Conversations with Kids

Over the last two weeks I have been calling out the kids who didn't make it to at least a couple days of our five day long English Winter Camp. The kids who didn't make it do tend to be the bad ones at English and mostly respond in Korean. Some had legitimate reasons as they were out of town. But some were just lame, "I don't know" answers you'd expect from bad students.

Two replies really made impressions on me. The first was from a kid who knew zero English a couple of years ago but has really started to improve (he can almost read now and his speaking and listening are normal for his class). He was the last one to get me standing over his desk faking anger about missing camp. While I was asking him why he missed out on a free camp and he played it cool. He stood up and broke out into the "Busy, Busy, Busy" song and dance we learnt this year. I gave him a high five for learning and using English properly.

The other conversation with a suprising answer turned out to be an extremely reasonable reason. It came from a 5th grader. (Remember 5th graders are about 11/12 years old.) His camp was the first to happen and I saw him around the school during the third week of camps. His father is the PTA president and normally this boy is always involved in camp. When I quizzed him on his whereabouts. He told me he was in the hospital. I asked him if he was feeling better and he told me he wasn't sick. I asked if someone in his family was sick and again he told me nobody was sick. He then pointed at my crotch and did a snipping motion with his hand while speaking Korean I didn't know. The poor kid had to be circumcised (Koreans get circumcised when they are older) and this is a very valid reason for not being present.