Yesterday I visited an enormous primary school, and in total taught around 150 under-7s.

 It was easily one of the best days on record, and I received more affection on one day than I have in my entire time here. I felt almost fraudulent as these kids hung on my every word, despite understanding nothing, playing every game and singing every song with full gusto and trying as much English as they could as often as they could.

 It bordered on the bizarre when, on the way to the playground after lunch, I realised that I, a big old gaijin, was actually being moved by the 30 or so 5-year olds who were fighting to prize my fingers off of my their friends’ so that they could have a turn. And once they latched on, they weren’t going anywhere.

I went to say goodbye as they all trooped off home, and one tiny little person refused to leave, her hand clutching mine and her telling me allsorts of something very intently, and when she finally did let go, she insisted on waving her way down the road until I made the first move and went indoors. All I really caught of her ramble was ‘Lucy-sensei, England’s very far away isn’t it?’

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 5:09 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.