Welcome to private school

Another thing I want to use this blog for is a way for me to remember some of the funny stuff that comes up in the library. So here' s a story from Tuesday.

I was attempting to teach a class about Korean proverbs to the third grade, discovering as I went along that perhaps Piaget was not completely wrong about 9yos being 'concrete thinkers.' They had no idea what a proverb was ("Is it something like a pronoun?" was the closest I could get out of any of them), and even when presented with some examples they had difficulty. I stumbled along, spouting sample proverbs, hoping for a knowing look from someone - anyone! Finally I tried "too many cooks spoil the broth" - success! A kid in the back row shot his hand in the air. "I've heard that one! It means 'get out of the kitchen!' We have a cook and she tells me that all the time!"

I managed to return my jaw to its proper position, and continued on. One of the Korean proverbs I was introducing was "The empty cart makes the most noise." I was able to get them to see the literal truth of this (using the example of a big green garbage can in place of the 'cart'), and then tried to guide them toward thinking about other things that might be noisier when empty. Silence. Crickets. General bewilderment. Finally, one kid ventured "Well, my STOMACH is pretty noisy when it's empty?"

Close enough. Time for checkout!