Hell

So Daniel and I returned to work this week. We were actually quite excited to see the kids again and I swear that some of them even seem to have grown during the last three weeks. 

Unfortunately, I don't think the kids were as excited to see us. You see, before they embarked upon their extra long Christmas break, all of the teachers (including Daniel and I) banded together and set our students tons of holiday homework. And so, while the kids were happy to be back at school on Monday and were thrilled to see their friends again, many of them were less pleased when we showed up and asked for their homework.

I was particularly bemused by my Grade 2 students. Before the break we had spent several weeks in class learning 'clothes' and 'family' words so I thought it would be good revision for the students to write and illustrate a little book with pictures and descriptions of their family members. I dedicated several lessons to the concept and helped every student to get their book underway before the break.

As you can imagine, after all this work, I was a little crushed on Monday morning when only about two-thirds of the class submitted their finished books for assessment. In fact, the other third of the class claimed to have absolutely no recollection of the books whatsoever. It was so crushing. I hate giving out bad marks when students fail to submit homework (as I rarely did homework myself when I was a kid), but in this case I just didn't think it would be fair not to.

Fortunately, the books that were submitted were absolutely fantastic. It's awesome to see students cementing their learning and even applying their English language skills in new ways...well, sort of. As you can see from the picture below, one of my students got a little creative with the title of his book. I laughed for about 10 minutes when I saw it.

I should probably explain about the 'hell' thing. The kids at school are obsessed with a Hungarian energy drink called HELL. It's somewhat of a national icon over here and you can buy it pretty much everywhere. 

In spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that HELL seems to make the kids hyperactive, they drink it all the time. It's actually pretty disturbing. Last year one of the current Grade 4 students was hospitalised with heart palpitations and though he's fine now, his doctor told him explicitly not to drink any more HELL.

Hell..."Gives you power like hell"

- Amanda