Funny Moments in Teaching

I have these two 6th grade boys who frequently come to my classroom during their break time. Johnny is skinny and polite and likes to come tell me funny little bits of English ("Teacher! Sports drink!") and borrow my microphone to make little announcements or sing. He also hangs around the gate after school and says goodbye to me when I leave. Jack is more of a troublemaker. I figure that they both like me because of the amount of time they spend visiting my classroom, but one day last week Jack was hassling Johnny and going "say it! say it!" and Johnny turned around and abruptly went "I love you!" It took all of my willpower not to burst into laughter, but it was really funny and adorable.

Also last week, one of the teachers in my teachers class asked me if I could come sing a song with her class. She teaches the 5th grade band class, who are my students, and I had seen the music for I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing in their notebooks, so I figured maybe she wanted me to help them with the pronunciation. On Monday I went to their rehearsal, and it turned out to be all of the band classes together! I asked if I should explain what the words in the song meant, and the teacher told me no. Well, should I just read it first? Nooo, sing it! I tried to turn the music stand towards the kids, but she turned it the other way and said that I had to face the audience.

It turns out that I wasn't just singing a song with the class, I had been conscripted to sing a song in their performance while they played their instruments! The performance is tomorrow afternoon, she told me, and you'll be singing with Jeforly. Surprise! Anyway, I have come to be fairly relaxed about this sort of thing, so today Jeforly and I sang a song for a whole bunch of students and it was pretty fun. I am already on TV at school, so I guess a singing career is just the next step on my road to Yang Ming stardom.