Is Popeye here today? No, but Donut is . . .

I am still working on learning the students’ names. Fortunately most of the children have a short nickname and they are often interesting words in English. Here is a sample of some of my favorites at school:
Sherlock, Focus, Phone, Big, Bike, Popeye (girl), Captain, Premier, Boat, Porsche, Spice, Grape, Copter, Donut, and Pooh. Donut is an absolutely adorable name for the little girl in kindergarten, but will it be as cute if she turns into a chubby pre-teen? Will the nickname Donut stay with her forever, even when she is an 80-year-old grandmother?

Earth is quite a popular nickname. There are at least 3 students (all boys) at my school with that name. In the first week I barely knew any of the students’ names, which became glaringly and somewhat embarrassingly apparent during third grade science. We were discussing physical properties and I asked them to give me examples of things that are big and things that are little. It can be hard to “break the ice” sometimes and so when one of the girls said, “Earth is big,” I praised her for her response and proceeded to draw a picture of the planet Earth on the board. I heard a bit of giggling but didn’t really think much of it since my drawing skills really are pretty abysmal. Then when I walked around to monitor the pictures and writing in their notebooks, I realized my mistake. Earth was one of the students in the class- all of the kids had drawn a picture of his (somewhat chubby, but just pleasantly plump) face next to the word Earth! And to think I praised that student for her response! Fortunately, it seems that this Earth is well-liked and I think the children were not truly being cruel in calling him big, just noting that he is bigger than them (I hope that interpretation stands!)

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