Things That Make My Day Interesting

• When the inspecteur comes to visit classrooms (not mine) and the teachers are all in a tizzy about how nit-picky and grumpy the inspecteurs always are


• When a 4th-grader asks, "Teacher, is it true that in Canada, where you live, the night lasts for 6 months?" I don't think he believed me when I said "no," and he was thoroughly confused by his classmates telling him I don't actually live in Canada (we haven't even gotten to the other-side-of-the-street phenomenon yet, they just know I live "near" Canada, which to them means I might as well be next door neighbors with Papa Noël)


• Any time one of the 1st-grade teachers says, "[gasp] Oh là là! Quel horreur!" I know there's a really good story about to be shared


• When a woman darts toward me at the end of the day as I exit the school asking, "Are you the English teacher?" and doesn't proceed to attack my teaching methods, but merely asks if her sick child has any homework


• When teachers describe the rampant truancy problem by saying that for many families, school is "à la carte chinoise" - off a Chinese menu - when they pick and choose which days they want to come to school


• When I get a round of laughs for saying that I haven't seen two 2nd-graders (twins) but once this year - meaning 2010, of course - and we're in the the 4th week of school already. They're conveniently absent on Mondays and Thursdays (and Fridays, too, they tell me, because that's when the class goes to the swimming pool). This is, of course, followed by an emphatic "[gasp] Oh là là! Quel horreur!" from the 1st-grade teacher


• When I tell my obnoxiously chatty 2nd- and 3rd-grade students that they can talk (while they work) as much as they like...as long as they talk in English. The 2nd-graders looked at me like I was crazy, and then went on to chatter away in French. The 3rd-graders looked at me like I was crazy, and then went on to ask me all sorts of useful phrases in English like, "May I borrow your red (marker)?"


• When, in the course of color-associated comprehension exercises with my 2nd- and 3rd-graders, I tell my students to "color the [dog/sun/number 7/etc] white" they burst out in anxious, sputtered, "But! But! But! But! Teacher! I don't have a white marker!" The paper they're coloring on is already white. It's taken a *really* long time for them to "get" that one

It's the little things that entertain me and make me giggle to myself!