A Bunch of Wild Monkeys (Bangmai’s 4th Graders)

I’ve decided to use the excuse “I just don’t know where to start” to explain why it’s taken me so long to post since school started.  An introduction to my fourth graders is as good a place to start as any!  They’re one of the three classes of students I teach, and definitely the group with the most character.

It’s been exciting getting to know them over the past month and starting to understand their individual personalities.  They’ve gradually been going from a mass of 49 hard to manage little kids (I often call them a bunch of wild monkeys, see the photos below), to little, very unique people I’m looking forward to watching grow up over the next two years.

My personal relationships with them started to take shape when I gave them English names at the end of the first week.  I told them they had to earn their names, that it was an honor to have them, so they had to have one full day of good behavior before I bestowed the privilege upon them.  The best behaved they’ve ever been was the day they earned their names.

I named all of my students after my friends and family, and when I ran out of loved ones I chose names I’d always liked, names that appear in the middle school English textbook (so they can see their name and get excited later on), or names from favorite pop-culture figures.  I have an Annie and a David after my parents (although David is one of my more troublesome students, he got scolded today for never paying attention, sorry Daddy).  I have a Robert, a Vicki, a Charlie, and an Eleanor after my grandparents.   I made the mistake of telling the whole class that Robert was my grandfather’s name, his classmates called him “爷爷 yeye” (Grandpa) for the rest of the day.  A lot of Bamboo Chute readers would hear their names if they came into my classroom.  I especially enjoy calling on Bart.  True to his namesake, Bart Simpson, he’s a little hell-raiser.  And then there’s Sean, who chose his name because it sounded like the Chinese word for “kill,” (杀，sha).

My fourth graders don’t always make it easy for me; I’ve got my little know-it-alls, my sassy little girls, and my Bart Simpsons, but they seem to always forgive me, no matter how strict I am with them.  And they have their moments.  I’ve trained them so that simply saying the word SMART has them go from this:

To this:

Bellow we have Lucy (left) and Ethan (right).  Their other teachers clearly sat them next to each other so that serious and sincere Lucy could keep the noisy and easily distracted Ethan in line.  One day Ethan and his friends came to class with their pencil cases filled with 3-inch long grasshoppers.  I cracked down hard and ever since Ethan has been a model student!

Kelly (left) and Sam (right) are by far my smallest students, but also two of the sassiest, especially Sam.  He often shouts things like “Teacher, he doesn’t know what you’re saying!” when one of his classmates can’t answer a question. 

Harry’s (left) mom owns the fried rice restaurant in Bangmai, the only restaurant within walking distance of our school, which means Harry benefits from a lot of home visits from me!  He manages to be both quiet and troublesome, it’s almost a gift.  Henry (right) clearly knows he’s a boss.

Nate (front, on top of the table) exemplifies more of his class’s wild monkey-like behavior.