blessed with the ability to say the funniest of things without realising they have done so. I would like to share with you some of my favourite recent classroom moments (the names have been changed for the purposes of our anonymity).
• I was teaching a Year 6 class when I discovered a future ACTU (Unions) President. The regular teacher has a system where for every correct answer on class exercises they get a certain dollar amount. Not real money of course, they tally it up and at the end of semester they bid for lollies etc. I had just taught a lesson on reflex angles and suddenly the teacher sprung it on me that I could decide how much money they got for every correct answer. I wasn’t really sure how much was appropriate yet so I said $2 for every tick. Uproar ensued. This was far too small but I remained firm as the rabble became louder and the workers started planning their revolt, disgusted with the bosses’ wage levels. One of the most intelligent and well-behaved (but not stuck up or posh) children put her hand up and I thought it was to ask a question.
“Yes Amy?”
“Excuse me Mr. Champas but I must protest. This is not an appropriate amount. We would normally get about $5 for this sort of work.”
Well how could I refuse such an eloquently put request on behalf of her classmates? She had put her case and so a wage rise was successfully negotiated.
• I had done a writing exercise with the Year 4s and I took the books home to read over them and I wrote a little positive comment on each. On John’s I wrote “Good vocabulary, John”, because I had been rather impressed by what he had written. John’s hand went up when I handed it back...
“Mr Champas, what’s vocabaly?”
• I did a reading comprehension lesson with a small group. We had got into quite an in-depth discussion about fairytales stereotyping step-parents and other issues raised by the story. As such we didn’t get a chance for everyone to have a read. I apologised at the end, feeling a little guilty and searching quickly for some sort of compensatory, explanatory remark
“I’m sorry not everyone got a chance to read this week, but....errr.."
“That’s okay, we did a lot of good discussion,” Lucy, who hadn't read, chirped.
Oh bless your cotton socks Lucy.
• One of the teachers told me about a show and tell session with the kids I was teaching. Bob had got up to talk about what he was going to do on the weekend:
“We’re going to go visit Dad in rehab...”.
He continued on, but when questions came around the question inevitably arose:
“What’s rehab?”. The teacher jumped in to try to save face:
“That’s where you go when you’re not very well”. Bob immediately interjected:
“Naaaah. It’s because he takes too many drugs.”
Oh to have only seen the face of that uber-conservative teacher at that moment as the poor little children had their minds soiled by learning of the real lives of their classmates.
• The Year 5s have been doing sex ed in another classroom while the Year 4s work on other stuff. We call Sex Ed “Human Relationships Ed”. But most of the Year 4s have figured out that it’s talking about all that icky stuff. One boy told me today he hopes he never gets out of Year 4 so he doesn’t ever have to learn about all that icky stuff.
• I observed a lesson where the teacher was getting the kids to write a recipe for an ANZAC stew. They had been learning about the ANZACs and they were supposed to learn the recipe genre. The kids were to create the recipe, decide on the ingredients etc. I thought it was brilliant when one kid asked if they could write a recipe for an ANZAC curry instead! I just thought the mix was brilliant. The kid, having grown up in his era had no concept of the ANZACs going home to a meat and three veg dinner. Curries were just a normal part of life to him. So the ANZACs must have had curries too. We’ve come a long way, even if we are still a very white culture.
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