Indeed.

As a synaesthete, I'm extremely sensitive to a lot of stimuli, particularly color. I was pretty excited when I learned that synaesthesia isn't just me being crazy, but a legitimate meical issue. Sadly, it's become as trendy as bisexuality and Asperger's, but fuck those people.

Today, one of my favourite kids curled up in the corner of our room with the saddest face I've ever seen. I was worried.

GTA: "Hey, 'Kengo', are you okay?"
KENGO: .......
GTA: "Kengo...how are you?"
KENGO: (looking up at me with a very miserable expression) Today, I no colors.

I get you, kid. I get you.

Some people just don't get it

STUDENT: "We had an exchange student once. He wasn't a normal American....he was kind of darker!"

Prepositions

I taught prepositions to SmartEvil Class last Saturday. They were far too easy- in, on, under- whereas my kids rolled their eyes and screamed, "IT'S TO LEFT OF WINDOW!" which I did my bets to correct. That's difficult, considering how advanced the little weirdos are.

I tried to play it up by placing our cushions in weird places. I plopped one on my head and asked, "Where's the cushion?"

My quietest student piped up with, "It's on the Anna-teacher!"

I gave her ten points for that. She responded by hopping around in a delighted circle.

My next rundown of prepositions involved the students, and shoving the cushion in their arms or under their butts. At one point, I shoved it onto Little H's head and asked him, "Hey, H----, where's the cushion?"

He proudly answered, "It's on the H----!"

Even though the grammar wasn't perfect, I went to give him extra points, but he stopped me by tugging on my skirt.

Screwing up his eyes in determination, he said, "Chigao...it's on the ME!"

He got extra stickers.

Noun + Color

My smartest kids- who are, for the record, so wild that fellow teachers I've never met know who I am because my kids are a cautionary tale- had to learn color adjectives in conjunction with classroom nouns. I actually taught this lesson a week early because they are too fucking smart for the material I have to teach them, so last class I snuck in an extra review of previous material. Naturally, they blazed through it in a matter of seconds and then, as usual, demanded we play hangman. I allowed this because my company- and this is just my opinion- does not bother emphasizing spelling to the extent that I believe is necessary. And I am a fucking hardass. Especially with smart kids.

So, here we were:

"Blue crayon!"
"Green paper!"
"Yellow pencil!"

My kids being smarter than me, they came up with the following:

"Light orange and black eraser!"
"Chartreuse basket!"
"Black and white soccer ball!"
(after being shown a picture of a school building) "American school?" *raspberry*

The best, however, was yet to come.

One of my students in SmartEvil Class is not Japanese. I'm fairly certain that he has a Cambodian name, but I'm not positive. The kid and his parents speak fluent Japanese, so I never really thought about the issue. Sometimes the other kids give him minor amounts of shit- for example, screaming "KURO!!!!!!!!!!!!!" at him, or scrubbing his hands for him during cleanup time while everyone laugh hysterically as "H"'s hands don't get any less brown.

I love this kid because he is brilliant and because he is a spastic little weirdo. He likes to teach me karate moves and scream "NINJA TEACHAAAAAH!" He also likes it when I clock him in the head with my shoe.

Anyways, during the color + noun lesson, he skipped ahead of the others and identified me.

Pointing, Little H said, "WHITE TEACHER!"

I was laughing so hard, Little H's mother got worried.

Dear god.

White teacher.

I gave him five extra points for that.

Hell, he got the structure, didn't he?