Chinatown School Dayze

I’ve been teaching little Korean kids (7,8,9 and 10) for the past few weeks and I’ve been, in a way, reliving my elementary school days….There’s one kid who cries when I give him homework and can’t deal with the pressures of school. He recovers quickly, but him and another boy have had a few meltdowns in class. A few of the kids have a hard time concentrating on what’s going on, while others just breeze through it and ask for extra homework, from time to time.

I remember all of the weird little personalities from PS124 and think about where we are now. Photographers, DJs, musicians, English teachers living in China, college professors, belly dancers … my elementary school class was full of quirky kids who became quirky adults. I wonder about these kids, too. The skinny boy who can stand on one leg, chant, do all kinds of weird yoga looking things, loves saying weird words over and over, cries when he gets homework, but is always one of the first to yell out my name and smile and give me a big hug when the kids first get here in the morning. The chubby kid who smiles from ear to ear every time he wins a game or doesn’t make any mistakes on a quiz; also one of the first to give me a hug; he’s a sucker for praise and affection. The youngest kid (a seven year old girl) who speaks English the best in the class, better than the older kids. The oldest kid (ten), chubby and completely disinterested, terrified of reading out loud, constantly getting all of the questions wrong on the quizzes. What will these kids grow up into? Probably office workers and stuff like that. I think my elementary school class was a fluke.