How can lows be highlights?

So, we've just finished our first week back at school after the Winter break. We basically picked up where we left off before Christmas and we weren't back in the classroom for long (perhaps only 40 minutes or so) before our holidays started to feel like nothing more than very distant memories.

Luckily, things quickly improved and by mid-week we had fallen back in love with our jobs. This was fortunate as on Wednesday afternoon we were approached by the director of a local language school and asked if we would be interested in teaching intensive intermediate-level English classes to adults in the nearby town of Nyírbátor.

Daniel was particularly keen to take on this new challenge so on Thursday afternoon we travelled to the town of Szerencs to teach a trial class. In spite of a few hiccups, I think it went pretty well. Obviously the language school thought so too as they decided to hire us! (Well, either that or they were desperate to find anyone at all to teach their new course which started in two days time!)

This morning Daniel and I taught our new students for the first time. We'll be giving up most of our Saturday mornings for the next eight months to help them improve their English and prepare for important language exams. In spite of some initial reservations that I had about it, I'm now really looking forward to working with these older students.

Speaking of students, I thought I'd share a cute story from a Grade 3 class that we took yesterday. I was taking the kids through a lesson about two fictional characters named Bob and Jill. The lesson was primarily about what foods Bob and/or Jill ate during the week. The lesson was supposed to culminate in the kids being able to answer questions such as "What did they have for lunch on Tuesday?" with "They had spaghetti."

For the most part the kids got this and were able to answer the questions correctly. But then I asked one kid "What did Jill have for lunch on Monday?"
The kid thought and thought. I could see that he was really trying to understand what I was asking and he seemed so proud when he finally gave his answer - "Bob".
I couldn't help it. I laughed. And then the kids got it too and they started laughing. And after that the answer to every question was "Bob".

Anyway, it made me think - how can it be that such a low point in my teaching career was one of the highlights of my week?

- Amanda