You Only Like Your Own.

You know all those adorable things adults say about children, praising the sound of their “uncontrollable laughter”, their “unlimited imagination” or their “pure, longed-for by adults, innocence”? Right. All this is nice and lovely but some children are a tad bizarre. The other day, when I had just left the classroom and another teacher had entered, I heard a usually very quiet and low-profile eight-year-old boy yell at another boy:

“Girl?? You called ME a GIRL???” and with that he threw a book at the boy who had uttered the unforgivable insult. A loud “BANG” was heard and then there was silence.

No, no one died. Or got hurt. Or anything dramatic. The child ducked and the book hit the wall instead. Cunning lad. As for the incident, I’m not quite sure how it ended.

A little girl came to me the other day complaining that one of the boys had kicked her during the break and I'm preeeeeetty sure she had started it. The following image immediately came to my mind:

                          

As for them being innocent, fine, perhaps I can accept that. Sometimes. That does not mean that nine-year-olds do not say things that you would never expect a child age to say at that age. However, they definitely get worse as they grow up. For example, grown-ups are undoubtedly way more earth-bound and that is not necessarily a good thing. Just the other day I realised how much of a cynic I've become when I saw a flashcard with the words “chicken-cow-pig” on it and I immediately categorised them as “meat” instead of “animals”. Gee.

What I love about some children though, is when they have already developed a sense of humour. This cracks me up - maybe too much for my own good. Last week, in my class that consists of 12 and 13-year-old boys, the following happened when I asked a question:

Student 1: “Uh uh uh uh uh, miss, uh uh uh me, me, me!”

Student 2: “Dude, you sound like a dog.”

These particular students though still can be a tad annoying when they don’t write their names on their projects. Or when they write their classmates’ names, which they find particularly amusing...

As with adults, there are all different types of kids. Annoying, funny, sweet, weird, even creepy. There's at least one of every kind. But one thing is for sure... I'm starting to understand why it is claimed that children are “like farts: you only like your own.”