Turns out there was absolutely nothing to worry about. Sure, I was no longer working in a private Catholic school where the kids would hand themselves forward if they had hit someone, after trying to rationally discuss the situation of course, but I can comfortably say that I have met some of the most hilarious and spirited kids while working in London.
Being from Australia was a definite ice-breaker with the kids, and has continued to be a point of fascination for them. On my first day I was left in the year 5 classroom to read them some questions about a book they were studying. I'll never forget the wide-eyed looks I was given when asking a simple yes or no question. I couldn't understand why nobody was answering me when finally one kid raised his hand and informed me, 'Miss, we can't understand what you're saying'. While most of the children have learnt to decipher my Melbourne drawl, it still does cause problems occasionally. Most recently, and probably the most embarrassing, was when I was doing dictation with a group of year 2 and 3 children. The sentence was A fish can't fly. I was horrified when I sat down to mark their work and discovered that a quarter of the class had misunderstood how I pronounced the word can't and written a more controversial four letter word starting with c.
Not only have the kids learnt a bit about Australia from working with me (for example, no I cannot just become an aborigine because I'm Australian), but I have learnt a lot about London, specifically Hackney from working with them. A short film was made about Hackney and the school around the time that I arrived. I was probably still a little nervous about working in London at this point and my worries were not exactly put to rest by two little girls who featured in the film. When asked by the interviewer if they enjoyed living in Hackney one girl replied, 'yeah, it's really fun' while the other calmly interjected with, 'someone got shot in my street'.
I love the black and white way the children view their world. A 5 year old came into my class one day with a temporary tattoo on his hand. I told him it was very nice and teasingly asked him if it was real. He politely replied that no, it was not and he would not get a real tattoo, especially if it was a crab because crabs pinch you and that would hurt. Fair enough. I have also learnt from the concerns of a year 6 girl that if I am going to go back to Australia to become a psychologist I will need to invest in more pencil skirts, collared shirts and a leather notepad (however, my watch is fine...I can keep that).
My favourite logic from the kids is that if a man and a woman hug, that means they're boyfriend and girlfriend, or so playground gossip tells me. One day I was leaving work early because I wasn't feeling well and my friend Andrew gave me a hug goodbye. Andrew and I were the talk of the school with last year's year 5s as they not only believed we were a couple, but decided to hold a wedding for us at the park. It was a lovely ceremony perhaps except for when the 10 year old celebrant asked if Andrew would take me as his awfully wedded wife. The fact that the groom was gay may also have been problematic, and totally lost on the children. Well, it appears our hug sparked up rumours once more with the current year 5s. One Thursday, Andrew's day off, a year 5 casually mentioned that perhaps my day would have been better if Mr Miles was around. Trying to stifle my laughter, I asked the boy why he thought that. He pondered this and decided that it's because we 'laugh lots together, talk quietly together and seem very comfortable together'. Trying to wind him up, I asked the boy if there was something he wasn't telling me. Was there a point to what he was saying? A sheepish grin spread across his face and he surprised me when he put his index fingers together and drew the shape of a giant love heart in the air. No matter how much I deny my relationship with Mr Miles, the kids seem to think this is a romance for the ages.
There have been some absolute gems in the kids' work over the past year too. When marking a (quite outdated) comprehension task one day I noticed there was the question, Why did the soldiers look gay? The correct answer was because they were wearing blue and red uniforms however, one child answered The soldiers looked gay because they had strange faces. In a year 6 class, another TA informed me that the kids were coming up with words that contained the word man, like snowman. One girl wrote the word womaniser. When asked what it meant she conceded that she didn't know, but she knew Britney Spears sang about it. One of my favourites was when I was in year 1 doing a 'who, what, where, when sentence' activity. I was roaming the classroom checking work when some girls seemed very proud that they had put me in their sentence. They had not quite finished, so when I asked them what they thought they were missing they enquired was it, 'who is on Miss Ellie?'.
As much as I want to lock myself in the stationary cupboard some days, I have loved getting to know these amazing kids who come from such different backgrounds to myself. I think after a year together we have come to understand each other. This was confirmed when Andrew was taking a group of children that I normally help and he asked one of them would she rather Miss Ellie be teaching her. Apparently after a brief pause she replied, 'she's...complicated.' God, kids are preceptive!
