Tales from the Trenches: substitute teacher in a kilt

[Alan H]

Funniest Story of the Day....

So I'm walking back to my classroom (todays classroom, it's a new one every day) and this Fijian girl comes roaring up to me...quite friendly, not antagonistic at all and asks me out of the blue...

Are you Catholic?

OK, this gives the "Are you Jewish?" question that I got froma Chinese tourist last year, a run for the money. I respond with a puzzled look, and "No, I'm Presbyterian. Why do you ask?"

Her response?

Because you're not wearing anything under that thing....*looking down at my kilt*.

I said.... "Oh, come on. I'm here at SCHOOL, girlfriend. What would happen if there was a little accident and I flashed all the girls in one of my classes? Wouldn't I lose my job?"

Oh...well.... yeah.

But girls wear those...*looking down again*

So I mentioned the lava-lava that Samoan and Fijian men wear to church and formal occasions, and asked her what her brothers would do if she told them they were wearing something that girls wore.

Her face lit up, and she shouted... THEY'D POUND ME...and tore off. I never really DID get an answer to my question.

Wow...just wow. "Are you Catholic?" Hmmmm........

And in other news.

I had four sections of Social Studies today. Three were American Government and one was economics. I start all the classes at this school with a few words onthe board: Kilt...sporran....sgian dubh... gaelic....scotland.... MacNaughton, and today.... MacNicol (because I was wearing a MacNicol kilt). I tell them about kilts (the mascot for this high school is "The Scots") and some of the boys always want to know where they can get one. I point 'em to USA Kilts (the Ramsay Blue colors are a perfect match for the schools colors) and Stillwater kilts, for the budget model. After 5 minutes on that, and of course "The Question" we move on to the days lessons.

However, today was different. In all three classes the discussion turned to Ireland and the kids wanted to talk about "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. I told them about James II and William of Orange and Mary, and some more stuff about how the Protestant/Catholic troubles in Northern Ireland got started....sort of gave them some historical perspective.

We talked about Sinn Fein and the IRA, about the Orangemen and the Ulster Constabulatory. This went on for a good half hour in all three classes. Wetalkedd about he futility of the endless cycle of revenge, and incredibly, on e kid mentioned the recent movie that Elijah Wood was in...."Green Street Rollers" I think it is. Smart Kid.

Unusual, I thought. Why would these kids be interested in these issues?

Turns out that lots of these kids know about The Troubles, but they NEVER study them in school. They study the Middle East, they study about Darfur, they even knew something about Eritrea, but they don't learn about the problems in Northern Irleand.

The first period class was mostly hispanic with three middle eastern kids in it, so there was no point in asking...but I asked the two afternoon sections of American Government class, how many of them had English, Irish, Welsh or Scottish heritage. Two thirds of the class raised their hands.

I think I'm gonna acquaint their regular teachers that there's a need, an opportunity and an interest here. Makes sense, don't you think?

PS: several kids knew about the Isle of Man, and that came up when we were talking about the "United Kingdom" One girl stopped me in my tracks, asking if there was a relationship between the Frisian language and Gaelic. We looked it up online after class. There's not, but there definintely is a relationship between English and Frisian.

Even though I'm sick as a dog with the head cold from Hell, this was a good day.