6 Chinese 8-year olds may now believe this is the legend of Easter

Class: "It's about Jesus, we already know that!"

Mr. Kevin: "Nooo, Easter is not about Jesus. Do you guys know what the world really looked like 5,000 years ago?"

Class: "......uh..."

Mr. Kevin: "Five thousand years ago, things were a bit different than they are today. Things were bigger. Plants, garbage cans, houses. Rabbits. They were the size of people" <cynical expression of disbelief washes over class> "and they ruled the world."

"The rabbits, for as long as they could remember, had their run of things, lazing away the days, eating grass peacefully. One day, arriving on their shores were these birds--they couldn't fly, they had these weird feet--"

Class: "Chickens!"

Mr. Kevin: "--and they were interested in more space to grow their chicken kingdom bigger and bigger. The rabbits didn't like this, they wanted their homes to themselves, to live in peace. But the chickens were having none of it. A war began that lasted for many years" not
be real>
"After many years of fighting, the rabbits had had enough and they decided to do something drastic. They--"

Nancy: "What's 'drastic'?"

Mr, Kevin: "Something really really BIG. They figured that, what's the best way to get rid of the chickens? We could kill them, but that's way too crazy. Hey, how about we took at the chicken babies?! Then there won't be any more chickens to fight.

"So late one night, the rabbits crept into the chicken's camp, and stole all of these huge eggs. At that time, chickens were pretty big, right? So that was no small thing stealing thousands of eggs bigger than basketballs!

"The rabbits felt bad about stealing all their eggs. They were peaceful animals and they felt like they had no choice. 'Hey, this isn't us,' said the rabbit leader. 'We can't do this.'

"Instead of rolling the eggs into the sea as they had planned, the rabbits ran around the glen and gather flowers and petals of every kind--red ones, blue ones, yellow and green. They threw them into big, boiling pots of water, and soon their were these big pots of color into which they dipped all the eggs.

"Back at the chicken camp, they went to bed heartbroken. But the next morning, in the middle of camp, there was a pile of colored eggs 5 stories high. 'Our babies!' they shouted.

"The rabbit commander shook hands with Captain Chicken, and the war was over. We commemorate that day, every year, by coloring Easter eggs, celebrating the peace between rabbits and chickens."

Bob: "But what happened to rabbits and chickens? Why are they so small today?"

Mr. Kevin: "Good question. People came along. We had big sticks, then we had axes and tools for fighting with the animals that the rabbits and chickens didn't have. So what's the only thing they could of have done? Only thing to do was hide--under the ground, under the house, wherever. Slowly, evolution selected for the smallest chickens and rabbits."

Frazzled

A teaching candidate came into the office the other day looking like they were about to throw up. A young energetic woman with a degree in elementary education, she was trying out what was meant to become her new class. Actually, she had not even taught a single lesson yet, she was observing another teacher handle the class. With what seemed like a mixture of fright, surprise, and disgust, she declared that this was not for her. The students are 3 year olds who have just joined an organized school for the first time in their lives. When she walked into the classroom, her blond hair and blue eyes seemed to induce the children to became hysterical as they started to assault her, hitting her on her thighs and back. Even the admonishments in from the local teacher in Chinese couldn't get them to stop, apparently. The children, in essence, were feral. The scene was like something out of Lord of the Flies.

We talked about it for a little bit, going over how she had never seen kids this crazy. We talked about why and how they had gotten this way. My thinking was something like: why would they be any other way? They're 3! They're each an only child, coddled constantly from the moment they've been born, torn away from parents not 3 weeks ago to spend all day long with a stranger. And now we had the gall to introduce a foreign stranger into their lives... With time, however, I believed they would adapt.

It's amazing to think about the way an education forms a person--not just in the knowledge they amass, but in the more simple and more complex ways in which they speak to one another, act in groups, follow leaders, and strike out on their own. When our teachers with the youngest age groups get some of our 2 and 3 year olds, that first week is an amazing challenge. Then you set up routines... for everything. For every moment of their lives. And the kids start to enjoy this repetition, and can control themselves. You can even start giving the little guys minor responsibilities, and let them teacher one another as much as you're teaching them anything.

Unfortunately for the candidate--who, I am almost certain, would eventually come to do an excellent job with the class if she stuck around--I was able to see in her frightened eyes that feeling I once had standing in front of a room of young people, bouncing off the walls, with no safe harbor of common language to run to. After seeing kids at that early stage, what miracles there are that teachers can turn surly mobs of young ruffians into functional citizens over any period of time, much less just a few years.