I got another boy in my first grade class, so now I’m up to eight boys and one girl. The other day, Sky decided to break out into a Michael Jackson impression in the middle of class. He hopped out of his seat, put one hand on his crotch and the other one on his head, and started jerking violently while singing, “Beeeaaaat le! Just beat leeee!” It was pretty funny and kinda dead-on. I couldn’t stop laughing, which of course just encouraged all the other boys to break into song and dance too. It took me awhile to get them to calm down again.
AND THEN during break time, I was sitting there in class when Alex (first grader) slammed open the door, yelled, “Teacher!! Just beeeeaaat le!” and pulled down his shorts and FLASHED ME. I sat there stunned for about five whole seconds before I could gather my senses and drag his little butt down to the Chinese teacher for a good chewing-out.
Speaking of boys and their pants, in the junior high classes of 20 boys, some of them also inevitably hit puberty before the others and so thus will be more inclined to say/do perverted things during class. Most of the time, I try to ignore them, but this is sometimes quite difficult to do so especially when I get interrupted in the middle of teaching by a student who raises his hand and announces loudly to the class, “Teacher, Eric.. he.. have a…. this!” which is then followed by a crude hand gesture imitating a thing that prepubescent boys inevitably will get in awkward situations. This then means that the whole class is no longer paying attention to me, instead they are all trying to peek under the desk to see if Eric really has one. It is thus impossible to get them to concentrate on long i spelling words pretty much for the rest of class.
I don’t think boys call each other out like this in the States, especially in the middle of class. From my experience, I don’t remember classes being interrupted by these embarrassing situations. Not cool, Taiwanese kid, not cool.
You know what my theory is about the kids here? These kids are put through school and classes and math review and English review and violin and piano practice from 6 in the morning to 9 or 10 at night all their lives. They don’t play sports, they don’t do extracurricular activities, there are no teams or clubs of any sort, and therefore they all have this pent up energy and hormones of which they have no appropriate outlets. So everything is released in a sexual obsession/perversion which is also greatly influenced by too much TV and computer games.
GET OUT OF THE HOUSE, BOYS! Trust me, go get some sun and exercise. You’ll thank me later.
