This time, on Kindergarten Moment of the Day: gender flip-flops, and multilingual tantrums.
#1: Today Rafal, a girl in my class, brought in a Barbie DVD. Normally I’d be opposed to all things Barbie – because she’s a terrible role model – but the loudest kids in my class are boys and they always demand Ben 10 and robot stuff and the girls always contentedly comply. Why shouldn’t the boys enjoy Barbie? Why shouldn’t the girls be able to suggest an activity? Anyway, I’m quite opposed to gender restrictions (I think dinosaurs and comic books are awesome) and the least I can do is offer media from “both sides.”
So, as I’m leading the rest of the class in clapping for Rafal, Havyar starts whining. He say, “Miiiiss, this GIRL cd.” Ok, Havyar, whatever. I pass out coloring pages, turn on Barbie, and the kids get to doing what they do.
10 minutes into the movie I hear Havyar yelling, “Miss! Miss! Barbie stop!” I turn around and the DVD (being a bazaar bootleg) has stalled. And Havyar has this desperate look on his face like why on Earth would someone take Barbie away from him.
Moral of the story: There should be kids’ toys, not girls’ and boys’ toys.
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#2: At the end of the day I told Jad to put away a top with which he was playing in class. He’d been difficult all day, refusing to sit down or put on his coat, shouting out in class, and yelling at other students.
So I was quite tired of dealing with him at this point, and it being 2:30pm on Thursday, all I could see was the incoming weekend.
So after I took away the top, he started throwing a tantrum. He screws up his tomato-red face, balls his hands into fists, and screams, “I…NO…COME HERE AGAIN!!!” and starts crying.
My TA and I just start giggling. We’ve been dealing with this kid all year and he’s been wearing on us. And as little as he likes to pay attention or do work, he’s very clever and is learning quite a bit of English. So even though I didn’t want to deal with another tantrum, I was proud of his English, and not in the slightest worried that he’d leave school. He’s the kid who runs up to me every morning screaming, “MISS RACHEL! MISS RACHEL!” and gives me a giant bear hug.
Ah, kids are little maniacs.
In Mutual Weirdness 