Along the Merry Way....

We were able to substitute the regular morning phonics class for a "baking class" and made apple crisp together. The children were super excited that they got to mix the topping with their bare hands. Clumps of butter-sugar topping seemed to keep on mysteriously going missing. The little imps: Nick and Louis! Tony, learning how to peel an apple: Tony and Martin (fondly known as To-to and Fartin'): Here is the very simple recipe: Apple Crisp 1 half a bag of apples, preferrably old, soft ones (peeled, cored, and diced) A few sprinkles of cinnamon One tablespoon of lemon juice Topping : 1 cup of butter 1 cup of sugar 3-4 cups of rolled oats 1/2 cup of flour A sprinkle of cinnamon Mix the topping together with your hands until it's crumbly. You can add other things like milk and honey if it is too dry. If you want more topping, then just add more sugar, butter, and oats. The good thing is that you can use just about any kind of fruit that is starting t...

The children are incredibly enthusiastic and excitable. After classes are finished, they work together on their journals, and during this time, they are supposed to be quiet and focused. However, the moment all is silent, a little head inevitably pops up like a gopher out of its hole. Someone will deliver a quote from Shrek that sends the rest of them into hysterics. Then a scuffle breaks out between two of the boys. Jane (the other teacher) and I smooth things out. Silence returns, then another gopher pops out of its hole. Someone asks, "Do you know the muffin man?" and little voices chirp back, "The muffin man?" Then another scuffle breaks out. Jane and I restore order; there might even be a few mild threats. They resume their writing quietly until a third gopher bursts out, "Teacher! Do you remember what happened yesterday? Tony and Louis fell in the pond!" Suddenly every gopher in the field is dying with laughter, and Tony has turned bright red. When t...

Two bedraggled children – Tony and Louis – shuffled into the living room yesterday, leaving little damp foot-prints behind them. They stared shamefacedly down at their feet, shoulders slumped and hands behind them, as water dripped off their noses and trickled through their sodden clothes onto the floor. “Teacher,” Tony confessed to Jonquil, not daring to look up, “Teacher......we........went in the pond.” The pond is a deep and wide pool behind the house. It is the muddy home of crayfish, salamanders, frogs, and turtles and seems to have a magnetic pull on the little boys. They are fascinated by all the exotic creepy-crawlies that they can find there. “Teacher,” Tony continued, “We were trying to catch crayfish, and..........we....... fell in .” They were so afraid of getting in trouble that they could hardly believe it when all the adults started laughing at their sorry plight. Louis gave me his version: “Teacher, we were walking in the water and very fast it was deep." So, I...

The wildlife here is prolific. First, the deer are extremely presumptious, wandering onto people's lawns and gazing boredly at your car after they leisurely trot off the road. There are rumours of cougars in the neighborhood, and twice now a black bear has lumbered right into our back yard. The children were beside themselves with excitement. These are children who, for the most part, have never even seen the stars before! After the second bear-sighting, Jaeho ran out with a camera and I ran out with a big stick (just in case :) and we tried to hunt the bear down, but it had disappeared. Our neighbors found this tiny, amazing creature on their lawn. It was only a few days old and the mother deer was grazing nearby. I can't tell you how cool it was to see! Bambi's way cuter in real life than in the cartoon :) The mother deer, grazing at a distance:

Then there is Seymin (His name is a bit of a joke among the teachers, poor little fellow). His mother is living with us and helping to cook. He is the most incredible child I have ever encountered. He is only one, but he wears the clothes of a four year old. He is gigantic but still has the muscle control of a baby, so he lumbers awkwardly about like a big wooden puppet. He has wandered around ever since arriving from Korea with a rather stunned and upset look on his face, saying all the time, "Boi? Boi?" (This literally means, What the Hell? What the Hell? ) Even in church, during a quieter moment, you'll hear, "Boi?" echo from the back. Like a walking tank or machine of destruction, he lunges for the weakest and most breakable things. I've seen the child attach himself to the cane of a wobbling old man and try to rip away his only support. I've seen him charge the sun-glasses stand in a store. He springs again and again at drinking glasses, knives, po...

Gertrude is one of the sweetest little girls I've ever taught. However, I don't know how, but she frequently manages to play the piano with her mouth hanging wide open. It's as though she is still sitting in amazement at the last story that I've told her.

Recently Jay-Jay and Tabitha's father bought them a new piano. The children were very excited. When they went to pick it up, the house they bought it from had a suspiciously foul smell hanging in the air. However, they quickly forked over several hundred dollars and then carted the instrument out. After a great deal of expense and effort, they installed it in their living room. Unfortunately, the curious odour, which they thought they had left behind them, appeared to be radiating in strong waves from the piano. Jay-Jay and Tabitha rallied and attacked the piano with a bottle of febreeze, but to no avail. The smell became so pungent after a while that the children refused to practice. Then they refused to go near the instrument or the living-room any more. I suggested that perhaps there was a dead animal inside, and Jay-Jay said, “Well I'm sure not looking.” I asked Tabitha what exactly the smell was like. Her face paled, and she replied in a whisper, “Like nothing I've eve...

Jay-Jay and Tabitha: Two little black kids who are super excited and positive about everything (Cool stickers! Cool piano bench! Cool song! etc, etc). Jay-jay snaps his fingers and busts out dance moves on the bench. He could have come straight from New Orleans. Jay-Jay tells me he hasn't been able to practice piano recently because their keyboard broke down, but not to worry--he learns songs in his dreams. Amazing skill!

Stefan never ceases to amaze me with the sheer unbelieveability of his tales. This time he asked me if I knew that "A beaver once saved the life of the queen of England." Apparently she was in the royal family's private zoo, and a young beaver dove in front of an assasin's bullet and saved her life. I don't know where he comes up with these or has the nerve to tell me them with such earnestness.

Todd the Terrible (8 years old) told me that he's been thinking about joining the army. He also said, "I used to want to lose both my legs because I think wheelchairs are cool. But now I think only one leg would be good. Gertrude the Gullible: She likes trills, but she can never get the name right and always calls them "frills." I told her to avoid the "endless trill" because the man who invented it is still playing. I also told her not to press the middle pedal otherwise the piano would explode, and the anonymous Minuet she was playing was actually written by Bob. I always separate truth from fiction afterwards. Stefan: Once again, his homework was not done because "he nearly stopped breathing that week." He had had a terrific fall into some ice on his stomach that caused him great pain. Luckily, he didn't have to go to the hospital.

Ted was round, chubby, and only two-years old. My heart sank when I saw the little blond cherub, barely toddling, first rolling about on the floor and next clutching at his parents pant-legs. They left him with me. His fat little legs barely made it over the edge of the bench. He looked at me with the baleful stare of an abandoned piglet, and then he wailed out getting louder and louder, "I want my mommy!!!! I want my daddy!!!!" (Breathe in for final intake of air), "and I want to learn the FRENCH HORN!!!" (Note: He would have been crushed by the weight of a French Horn or fallen inside it he was so small). The lesson lasted about 3 minutes before his parents, who were hovering behind the door came in and retrieved him. I told them as delicately as possible that their son wasn't ready for lessons yet. If, however, they wished to "expose" him to music, they could play a lot of classical recordings and let him bang on the keyboard at home for the next fe...

1. Minnie Mouse: Minnie has a very high sqeaky voice and asks countless questions. Much of what she says goes up in tone at the end, so even her statements sound like questions. She is also very easily distracted by any bright shiny objects in the room. Minnie: "So I practiced a lot this week? It was fun. Can I learn a new song? I picked this one?" She is a little beginner, but she came with several recordings of songs that she wanted to learn. They were advanced classical pieces by Liszt, Beethoven, and Mozart, some of which took me months to learn at the height of my music life. "Pleeeeeeeeeeeasqueak?" she pleaded, "Pleeeeeease can I learn it? I want to learn one by next Thursday? There's a school concert, and I want to be really good." Me (not wanting to crush her spirit): "Well, Minnie, you'll definitely play these songs at some point, but I think you need to learn some other ones first as a bridge in between." Minnie (determined): ...

Stefan from Budapest: Today 10-year old Stefan from Budapest gave the most elaborate excuse for having not done his English homework that I have ever encountered in all my teaching experience. It began with his recounting the story of an epic face-first dive into the snow, which involved a terrible skidding motion that embedded ice into his face; the story next described a cruelly insensitive father, who failed to treat his facial wounds properly; in fact, it sounded as if the father had been trying to permanently scar him by roughly trying to scrape the ice and snow off his face. It must have healed quickly though because Stefan's face appeared as radiantly fresh and earnest as ever under his spiky hair. The terrible tale next involved the loss and mix-up of almost all of his school papers, a disqualified homework assignment that he was forced to redo, and finally a mistaken swap in which he took the wrong person's bag home and left his own behind. With such an exhausting and ...

"I practiced one hour every day this week." Sheer musical bliss to a piano teacher's heart.

Ernesta tells me with wide open eyes that she couldn't sleep one night, so she got up to practice piano (to waste away the time). The song she played was "Waltz of the Christmas Toys." With deep sincerity in her voice she states, "Then all my toys got up and started dancing around me while I played." Me: Are you sure you weren't dreaming? Earnesta: Oh, no! I told you, I couldn't sleep. Earnesta's hands were sore. They were hurting, she told me, because she had been catching frogs all day, which takes a good deal of hand-squeezing effort. Matilda: Each week, she gazes at me with large, sad eyes during the lesson as though her entire family has been massacred. Her responses are all in whisper form. I try to get her to talk, but so far, a nearly inaudible "yes" or "no" have been my main responses. Except for once, when she cracked and told me that she had seen a stuffed owl at the museum. It was a major break-through! Ana: is a tiny...

I'm really proud of how hard these students work: Megan: Composes and performs her own songs and was recently featured on Daytime Ottawa Tomorrow with her song Broken , which was written to promote the D.I.D.F. campaign for mental health. Kevin: I'm not sure how this happened, but I found myself teaching a Public Speaking course. He's brilliant, picks up songs in a flash, and can speak on his toes! He was recently on a TV series about how to make math fun for kids.

My music students: even the troublesome ones are great! 1. Wolfgang Amadeus: My six-year old composer; he gets the recognizable gleam in his eye of the artist whose creative juices have begun to churn; he composes and writes music during uncontrollable waves of inspiration. 2. The Prince: he regally sits at the piano bench and uses phrases like "but of course" or "if you wish." Seems mildly annoyed by statements of the obvious or simple reminders and on his own initiative learns advanced pieces in a startlingly short amount of time. 3. Earnesta: My six-year old little girl with bright blue eyes. During her lessons, she tells stories of boggling exploits, injuries, and activies, which include (but are not limitted to): winning twenty goals in half an hour (she is the best on the team), having a sudden, mysterious eye problem that made it difficult for her to see the notes, and setting up a stand in the park where she does magic tricks and paints peoples nails....even...