Kids say the darndest things

Fridays are my weekly stint in my two elementary schools, and I'm therefore graced with an extra half hour in bed. This morning was no exception and I woke alive and refreshed.

Today my morning classes were at my dai-ni shogakko, and by some miracle I managed to sneak in undetected by my students. This of course generated a lot more excitement, and when I finally presented myself to my first class the kids went wild - it's as though they store their energy up and release it on command... maybe that's where the creator of Pokemon got his idea from?

As usual the kids were as genki as genki can be, and the morning went quickly. I did however, have a wonderful moment with my go-nensei (5th graders) class. Their teacher and I were holding up action cards and asking the students what actions were what. Upon raising a card that showed someone cooking, one student accidently-but-obviously-on-purpose pronounced 'cook' as 'cock'. The class immediately erupted with laughter! The teacher, bless him, stood there with no clue to the reference - it's nice to see some things don't change between countries.

Now admittedly I was trying to hide a smirk, but I didn't want to 'lose' the class to this one word of slang, so held in my sniggers and stuck a blank expression to my face. The teacher, now interested, turned to me and said infront of the class "Poru-sensei, what is cock?" I let out a bark of laughter before grappling to compose myself. Thinking furiously I immediately picked up a piece of chalk and drew a chicken on the blackboard. I pointed to it and said "man chicken." The kids, thinking they'd got the naughty word wrong, immediately stopped laughing and then listened to the teacher explain what a male chicken was while I bit the inside of my lip to stop myself chortling. Brilliant.

After a delicious lunch I headed across the village to my second elementary school of the day, dai-ichi. I wasn't even through the school gate before kids were calling "Poru-sensei!" at the top of theirs lungs and I heard the patter of small feet coming my way.

After the mandatory hugs, high-fives, grins and "ohayo gozaimasu!"'s I got to the teachers room, where I was swiftly told of a change in the days plan. Having spent an hour or so the previous evening preparing lessons I was naturally a little disappointed, but nonetheless I knew I was guaranteed a lively and enjoyable day with dai-ichi's go-nensei.

Today their teacher and I were teaching them about languages, and that of other countries. One particular exercise was for me to say the numbers 1-10 in another language (guided by katakana) and the kids call out what language they think it is. At the end of this exercise I ad-libbed, and the following exchange had me near-dying with laughter:

Me: Eins, zwei, drei, vier, funf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun, sehn (German, 1-10).
Kid 1: German!
Me: Ok, try this... yksi, kaksi, kolme, nelja, viisi, kuusi, seitseman, kahdeksan, yhdeksan, kymmenen (Finnish, 1-10).
Kid 2: Canada!

Oh man, I couldn't stop laughing!