My Kiddos are the Bomb

I have used the term "the bomb" more in the past two weeks than I think I ever did when it was actually a popular phrase.

I have officially met all of my classes, and I think I can say this with very little bias, but my kids are the best. Just the most fabulous humans. They are all just wonderful. Every class I leave, I say to myself, "these guys are my favorite." That can only mean one thing- they're all my favorite.

I would say that I have about 180-200 students- I haven't done the actual count as of yet. My classes range from 16-41 students. So to get to know them and learn their names and such, everyone has these student cards with their faces and all their information on them. Literally nothing brings me more joy than looking through my student cards. Because they are all so funny or really concerned about their lives, or my life, or English. They're just wonderful, and I can barely handle it!

So on the back of their student cards, I have them answer the question, "What is one question you often think about?" (Shout-out to my teammate Jeannie on that one), and just so you can get a glimpse into their wonderful minds, here are a couple of the responses:


There's the really serious ones:
How can I be a better person?
What does it take to be successful?
Why do people love me but I don't love them, and why do the people I love not care about me?
What will I do in the future?
What should I do after graduation?
How can I realize my dreams and enjoy my life?
How to have no regret?

Then there's these guys:
Why did I waste time on boring things today?
Can you understand us in Chinese? :)
What kind of question should I write down?
Where is my cellphone?
How can I be taller?
Do aliens exist?
What should I eat for my next meal?
Why do I love dessert so much?
How to find a girlfriend?

These are the questions that plague their minds day in and day out. How can I be taller???

And then there's their names!
I have some of the coolest names:
Bond, Sasuke, Arno (which because of his handwriting I keep reading as Arm- btw), Sherlock, Scofield, Dante, Gio, Hebrew, Peter Park, Jax, Kegas, Keilantra, literally some of the best

I have a bunch of normal names.

Then I have these:
Bear, Stone (I have 2), Bleach, Sky, Wave, Recargo (who, when I told him that this wasn't really a name, looked at me and said, "What is a name, really?" So he won and got to keep his name), Shiny (I can't bring myself to change his name. It's so accurate to his personality. He's the smiliest, happiest, shiniest kid in the world).

And some names just had to be changed-
Plank is now Albert
Rum is now Brant
Dick is now Chris
Faker is now Nelson
Cool Boy is now Alan
Mascara is now Louis

It's just the best. I have the best job, because I get to work with these fantastic humans!

They're ridiculous, don't get me wrong. Some of them like to be edgy for no reason. I've had the f-bomb dropped twice in my classes so far. Some kid asked me if I would give him credit for the class, but he was too busy to come to class- ummmm no... I've gotten advice on how to plan lessons- thanks so much! They're just ridiculous. But I love them so stinkin' much.

And they seem to really care about me, which is really sweet. I walked into a classroom yesterday, and the class that was leaving was one of my classes too. They all said bye to me and stuff. Then one girl came back in. She was very concerned. She said, "Miss Elizabeth, the sign does not have your name on it. I think maybe you are in the wrong classroom." There are schedules outside every classroom that say what classes are in there, so we looked at the schedule. My name was not on it (PS- my name is Emily on all the schedules, it's great!), but some of my students were already in the room. So we made sure that they were indeed coming to my class, and it turned out that I was in the right room, and the sign was wrong. But sweet Amy was so concerned that I was in the wrong place and that I was going to lose face. And she was just so worried. It was the loveliest feeling in the world.

I'm so excited to get to know them all better! They're all so interesting. Talk about their lives, what makes them tick, what they want to do and such.And they're all relatively good at English; I want them to be so confident! I just want them to find purpose and meaning in their lives!

So those are my students! Get excited to hear stories upon stories about their lives and our adventures through English together!!