Thursday 21 June 2007

"Good lesson" I was told :-)

Today Kshanti was not able to come. Last week when this happened I was a bit overwhelmed with the kindy ones. They were above me, and the class was a complete waste of time.
This week, when Kshanti told me I dreaded what would happen.
Last minute chaos, both at home and office, prevented me from sitting, as I like to do on the days I teach.

Anyway, I told the scripture coordinator about my worries with the little ones and she asked the Kindergarten teacher to come and talk with me and two of the trouble kids. She did, and I think that helped quite a lot.

I also took two of my favourite Buddha statues and the bell. I used the bell to call for silence. They then looked at the Buddhas and we discussed the differences. One was a Korean Buddha and the other from India. When I mentioned that the long ears meant wisdom one of the girls said her name "Sonia" meant wisdom as well, so now we call her long years (everybody laughed a lot when I said that).

The class went very well! yes, at the end one of the kids said 'thank you, it was a very nice lesson'. I was so happy.

The second group was also very good. I have a couple of new students (both girls) and they did very well. At the end another of the girls come and said thank you, although in a different way. She came and half bowed, I bowed to her and gave her Bhante's CD so she could practice at home. She looked very happy.


1 comment:

Rafael said...

When I told my wife about making a joke about 'big ears' she was shocked. I should clarify that kids (at that age at least) did not have a problem. In fact, after explaining that big ears mean 'wisdom', I asked who still thoutght himself wise, and 5 or 6 said 'me', pointing at their ears.