The next decade....what's in store?

Summer School: Session 6

Every week, the kids would ask what number session it is. I had told them there would be 6 sessions, and that if they behaved well, we would go out to a restaurant.

At Tuesday's session, Mr Prime Minister sought to clarify how many more lessons there were. Today is the last lesson. "But Miss, ah thought you said the 30th was the last?" OK. Today is the last lesson. Next week, it's fun week.

Then Mr T said "leh wi have Chinese nuh Miss?" The conversation then turned to Chinese people eating dogs. I dismissed the talk of Chinese by saying we'll be having burgers or chicken and fries. "Yesssss!" So they are looking forward to that.

Now to the last lesson....

I was running late.....AGAIN! I was moving like a sloth because the night before, I had only had about 3 hours sleep, not by design. So I was feeling really awful and I thought, if I were a teacher and I got up feeling rotten, I wouldn't really have the option of calling in sick. So I knew it was going to be a challenging day, especially if they misbehaved.

As usual, in order to get name badges, the kids had to satisfy three conditions. 1) arrive before the start time of 9am, 2) do all their homework and 3) bring all their books. With the help of my colleague RuH, I learnt that Mr Prime Minister and The 5th Kid got there at 8:30. I got there at about 9:05 and passed Mr T and Mr D (the two who fought last week walking together as if they were best friends!). When I got inside, Mr KF was there. The early ones told me he came at 9:00 on the dot.

The prize for satisfying all the conditions was a name badge like what our employees wear. Mr Prime Minister was heading to my office (I have told them they can only go in there with my permission.) I asked him why he was going there. "To get my name badge Miss." I told him it was in the classroom. When we all reached there, the two got theirs. I had picked up my name badge from the office and while putting it on in the classroom, Mr Prime Minister with his cheeky self said "Miss, you shouldn't get a name badge cause you were late." You see what I have to put up with?

I think they saw the look on my face that I was tired, but just in case, I wrote this on the blackboard.

"Miss Yamfoot is very tired today, so I would like you to behave well, or else I will have to send for a policeman to get you."

I mentioned the policeman because I had invited a friend who is in the force to come and rap with them about how to avoid jail (not in those words!). Sadly, he got called to an emergency meeting and could not come.

We went over homework. Everyone had done theirs. Good stuff. Except that I couldn't see the calculations for the multiplications. They were itching for a spelling quiz so I picked up the newspaper and started. One of the words was "interview." My bigger boss was soon going to be doing a radio interview so I mentioned that to the kids and the boss was walking outside and heard so he came in and said hello to them and chatted for a bit.

Last week it was Mr Prime Minister. This week it was Mr D who topped the spelling. 9 out of 10! Mr PM got 8. Disappointingly again, Mr T got 4. I have to work on his spelling with him. A simple word like "newspaper" was spelt "newspapper" by three of the kids. Hmmmm......

The assignment for their Journal was to write about their Summer School experience on two pages. Only Mr D completed this to my expectations. His handwriting is also super neat and ledgible. (I sure dat spell wrong!) The 5th Kid did just half a page. But most importantly, everyone wrote something. I had told them they were going to read it, but Division was on my mind.

They are really clueless about this math concept. Remember, they are going into Grade 5! I didn't have time to look up how I could introduce this concept, so I told them it's kind of the opposite of multiplication. I started with multiplying 100 x 2, then went on to divide 200 by 2. Mr D is further forward with understanding math concepts. Mr KF is next.

Mr T came up to the board, saying he wanted to do one. I am thinking he wanted to work it out on the board. But no....he writes the multiplication, then pretends to play teacher, asking the kids to tell him the answer. No no.....you have to work it out. He had done 89 x 9. A hard one, since he was not going to be working it out. Joke's on him now. He was playing around but eventually I got him to get the correct answer. The other concept they don't fully understand is numbers being made up of units, tens, hundreds etc. I bought a book with some examples and questions on that so I think I will photocopy for them, or maybe just buy one for each of them.

We did a few more calculations and multiplications, then Mr D asked what time it was. "Are you hungry?" He said yes, and I said "me too." They asked to go wash their hands (a habit I introduced at the start), we started to leave then I realized it was not yet 12 noon. So I had to turn them back. What would we do to fill the time? Play cards!

Mr T took over. You can see that this is a common practice of his. I don't know what it is called, but in each round, someone throws out a card, the next person matches the suit and whosesoever's card is the highest, wins. The objective is to finish all the 7 cards you were dealt, plut those you might have had to pick up because you didn't have a matching suit. I didn't know how to play, so Mr T invited me to play with him. He began to teach me and taught me well. A future teacher? That would be great thing I think. But no, let's get to the engineer in him first.

I'll give you another example. While he was at the board, he took up one marker, and used it to colour on the cover of another marker. Then he used the marker cover as a stamp. So he just figured out how to create a stamp. So there's something engineery in that brain of his. (Princess P spotted that.....tks!).

Mr D kept asking what time it was. 11:53. 11:55. Then soon, as we were so engrossed in the card game, it was 12:01. Off to lunch we went. They were happy we were not eating in the Canteen. According to Mr T, "all dem staff and ting only watching us so." Instead of taking them through the back way, I told them we would walk through the lobby. But first, Mr T and Mr D had to put their shirt in their pants. Only the other 3 consistently adhered to the dress code. So right there, in the middle of the port cochere, the two renegades dressed themselves properly.

At the table, they asked about juice. No juice today. They protested. Alright alright. Juice today, but none for The 5th Kid (he has diabetes). He sulked but I told him sometimes he has to trust the adults, and I know why he couldn't have juice (a surprise was coming).

Lunch for them was chicken, rice and peas and mixed salad. Earlier, Mr KF and Mr PM had said they wanted raw carrots, but time was against me so I couldn't arrange that. Mr KF ate all his veg. Mr PM was brakesing.

RuH had joined us at the table and took a photo of everyone. She then asked them if they appreciated what I had done for them. First, I asked them to spell "appreciate." It was one of the words they got to study for homework. Mr T got it right. RuH asked them how they could show their appreciation for the time taken each week to help them improve. One of them said "by doing well in school." I said that one of the most important things for me was for them to demonstrate good behaviour.

It was time for the sweet treat. Ruh had made chocolate muffins, from scratch, not from a box. When it was served, it had a chocolate butter cream topping. None of them knew what it was. Mr PM said "lawks, it look like mess!" Once they tasted it, they loved it. But Mr PM gave away some of his "mess." It was really yummy.

Back in the office, thankfully no one wanted to do a doosy, so they washed hands and it was off we went.

Mr T had said "I bags the front" first. I expected that. Mr D then said "I bags the end." Oh, I forgot to mention that at the start of the class, while we were doing multiplication, Mr PM asked "Miss, who we dropping home first?" I asked him how he got so far already and we had only just started!

Mr KF was first. I almost drove off when Mr T my co-pilot reminded me I had not given him his snack. Each week, Mr D is the first to ask "Miss what fruit you giving us today." On Tuesday, I didn't have any fruits to give them, but I had bought some St Mary's Cassava Chips for them (was so excited to see it in the supermarket here!). So that's what they got.

The 5th Kid was next, then Mr D, then Mr PM. When I gave him and Mr T theirs, they opened it at Mr PM's house. Mr PM takes a few chips then declares "dem too bitter" and then gives it back to me! I told him that politeness would have seen him say thank you and carry the rest home and give it someone else in his family. And then, if I offered it to him the next time, he would just politely decline. Mr T was enjoying his. He got two. Well, he demanded two as compensation for me forgetting his birthday! I felt bad.

So now it's just me and Mr T in the car. I took the opportunity to ask why he likes being dropped off last. Now Mr T is a macho type who I suppose has not been exposed to expressing his feelings. So he paused and said "I just like being dropped last." I pressed. Why? Eventually he said it's because he likes the long ride. When we reached his house, he instructed me to blow the horn. He wanted his big brother to see him in the front of a vehicle. I told Mr T to call him, as I had spoken to Big Brother (16 years old) on the phone. We said hello and I suggested to Mr T that he could give Big Brother a cassava chip. Yes, he agreed.

On the opposite side of the road was a rock fig with figs on it (chiney banana). I mentioned it and he immediately said "Miss you want some?" They were not quite ready yet so I told him to watch them and if next week they were ready, he could bring. Oh, earlier at the start of the class he said "Miss, ah bring golden apples for you." (June plums). Four nice ones. Also, he had written with a purple pen, which I told him was a nice colour when we were in the classroom. Later, at lunch, he takes the pen out of his pocket. "Miss, you want it?" He was in a very good mood today (except when he hissed his teeth when I announced the spelling test, and later, the end of term assessment test.).

On the drive to their homes, I had a lively CD playing, with some Sean Kingston songs. They knew all the words, and when I started also singing along, Mr T asked "Miss you know these songs too?????" As if! I even started to jig around, losing my Teacher Yamfoot disposition.

It was fun on Tuesday, and next week when we go out, it will be even funner!

Posted by yamfoot at August 24, 2011 09:33 AM