Students Redux

Tomasz greeted me yesterday in boxers and socks, but at least he had on a different shirt. He still says some of the most crude things I've ever heard, but this time it was not about the sexual things.

Franio, oh Franio. My three-year old student has left me. Just as well. Want to know how stupid I felt prancing about to kids' songs with a cat puppet on my hand? The answer is, "very."

I was overjoyed that I was able to tell a joke to my students. At the "Speak and Spell" school, I was holding classes with Julita, 23, Barbara, 40-50 or older, and Elizebeta, age not known. Julita speaks English the best, and we were talking about names and naming children. Ben King had told me a good joke, so I used it: A baby indian asks his father, "Where do children get their names?" And the father says, "Well, when a child is born the father takes it and walks outside the teepee and the first thing he sees becomes the child's name. Why do you ask, Two Dogs Fucking?" Julita got it and laughed, but the other two women thought long and hard going over each word. They finally didn't get it. Their loss.
The other student at that school, Martyna (three Martyna students in one summer) probably has some of the greatest potential I have ever seen. She is thirteen and has learned English for three years, but has a wide vocabulary, understanding of grammar, and most of all, can tell the difference between bad and bread, dad and dead, sad and said, etc. She knows about the long "th" and short "th" (wiTHer versus wiTH) but like the other student, Tosia, she doesn't seem like she wants to apply herself. It is a shame.