Juxtapositions

Being in elementary schools you see children at their best and their worst. I forget how honest, painfully honest sometimes, they can be. They break your heart in so many different ways, whether if be because they are so utterly adorable, or they are just mean.

I went to Diderot today. The students were to get into groups of two and write a skit in English. They hurried about the room, finding their friends and excitedly started discussing what they were going to act out. I specifically watched one boy, Luca, as he went around looking for a partner. He sits at the front of the room at a desk by himself, isolated from the other students. It's clear that he has some form of a learning disability and can't sit still or keep his mouth shut, which results in an almost constant flow of reprimands from his teacher. He anxiously scanned the room for a potential partner, meeting no one's eyes as they looked away from him just before they made eye contact. I then saw him catch a fellow student's eye, motion his hand back and forth in a "let's be partners" gesture and start to walk towards him. The second boy stared at him, and with an air of utter annoyance, motioned that he would in fact not be his partner and could think of nothing worse than having to spend time with Luca. Luca stopped walking toward the second boy and kind of slouched his shoulders and looked down at the ground. Ah! Is your heart broken yet?! Poor little Luca ended up sitting by himself, with no partner, working on his math. I just wanted to wrap my arms around him and give him some chocolate. Ooh sometimes children are so hurtful!

On the other side, children can be wonderful little creatures that have so much love. In one of my classes today a shy little girl named Clara gave me a big hug. I love this girl. She has short, dark, curly hair and two front teeth that are about two sizes too big. She is one of the slower ones in the class, but one of the sweetest students I have. She constantly cranes her neck to look at me, wherever I may be in the room, just to catch my eye and smile at me. On my first day, I said something about owning a cat and she pulled out a notebook with a cat and pointed at it, showing me that she was into cats also. Although she doesn't have many friends, she is nice to her fellow students and is just lovely.

I love working with children, bittersweet as it can be. They are fascinating little people just figuring things out.

Also, I heard MC talking about me with her daughter. From what I understand, she thinks I broke her phone that is connected to the internet because I used it to call one of my schools. No Marie-Claude. I did not break the internet through phone usage. Gah.

-M