Disco Dancing, English and the Things in Between

The blog's been running dry as of late. I want to post about all the crazy adventures I've been having as of late, the only problem is there haven't been too many crazy adventures. I made a third grade girl cry the other day. That was kind of traumatic for both me and her. I'm big on making kids talk in my class. Every once in awhile I'll call on a student and they'll freeze up. Usually one of the English proficient students will pipe up and say, "But teacher, she doesn't speak English!" To this I reply, "Too bad, this is English class."

I made this specific girl cry by requesting that she disco dance. Whenever someone messes up on a conversion, saying the wrong word or omitting a word I make them strike a disco pose, reminiscent of John Travolta on the Saturday Night Fever poster. This usually makes the kids laugh and hopefully makes them understand it's OK to mess up and do embarrassing things around their friends. With this girl the exact opposite happened. I understand though. It has to be tough when many of your friends understand English but you don't, and everyone is yelling out this incomprehensible stuff, and then people are dancing and your wondering if you've been sent to the looney bin. Then this funny looking stranger with a big nose comes up and says something that sounds like, "Borkdee sporkdee flee dee flem disco!" I think I'd crack too.

It's tough to remember what it was like in elementary school but I remember bits and pieces. I'm disorganized now and it was ten times worse when I was a kid. I remember adults yelling at me for no apparent reason. I knew they were angry, I just really couldn't get my head around why. Now I'm one of those yelling adults. I try not to be but on occasion it happens. The one saving grace is the little third grade girl has forgiven me. I think she totally forgot about the situation. We were playing the ball game, if a student catches the ball they have to answer a question. If they miss the ball they have to disco. This girl missed and struck the biggest disco pose I've ever seen. She is the disco queen. Now, if I could only get her to speak English.