Taiwanese-American: Not Entirely Either

Allen spent most of class time today with his left hand down his pants. When I caught him the first time and told him to take his hands down his pants, he told me, “Teacher, I like.” Ten seconds later, his hand was back in his pants.

Again, “Allen, take your hand out of your pants.”

“Why, Teacher?”

“Because it’s dirty.” Then realizing the different connotations of dirty and not wanting to be the one responsible for scarring the child, I added, “Because you have to go wash your hands all the time.”

Two minutes later, the hand was back.

“ALLEN. Hand. Out. Of. Pants. NOW.”

“But Teacher, it feel good.”

Sigh. “Yes yes, I know, Allen, but you can’t do that in class. You just can’t, ok?”

Needless to say, he did not stop anytime soon and insisted on raising that particular hand and touching things with it, so I had to go fetch the alcohol spray and spritz the culprit of a hand every two minutes.

By the way, Allen is in first grade. So don’t be so horrified.