Earthquake Drills and Hidden Treasure

Yesterday, while working with 3 of my lowest beginners ( beginning to learn English), the PA system in my classroom announced an Earthquake drill .  I knew it was due to happen but I hadn't read the protocol very well . I knew it involved ducking and waiting it out under a table inside the classroom .

It was hilarious ! My students thought I had gone mad ! Their class teacher had prepped them for the drill but my poor EAL students wouldn't have understood a word ! And now, here was Ms.Deepa who seemed pretty normal until now, hurrying them to leave their work and crawl under furniture !  " What? what?"  " why ? " they said between guffaws, even as I tried modelling what I wanted them to do !  The I started shaking furniture, and my body in an effort to convey " earthquake ! "  Finally the Japanese kid understood and immediately ducked under a desk .  The other 2 French kids followed suit .

Crouching there, I tried explaining again because I had a strong feeling about what was going on in their minds . Finally my petit French girl said  "ah ! Exemple ! oui, oui, I know!  tremblement de terre "... Yes , yes... EXAMPLE ! PRACTICE ! I yelled in relief !  Phew!

I was crouched under a big ( relatively big I have a classroom that's built for 7 & 8 year olds )  table . Just as I was wondering if there was anything else I missed from the safety protocol handbook , my Japanese  boy piped in " Ms.Deepa, you table too bad . no strong . you die ! "   Yup ! He was right . My table sure was big enough for me to sit comfortable , but was made of plywood and so flimsy that if there had been a real earthquake . . . Anyway I crawled out , duck waddled with my hands covering my head and crawled under a tiny , solid wood student desk . My neck was growing stiff and so I tried stretching it .

Bad move .

I caught sight of the hidden treasure . I looked around . There , on the underside of each student desk were dried up globs of   the product of  years and years of  gold digging .*

YUCK!!  Now that image keeps popping up in my mind each time I see their little chubby hands !


* In India ( at least when I was in school ) , if a teacher caught you with your finger up your nose , she might say " What ? digging for gold ah ? "

Journal Entries & Vanity!

One of the things my students do almost on a daily basis is write in their journals for about 10-15 minutes. The main idea behind this exercise is to build their writing stamina. It also serves as an 'idea bank' from where they can draw inspiration for other writers workshop assignments. I encourage free writing and only give a topic if they are absolutely stuck. I do not grade their journal entries, but I do get to read them!

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Here's a sample from a little boy in my class. I've heard it said that Love has no age limit. But this young??

And It's not as simple as that. There is a love triangle with a jealous 3rd party involved.

I think I really have to start asking them to widen their horizons and write about other things! I might even give journal writing a bit of a rest for a while.

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But then I won't get to read stuff like this one below.... and see myself represented as a princess/fairy in dressed in a medevial flowy gown with a stylish lock of hair covering my eyes...

And feel the thrill of knowing my student imagines I am a fairy!! And "not just a simple fairy, but a wonderful fairy". Oh! The joys of teaching young 'uns!

But then again.... NO..... Seriously, I need to have a chat with this lil fella and get him to write about stuff other than fairies, princess and romance!

arrrrrgggggggggh!!

I agreed to let my room be used today as the venue for an After School Activity. Foolish me forgot to ask the co-ordinator what activity would be held in my room.

So here I am.... I have PILES of work to finish but I just cannot because there's a beginners VIOLIN class happening in my room.

BEGINNERS VIOLIN!!

keeeeeeh ki ki ki keeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

My hair is standing on ends, my ears are ringing and my head is splitting from badly tuned violins played by 4th graders. grrrrrr and strangely enough there is a bitter metallic taste in my mouth!

lesson learnt: Never ever agree to host an after school activity without knowing what it is. And never ever will I let Nanma take up the violin!

The Master Key

image source

The new school year is now well on its way, and I have a new set of stories to tell. Here's the latest.

I usually begin my class with what we call 'Circle Share' . We sit on the rug in a circle and 3 people get to share something that happened to them . Others will ask questions or offer comments. Last week I modeled this activity by sharing something that had happened that morning.

"This morning I found out that I locked my keys inside my classroom so I called security. But they were all busy directing the traffic outside school. So I went to the principal. He came up to the room with his master key and opened it for me."

TH: "Oh cool! Master key!"

JHH : What can it do?

me: It can open any door in the school.

All : Waaaaaaaaoooowwwwww!

AG : What colour is it?

me: um..... gold.

AG : I knew it! A master key can only be a golden key!

TH: Waaaaaaoooow! A golden key!

JHH: Do you have it now? Can you show it?

me: No. The principal has it.

JHH: (In a serious whispery voice) A golden master key - Only the master hold it. Somebody, anybody else hold it, they DIE!

All: ooooooh!!

TH: But how did they make it?
JHH: I know.... long ago. All the energies of school, in all the rooms come together. On top of mountain. And there...... A fire dragon (grrraaaaoowl!) give it to the master. (He kneels down on one knee, head bowed, arms outstretched as if to recieve the key) Now master hold the master key! (One hand raised up, eyes focussed on the ceiling)

The rest of the class - me included, watched the drama with open mouthed wonder.

I had heard from his previous teacher that JHH can be quite a handful. I didn't know he had such a wild imagination. What's amazing is that this child expresses himself so confidently given his limited knowledge of English.

This academic year is going to be so exciting!!! :)

la la lala!

Bye bye! School! Hello Summer break!

Today is the last working day of this academic year. Tomorrow my Summer break begins.

2 months!

Two whole months!

This is one of the best perks of being a teacher!

:)

A Short Story

Here's something I found as I was grading papers today. This is a short story. Children were given picture prompts and asked to write a story. This particular Japanese boy has improved his English in leaps and bounds. He can communicate quite effectively however, he still uses a lot of invented spelling.

I thought his spelling for this piece was just adorable and wanted to share.

Tina make a sandwaitch

Tina wants to make a sandwaitch. But she kuddend reatsch the pakitsh of bread. Then she tolk a chare! Then she was standing on the chare but she koundenned reatsch the pakitsh of bread. Then her father kame and gafe the pakitsh of bread to Tina. Then she was happy, now she kould make the Sandwaitches.

Can you see how hard he has tried to spell words like 'couldn't ', 'package' and 'reach'? I'm so proud of him!

My Classroom

This academic year, I was blessed with a full size classroom. The amount of space I have now is terrific. How I wish all classrooms around the world were like this!

Most of the classrooms I had when I was in school were half the size of this and we had about 5 students and their schoolbags crammed into one long bench and desk. the number of students in a class varied from 35-45! There was one ancient blackboard, no fans, one rickety metal cupboard, and 1 plastic waste-bin. 6 years after I passed out from that school, I went back there to teach. As far as classroom facilities were concerned, there was one major improvement. Most classrooms had fans! There was also 1 computer lab for the school's entire population (1500 or so) with about 20 computers. As you can see, not much had changed. I think this is mostly because this was a private English Medium school in village that was growing into becoming a town. The school catered to the people living in the town and in the surrounding villages. I had many classmates who were the first in their family to receive any kind of formal education. The school fee as I remember it when I studied there was about Rs.800 a term.

Now compare that to the school where I work now. The school fee is so high that even with the subsidy available to faculty, I cannot dream of educating my children here. Almost anything I need to enhance my teaching, I have! My students say the words "poor people" like they belong in another planet! Their idea of India is dirty roads, 'poor people', Taj Mahal, the beach resorts dotting the coast and fab India. And yet, my students are smart, loving, and have young, impressionable minds. I know my calling right now is to work in this school, with it's almost entirely ex-pat population, because this is where God so providentially placed me. How I got a job here is another story for another blog post.

Anyway, here are some pictures from my classroom

This is the view from my desk. Remember I wrote about this earlier?? Love it. The building you see just below the sun, a little to the left is Tidel park. Or "taigal pak" as Nanma calls it.

This is my work station - my teacher's corner. My computer, printer, messy desk, messy bulletin board filled with family pictures.

This is the door, and the sign above it.

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This is one thing we do everyday in our class. Yes, this picture was taken a few days ago.

My Smart-board! It is placed so low so that my students can reach up to it.

Reference books mixed with some others in the class library.

Floor cushions stacked up in the reading corner. Those are levelled books that you see in the tubs.

Of course I have to share my most favorite book with my class. So here it is- my own, lovingly, annually read copy of "Anne of Green Gables".

Here's a sample of writing from my class. Not the best, not the worst.

I have students from all these countries. Since taking this picture, I have now acquired 2 Finnish students.

One of my classroom walls. I also teach ESL content support to grade 4 twice a week. So the lesson on shadows are from that class.

What do you think?? Nice???

The good, the bad and the funni!

So, my students were given this assignment. The prompt was "Write about a game you like to play"

Here are a few samples of what I read as I graded them.

One boy wrote - "My favorite game is the game of life." I was astounded. Such words from a little 2nd grader!...Well, my awe-ing was short lived because I read on to find that he was talking about a board game called "LIFE"

Another boy wrote about his Nintendo DS. After explaining with hand drawn illustrations on how to switch the thing on and what buttons to use, he goes on to say why he plays this game "When I play game, the bad is going out of my body."

Here's another one. "Tag is so, so fun. It's more fun to play inside the house. But not when Mom is there. "

And can you beat this? "Tag is so funi game. It is so fun that I can die"

Ever heard of these two games? "hide and sick and ronthn brage is foring down" You might have guessed the first one right. The second game? Why, 'London bridge is falling down' - of course!

Hmm...what's more fun? Playing or falling down? " Its so fun to run, and I fall down someni tims. I fall on the flore some 50 or 100 times, an more times I cant count!"

And another one!

I had just written and posted my last post and then I went on to do my recess supervision duty on the playground when this happened.

A cute (and by cute, I mean so cute you could have him for dessert) lil first grader comes to me asking for a hall pass to see the nurse. Here's our conversation.

Me: "Why do you need to see the nurse?"

boy:"because my head hurts."

Me:"How long has it been hurting?"

boy:"I dont know. I can't read time. But it happened at recess"

Me:" So it happened in the last 5 minutes. What happened? Did you hit your head somewhere?"

boy: "I don't know."

Me: "You don't know if you hit your head in the last 5 minutes?" (I'm beginning to worry by now...amnesia???)

boy: "yeah.. I don't know. Because my friend and I were playing close your eyes and run. So I dont know what I hit. I just know I was running and then there was a bump and I fell down. Now my head is hurting."

Me (trying in vain to control my laughter) Ok. here's your hall pass. Don't play that game again. It could be dangerous!

Rhymes with groom!

The other day at class, I was asking my kids to think of words that rhyme with 'zoom'. Now this is not as easy as finding rhyming words for cat and bat, and so I expected to hear a few non-words in the list. After saying boom, room, doom and loom the kids were stuck and started making up their own words and I would tell them if it was a real word or not. :)

So then little boy A suggests the word 'groom'. I add that to the list and then ask him if he knows what the word means. He doesn't. No one else in the class knows the word. So I say, "At a wedding, the man who is getting married is called the groom. Have you been to a wedding? have you seen a groom? " A few hands go up. The girls are all excited and want to talk about the weddings they've been to. Then I ask " So who knows what a woman who is getting married is called? It starts with a 'B'...b..b...".

I see A's excited hand waving at me. He can barely hold himself together.

"I know... I know..... its broom!!"

Pardon???

Last week, a 4th grade beginner ESL student, a Japanese girl me :
"Um.... Ms. D, what is rokaa-ru go-baa mentoo?"
"Excuse me, what??" I say as I go over to her. She is reading from her social studies text.
"What is this Ms.D? Ro...kaa-ru.... Go-baa.....mentoo?" She reads slowly this time, hoping it will help me understand.

You wanna know what the word was??


really??


Ok... if you do, then read on, but do stop by to comment and congratulate me on NOT laughing out loud but controlling myself (very hard for me) and helping this girl pronounce it right.

The word??

LOCAL GOVERNMENT
RO-KA-RU GO-BAA-MEN-TOO

If you were a fly on my classroom wall

My kids.

I have two kinds.

First, it's my baby girl and the next one(s?) to come. (No. Not pregnant. I just know in my heart that I'll have more kid(s?) some day)

Second, my students. They were my 'kids' long before a lil tiny peanut started growing in my tummy. And though in my life, they'll never be on the topmost rungs of my priority list, they still do matter a lot.

So, here are a couple of things you would have heard if you were a fly on my classroom wall this past week.

Every morning, my class sits in a circle on our colorful alphabet rug for a "morning meeting". Here they get to share exciting/boring/happy/sad stuff they've experienced. Sometimes they get to do a "show and tell". So this particular day, a little girl was talking about how her baby sister was crying all night and her parents couldn't hear her as their door was locked. This started an arguement among the kids as to why the parents couldnt hear the baby cry. So one kid says, "I can't hear any noise, only sometimes, when Father and Mother jumping on the bed" to which most of the kids agreed, that, yes, their parents like jumping on the bed too!! Ooopsie! Time for the next activity!!

We are currently learning about natural disasters. After reading aloud from a book about earthquakes, I told them about the time when I was in college & we felt the tremors (aftershocks of the Gujarat Quake). Immediately, they wanted to know "Did people die?" and I said "Not in Chennai, but in Gujarat, many people died)". Pat came the next question from 2 little mouths at the same time "What about you?"

My little grade 2 troopers went in to a 3rds grade class to watch their "Rainforest Presentation" . They watched as the BIG 3rd graders put up a fantastic show on the the rainforest ecosystem. The word 'mating' was thrown around quite a bit as the 3rd graders presented facts about the diffrent animals that live in the rainforest! (On an aside, did you know that Jaguars mate once a day? ) On the way back, I heard one boy ask the other "what is mating?"
Other boy: "Oh, it means making friends."
This boy: "making friends? like classMATE?"
Other boy: "yeah"
This boy: "Hmmph! Then I am mating everyday too, at recess and lunch break, and even in class!"

HA HA HA...

A little cloudy too!

Being a teacher is not always sunshine and happiness as I seem to portray in my blog most of the time.

Sometimes, it can be painful.

For me, there's nothing worse than seeing a bright, capable student's life be ruined by the choices their parents make for them!

I have a little boy in my class. Lets call him M. When I saw his name listed under my class, I groaned. I knew him to be pretty unruly. I have this system in my class. I have these 4 boxes that you see in the picture above. I have all my students names written on Popsicle sticks and put in the first box. The label sticker on it says "very good". I work on the assumption that all my students are good and that they follow the class rules. BUT.... If they break a rule, then the Popsicle stick with their name goes into box 1. This is their first warning. If they break another rule, then the stick goes into box 2. If the stick goes into box 3 then they have to spend some time sitting on the "thinking chair" thinking about their actions.

It works well. Just as I expected (i am ashamed to say this now) for the first month of school, M had to sit on the "thinking chair" almost everyday! I knew he had a shorter attention span than most in my class and that he was the spoilt youngest son of his family. But then he started improving. I was thrilled with his progress.

Then one day he came to me, all sad and low and said his family was going to move to another country and he didn't want to. He didn't want to make new friends. He only wanted to stay here. I felt bad for him, but felt confident that his family would make him feel better about the move. The next day, he came to class all chirpy and cheery and announced to all that his parents had promised him a puppy when they relocated. The whole class cheered. From then on, everyday, he'd find some way or other to to talk about the puppy he'd be getting.

A couple of months later, at parent conferences, I mentioned to his mother that he was so excited about his puppy. She tells me nonchalantly, "Oh I just said that to him to make him feel better about moving. I don't think it will happen. I cant be cleaning after a dog too!"

I was shocked. How could parents do something like this??? I told her as calmly and as politely as I could of how disappointed her son would be. It's not in my place to tell a mother how to treat her son. This is one of those times I've felt so helpless!

Just today, I asked the same boy why he was so distracted in class. I asked him what he had for breakfast. (It does matter!) he says "Choco pie"!!!!!!

"Do you eat this everyday?"

"No. Sometimes I eat jam and chips"

This.... my dear friends is choco pie. Biscuits coated is sugary chocolate, with a sugary cream filling. Sounds nice, but a horrible, horrible choice of breakfast food for a 2nd grader on a school day!!! No wonder he was bouncing off the walls and couldn't get one thing done in class today!!

arrrrrrrrgh!!!

This is just one example. The other day, I found another boy who had brought 2 chocolate covered chocolate muffins as lunch to school on two consecutive days! Who packs his lunch? Mom! What did the same boy bring to drink on a field trip?? Red Bull!!!!! RED BULL!!!! A 7 year old!!!! When the parents were confronted what does mom say" "What can I do, he insists on eating and drinking only these!!"

arrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!!

One of my colleagues was telling me how sad it was for her to have to tell parents of her student to be proud of their child. I feel sad for these kids. I hope for them that the teachers who come into their lives leave behind firm, positive footprints for them to follow!

A Gift in the Night

This morning, my students were doing an activity where they were busy making a book titled "When I grow up and become an adult"


One of the girls said she wanted to grow up and have a baby. Now I have one little boy who is a copycat and he copied that in his writing.

I told him " MJ, you can become a Dad, but you cant have a baby because boys dont have babies" .


Immediately my JH, (he's my favorite. I know. I cant help it) pipes in.
"Yeah, only moms can have babies. And its soooo painful. Miss Deepa, you have a baby, was it painful? "
yes, JH, it was.

"It was sooooo hurting?"
Hmmm.... Yes, but I was happy.
You know, my mother too so so painfully hurting. And my brother is such a fat boy!
(me: chuckle)

After a while he says..."
Ms.Deepa, you have a baby right, you think she is a gift? you think she is a gift from God?"
Yes JH. I think so. I believe with all my heart that my baby is a gift from God .
"Then how did he give it?
Uh oh!But before I could think of a way to evade the topic, he says
"Did God put the baby in your stomach?"
yes.
"Did he put it in the night when you were sleeping?"
Yes, JH. You're right. It was something like that.




I love my job. I love my kids. They make me happy. Can't you tell??





Here is a picture of my lil milk drunkard!

A love triangle.

* Ahem! I edited my post to change the names of my students. This story just wouldn't sound right with Acronyms instead of real names. But since I am not suppossed to publish real names, I changed them!

So, it was Friday, the 12th of February. Last working day of the week. Valentines day was going to fall on the coming Sunday and all our class activities were centered around a 'Valentines' theme. I teach 7 year olds. I thought it was going to be an easy day. But no!!

It all began with one of the boys saying "I HATE Valentines Day!" ...oh oh... "I LOOOOOOOVE Christmas but I so very much Hate Valentines Day"

Why?

"Because all the girls say love love and kiss kiss and all that nonsense"

Ha ha... I laugh to myself. He has an older sister in High School. Maybe that's why he's so bothered about it. So we continue.... I am teaching them an "I love you" song that they can sing to their moms and after this, they will make heart shaped cards with a message in English to their parents.

suddenly.....

Trudy, my little 7 year old Swedish girl announces to the class - "You know who I love?"

Silence. The busy pencils stop scratching. All eyes and ears tune in to Lil miss Trudy.

I don't know whether I should stop her right there or if I should let her continue.

My curiosity gets the better of me.

"Daniel Caboon" she says. "In 2 C. He's my lover!"

Everyone has a surprised smile on their face.

All except for Brenda-my little 7 year old French girl. She lets out a loud gasp.

"AH! NO! HE'S MY LOVE" Says Brenda, standing up, her hands on her hips,

"HE'S MY LOVE!!!

"NO HE'S MINE!"

"I LOVED HIM BEFORE YOU"

"NO i WAS FIRST"

The battle went on as stunned classmates and teacher watched on. Suddenly Jose, my quiet, laid back little 7year old Mexican boy stands up between the two and says:

"Ok, Ok.... Now stop. Do 'Rock Paper Scissors'.

The one who wins gets Daniel!."

I burst out laughing. They think I'm mad to be laughing when something so serious is happening. Somehow I manage to divert their attention to the task at hand. The class continues. Silent cold glares pass between Trudy and Brenda as they make and decorate their Valentines.

I manage to hold on to my composure till its time to go down for recess. And then I rush into the staff lounge to share the story with my colleagues!

How I wish life's decisions could be made as easily as in second grade!

A Nut

I was informed today, by a student, in a very serious tone and totally out of context, that ....

"A nut is not always a nut"


huh??
Then what else could it be??


"....sometimes, it can be a stupid person"


He made my day with that statement!! My kids are learning to pick up colloquialisms!!!

The 3 R's

I believe, like the Bruderhof community does, that the 3 R's of education are not the traditional

Reading
wRiting
&
aRithmetic


but,

RESPECT

RESPONSIBILITY

and

RESOURCEFULNESS.

A lesson from my teacher and a lessons from my students

I had the previlage of doing two courses for my masters, under the former Vice-Chancellor of my university- Dr.V.Ganeshan. I was known for bunking classes in college, but his was one of the few I hardly missed. If I remember correctly, I did a paper on teaching public speaking skills and another basic one on Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. What I loved most about his lectures, were that they weren't lectures but more like anecdotes from his experiences as an educator. I value the lessons learnt here far higher than those from my "Theories of Language Acquisition" or "Promoting Learner Autonomy in the Classroom" classes, because his lessons were life lessons. Today, I received an email from him, where he signed off with this.

As a teacher, I do believe in these words of Forest Witcraft (slightly modified by me!):

"Twenty years from now It won't matter

What kind of car I drove

What kind of house I lived in

How much money I had in the bank

Nor what my cloths looked like

BUT

The world may be a little better

Because, I was important

In the life of a student

Who was willing to learn from me

and

Whom I had the privilege to teach."

Dr.Ganeshan, you have played an important part in my life and I hope I can pass on the good deed to my students!

While on the topic of learning and teaching, here are two lessons I learnt today.

1. Apart from teaching English Language, I also do "content support" where I sometimes 'pre-teach' science/math/S.studies vocabulary to my ESL students. Today, my 4th grade intermediate ESL students were asked to write down some facts they know about electricity - their next science unit.

Here's what one boy wrote :- Elektreecity is a sorce (source)of energe (energy) and it sticks to matle (metal) and water. So, becos a purson will be 70%water and the rest off the body are flash(flesh), mussal (muscle), blood and knowledge, pursons can get shoked (shocked= electrocuted) and be died if elektreecity sticks to them.

Think about it... can you actually separate what you know - your knowledge - from the rest of your body??

2. My kids are just back to school after their Fall break. (yeah... Fall break here in India!!!) Most of them went out of the country for the week. So this morning,during circle time, we were sharing our holiday stories. It was cute lil JH's turn (I know, I shouldn't have favourites, but he's such a cutie!) and this is what he said :-

" First my Mommy said we'll go to Japan for the holiday. But we got late and in Airport we got late again for writing name on some papers so the airplane went off to Japan and didn't take us. But thats ok, because we went to a place that's so much...much much...hundred times better than Japan. We went to Fisherman's Cove for 1 day (a beach resort here)and I saw a shouting star. (shooting star) - a double shouting star and ships in the sea in the night."

Seriously?? A one day trip to the beach is a hundred times better than a trip to Japan?? Aaah! If only I could make such tasty lemonade like that when life throws me lemons!!

Plastic Brother

Plastic brother??

"what's that?" you may ask.

As you know, I've been teaching a unit on 'Families' to my class of grade2 ESl students. Most of my students have always come from fairly stable family backgrounds, but the curriculum at an International School like mine dictates that I talk about (skim over ) adoption, step parents, same sex parents etc. And so, I began our discussion on how other families could be different from ours, but also same in many ways.... and then my little Swedish girl pipes in....

"Oh Ms.D, I know that one...

My Fahr (father) has 1 seestear (sister) and two plastic broders (brothers)."

Me: Plastic brothers???

Swedish girl : " You know..... Plastic.... not real broders... but broder of another moder!!! If something not real, is plastic!!"

Hmmmm.... I see!! Now I know!!

We All Die and Become Air

This one had me in splits every time I remembered it. O.K, I lied, it still sends me rolling over the floor laughing!!

Now, I hope all of you faithful readers of mine know that I am a teacher. if you didn't here's my background info...

FOR THOSE WHO CAME IN LATE: (remember those old Indrajal Phantom comics?? you'd only know what im talking about if you're an Indian who grew up in the pre-home computers era like me)

I am an Elementary ESL teacher by profession. ESL strands for English as a Second Language. I work at an American School and my students are mostly from Korea or Japan with a few from European countries. I teach 2nd grade, which I think is the most interesting and challenging age to teach....by far!

OK...Now back to the topic. I am doing a unit on Families with my beginner ESL group of ESL Students. We were learning the names of family members and so, I wanted my kids to draw me a picture of their family. Most of the kids drew something like this

Or this...

And when I see a picture like this, I know it has to be by one of my Korean girls!


So, here I am, walking among my busy bees, loking at their pictures, talking to them about the people in their family, and generally feeling good about myself that I what I taught has been well recieved and internalised, when I stuble,.... no.... actually trip and fall flat on my nose.... on this!!!

I squint, I blink and I rattle my brain, but for the life of me, I just can't get this picture! So I ask the lil artist...

Me: JH, Nice picture! What is it?

JH : Ms D, you don't know? Of course my Family, of course! (you must remember that my kids are just learning to speak English)

Me: Um... This is.... Your family?

JH: Of course my family.... you don't know? ( Still drawing, not taking his eyes off his work to see my eyeballs popping out)

Me: What are these numbers?

JH: (pointing to the No.1.) That is my Grandpa. He grew old so he died. See? (and then pointing to the object on the far right) He's dead and sleeping here now....see? But he's air. You cant see him.

Me: Ulp...I'm sorry....Do you miss him?

JH: And then this is my mother.She will grow old and then she will die. This is my father. He will grow old. Then he will die.

Then he pauses... I catch my breath.... I dont know what to think.... And then he continues....

JH: And this is me... I'm in 2nd grade. Then I'll grow (the arrow upward denotes growth) and I become big. I'm in 12th grade. Then I grow old and I die.

By now, my body is shaking with the laughter I'm trying so hard to contain. The he looks at me with his serious, innocent eyes.... I burst out laughing.... I can't stand anymore.... I'm on the floor... laughing.

Poor JH. He doesn't know what's come over his teacher.... All his classmates have come to peek into his picture as well to see whats got Ms.D in such a shape. And then he tells me....

"I don't know whats so funny.... All people die and become air!"

I've learned my lesson for the day.

Class dismissed!