Darling If You Treely Love Me . . .

A few weeks ago I introduced my students to a game I thought they'd like. I couldn't have guessed how wildly popular it would be. The game is called DARLING IF YOU TRULY LOVE ME . . . . The students go up to another student and say, "Darling if you truly love me won't you please, please smile." (or some variation of this) The student who is being propositioned must not crack a smile or laugh and needs to respond with the words, "Darling I truly love you, but I just can't smile." The variations that the kids come up with (both on purpose and by mistake) are endless and hysterical.

Daniela pronounced the word truly as 'treely' and won by cracking up her victim. Soon everyone was saying treely. I am afraid they will forget the word is supposed to be truly. Gilberto began by referring to his victim as 'dolphin' instead of darling and that was comedy gold as well. I have a video of Gilberto leaping through the air to land on his knees and slide up to his victim who immediately burst into laughter. I will post it if it can be done.


Other moments of humor

On a recent vocabulary exam I marked, one girl had drawn a line from the word 'vibrate' to an unexpected answer: 'to make a person feel better.' Although I am a literalist, I marked it wrong.

On a science page my students were being asked which two civilizations discovered magnets - 'the Geeks and the Chinese.' As an answer, this seemed quite plausible as I could easily imagine some guy with his glasses taped together saying, "Hey did you notice that this rock is sticking to things?"


In other news . . .

In other news, I am planning to return to Canada this summer. My contract expires in July and although I love many things about living here, I need to teach in an environment where the curriculum I use contains only the concepts I am required to teach. I need the freedom to teach creatively and spontaneously. My philosophy of teaching (and a lot of the research out there) doesn't support the idea of regular exams and daily homework in grade three. I have benefited richly from the time I have spent in Chiapas and at the American School, but expect to be on my way home in the summer. But you never know. I keep watching for a dream job somewhere else in Latin America.