Cutest Second Grader in the World

The Cutest Second Grader in the World is about half the size of the other second grader. All her clothes seem are too long for her and when she sits down in the asian-child sized chairs, her feet do not touch the ground. Her eyes take up most of her face. However, the ultimate attribute is that she finds me phenomenally amusing.

All I have to do is look at The Cutest Second Grader in the World, and she just bursts into giggles. This can be problematic when I am trying to work with her on a worksheet, as instead of pronouncing the letter I am pointing to, she bursts into laughter. When I was down on the main grounds recently (as opposed to sitting in the office), eating a snack with the kids on our break, she would walk up to me, I would turn and look at her, and she and a friend would run, squealing away.

However, perhaps the most amusing incident happened a while ago while we were playing “run and hit,” where I write sounds on the board, call out a sound, and the kids race to hit the corresponding letter first. During this game, I called out an evidently VERY difficult word “D-I-D,” and all four of the students representing their teams failed in their responsibility to hit the corresponding word. This caused a significant amount of hilarity, since various members of the teams DID know the answer and all yelled it out at the same. This contributed more to the noise level than to actually helping their teammates find the correct answer. After the representatives from the team had all hit wrong answers multiple times, and showed no hope of hitting the correct one, I called an end to the round. No points for anyone.

The Cutest Second Grader in the World, happened to be one of the ones who knew the answer (This was PURE luck, she got about 9/24 on a recent listening test I gave). so she was quite upset that her teammate did not know the answer. This meant the opposing team member picked the wrong time to sass The Cutest Second Grader in the World (I have no idea what she said (obviously it was in Thai, but I’m positive it was something sassy.)

The Cutest Second Grader in the World pulled back her right arm and full-on slapped the girl in the face. My jaw dropped. I had not yet seen a slap by any of my second graders, yet alone one with the Cutest Second Grader in the World as its agent. I am not a very good disciplinarian, so I decided the best thing to do was to calm the WHOLE class down. I called the class to ATTENTION! And ordered the class all to take slow, deeeep, breaths. I took especial attention to see that The Cutest Second Grader in the World was following my instructions. She was not. Instead, she maintained a fierce scowl on her facce This worried me, since I did not want to see any more violence in my classroom, or even for The Cutest Second Grader in the World to leave class upset.

I continued to demonstrate deep breaths to the class—opening my mouth wide, raising my chest, and then letting my whole posture fall, when all of a sudden The Cutest Second Grader in the World burst into laughter—not any product of my deep breaths, but rather the amusement of seeing me take deep breaths.

My students are definitely the highlight of my job. Lesson planning, pressure, and a few coworkers all add stress, but the students who you can see enjoy your lessons and you make it worth my time.