Kids

I hate it when people spoil kids. It's like ruining something pure and perfect. I have been kind of "burned" with having to teach kids, mainly because teaching kids is a lot different than playing with them and I didn't have any experience. So it was a disaster. Now I'm teaching them again and it's going... pretty well. It's actually like a miracle. I have perfected all my techniques of bribing and threatening to an art and they are totally motivated. And growing on me.

I read a quote from Reese Witherspoon one time about how when people have kids they are super worried about teaching them things and filling them up with ideas. In reality, she said, we should listen more because they are born "knowing nothing" but have so many things to teach us. Like Michelle Duggar said in a video I watched of hers, God gives us kids to teach us not for us to teach them!

So I am supposedly "teaching" kids English but they have already been teaching me. After ONE class, I started getting some hugs. I used to tell people I read about how we need 12 hugs a day (touch) to be keep healthy and the normal reaction is, "TWELVE?! If I give one hug a day, it's a good day." But kids... they give hugs all the time. They touch all the time. The other day at recess I saw a little first grade boy running after a girl and hitting her bottom and I was just about to interfere and talk to him about sexual harrassment when I noticed she was smiling and laughing. It was totally innocent. Like how some parents play with their kids. It was cute.

The smallest thing makes them happy. We do these "exercises" at the beginning of every class which basically consists of me giving them commands in English (like stand up, sit down, eat, drink) and they act it out. Any adult would be horrified and feel like they were being treated like a dog. Everytime I do it with them though, the whole class starts smiling and you can tell they can barely contain their excitement. It's cute.

The best thing of all is how naturally they give or tell you they like you. You will instantly know if they like your class because they will ask you "do we have english today?" and then do a big "YES!" with their arm. They definitely don't try to hide their feelings. And if they really like you, they will tell you "you look pretty today" or draw while you're talking. And when you yell at them for drawing while you're talking and tell them to put it away and pay attention, they will give you this:

And it will melt your heart.