New Students

I briefly mentioned that I have a new class of six year olds. There are now 21 of them. I honestly have no idea how to teach them. I have a hard time even getting their attention after the break at all. I'm going to ask for a teachers' aid this weekend because they just don't listen to me. The good thing is that no matter how much I yell at them to be quiet and sit down (two phrases I know that they know), they still smile at me and wave when they leave the class. That blows my mind (though it could possibly be because they weren't really listening to me when I was yelling).

I had two new students this week who didn't have English names. Last time I let the student pick, he named himself Peter 3, so I knew I wasn't going to let that happen this time. I watched these two new students and new right away what to name them.

The girl was quiet and sweet. She never came to me complaining (a futile practice because I don't speak Vietnamese) like many of the others. One boy dropped all of his crayons and she got on all fours and helped him pick them up. Another girl came and started coloring on her paper, and instead of yelling at the girl, she smiled and quietly colored with her.

The boy was quiet and didn't know any of the other children. He seemed so nice, like he would be a pushover, but when a group of boys tried to make him scoot over, he wouldn't have it. He wasn't going to move to another carpet square because a couple of boys told him to. I wanted to move all of the little tables out of the way to play 'duck, duck, goose,' and because I didn't know how to tell them to do it, I started to put away one table. This boy got up and went to work. He didn't question the directions, and didn't stop until everything was put away. And when I motioned for him to come over and sit next to the girl for the picture, he just did it, wide-eyed.

They were quite the pair. Meet Helen and Luke: