Markers

I brought my markers to school today for one of my 10th form classes because we decided to do a rather simple assignment to get them talking. And, after their test results from last week (we were nice and gave 90% of the class a 4/10)... we decided to make things easier.

The new lesson was titled Family Ties. Everyone got 1/2 sheet of paper and had to draw their definition of family. Everyone participated in the drawing and everyone said something about their picture (even if it was just, "this is me, my father, my mother, and my brother"). I thought that was the last I was going to use the markers.

Until I met Cristina.

Cristina is a 2nd grader with a learning disability. I'm not sure what it is (I'm not a psychologist, although sometimes I wish I was). She's a beautiful girl who is eager to learn and eager to work with other students and have a social interaction, but most of her lessons are done at home with a private teacher, although lately she has been coming to school and doing her lessons in another room but going outside for breaks with the other kids. She's began by saying, "hello" to me every time she sees me. As we were talking today she got distracted and asked what was in my purse. I told her it was a surprise for her- and I pulled out my markers and some paper and I told her she could draw a picture if she wanted to. I made the mistake of saying "for you" because she was under the assumption the markers were a gift to her- and I was so sad when I had to tell her they were not a gift but she could use them if she wanted to. She was so sad and didn't quite get it- but I did let her pick one marker that she could keep as her own (but she had to learn how to say the color -red- first), and I promised her I would bring her back some markers when I go to America (but I think I'm going to have to check out Amazon and see if I can't get some Crayola's sent over here for her). Cristina is so eager to learn that it makes learning fun. Every time I say something in English she tries to mimic the sounds and it's such a cool feeling. She now knows hello, goodbye, thank you, I am good, and red.

Then later, at the end of the day, I brought out the markers and paper again because I ran in to her in the library. She started drawing, and I got bored so I started drawing, too. As I began drawing, the librarian and Cristina's teacher came over to me and were observing me (as usual, stating that I'm left-handed... which is a very common comment from Moldovan's). I drew a flower and then decided to make the picture for Cristina, so I drew a bee then wrote her name out in dashes (-------) as if it was made by the trail of the bee. Then I drew ants, a butterfly and the sun and wrote the names of them. They were very impressed that I was taking something fun and making it educational. Hopefully that will be continued...!