TCK’s…and Mongoose Adventure #2

TCK’s = Third Culture Kids. I have grown to love TCK’s! This post is dedicated to them…to their humor, wit, and “knowledge”. I’ve compiled some of my favorite memories from the classroom thus far (primarily because I want record of them so that I will always remember). Some are funny while others are merely “memorable”…and some really have nothing to do with TCK’s at all (particularly the last story, which was actually a very sudden addition to this post, and you’ll see why when you get there). Enjoy!

Iabes (AKA the human dictionary) has a wide repertoire of homonyms, synonyms, definitions, etc. stuck in his brain. He is a very bright kid, in spite of the fact that this is his second year in first grade. He prays for the same two things every morning during prayer time: that his dog and cat will stop fighting and that his hair will grow (he likes big hair). Anyways, on with the story…I was administrating a spelling test on one particular Friday in which the spelling words were all correlated with our weather theme. The word “hot” happened to be on the list. After saying the word, the following conversation (verbatim) took place:



Iabes: “Ms. Normandeau…uh, I know something.”


Me: “What do you know, Iabes?”


Iabes: “I know another meaning for the word hot.”


Me (somewhat confused): “I don’t know what you mean…what is the other meaning?"


Iabes: "Well…it’s actually really bad.”


Me: “Iabes…what is it?”


Iabes: “Well…you’re gonna think I’m bad but…um…it’s too bad. I can’t say.”


Me: “Iabes…you have to tell me!”


Iabes: “Well…it’s just…when a guy thinks a girl is…all pretty and stuff…he says she’s hot.”

Elshaddai came in the other week feeling oh so sick. I don’t know why her parents sent her to school that day…but there she was. We had an abnormal morning that day because I had booked the computer lab so that the students could finish typing their stories (we were publishing books as part of an ongoing writing project). So immediately after attendance, we lined up at the door to go to the lab. All the kids automatically know that whenever we go to the lab they need to sit down on the floor until the directions have been given. So I was setting up the projector while the kids were settling down on the floor when Elshaddai tapped my shoulder and said “Ms. Normandeau, I really don’t…” That’s all she got out…and then she puked all over the floor…and then puked some more. I yelled to Ebenezer, the non-English speaking worker who happened to be in the lab, to take over my class and then rushed Elshaddai to the nearest bathroom, which just happened to be in Cary’s apartment. There was a line of puke the whole way there. Needless to say, it was a chaotic morning. The kids got to play games in Amharic with Ebenezer (Cary was gone) and I got to clean up puke.

Naomi is another funny kid in my class. Every morning Naomi runs into my classroom, gives me a giant hug, and excitedly recounts her “taxi” adventure to me. She has adventures on her taxi every morning and she thoroughly enjoys telling them to me. Usually, they’re something like “Joshua told me a secret!” or “our taxi driver burped!” or “Everyone in our taxi was wearing jeans!” While these things seem so miniscule and pointless…they are a HUGE deal to a first grader and Naomi is always super excited about the adventures she has. Well, Naomi is not only excessively verbal in the morning, but she is also very verbal during lessons. Just the other day I was teaching a lesson when Naomi suddenly had this urgent question that she had to ask immediately…except, she blanked out on my name (no idea why). So she said:

“uh…hey Ms! You have another name but I’m going to call you Ms. and THAT’S ALL!”

-If you are familiar with Junie B. Jones, then you know why I practically fell over my chair laughing when Naomi said that. :)


I’ve been doing several timed writings with my students in order to get writing samples to have on hand for parent-interviews. The writing samples are graded with a rubric that I created and they provide a very accurate representation of which previously taught skills (e.g. punctuation) the students are actually incorporating into their writing correctly. I give the students a prompt, tell them to write the best they can, set a little kitchen timer for 30 minutes (just for fun), and say, “go”. Well, it was my first day doing a timed writing and Brayden (AKA Mr. Drama Queen) walked into the classroom wondering what my kitchen timer was for. I told him that we were going to be using it in class during writing. Brayden then responded by putting his right hand over his forehead dramatically. Subsequently, he heaved a big sigh and “fainted” on the floor. …Mind you, this is the same boy who counts the backpacks every morning upon walking into the classroom and, every single day, gets markedly amazed at how many people are at school already.

Birds have a tendency to come into our classroom quite frequently. I mentioned one in an earlier post that died because it fell behind a bookshelf and couldn’t get out. Well, about 50 bird incidents later (literally, that’s how many come into our classroom), we had a bird that was especially stupid fly into our classroom. After flying into several windows, he fell behind a bookshelf…so I graciously moved the shelf and opened all the windows so that the bird could go free. Instead, the bird just kinda sat there for a while before finally deciding to fly into the door and a few walls. Well, this “intelligent” bird flew so hard into a wall that he flopped down on the floor and didn’t move for at least 5 minutes. I thought he was dead. I called for a worker to come clean him up…but as soon as the worker bent down to touch him, the bird flew up to the top of our white board (which sticks out from the wall ever so slightly, so there is a bit of space between it and the wall that is only visible from above). The bird had not moved from the top of the white board when it was time for school dismissal, so we just left leaving the windows open in hopes that the bird would find his way out eventually. The next morning…we could hear the sound of a bird chirping behind the whiteboard and struggling to get free. That “intelligent” bird had decided to spend the night behind the white board! Unfortunately, there was no way to get the bird out except by unscrewing the entire white board and taking it off the wall…so the workers did exactly that while I took my students (who didn’t know what was going on at all) up to the field to march around Jericho (AKA a haystack in the middle of the field). The bird survived…although with his lack of intelligence, I doubt he lived much longer.


I was observed the other day on an introductory lesson on electricity. My objective correlated with the standard in which students are required to identify common household appliances that use electricity and then sort those electrical appliances based on what they do (produce light, heat, sound, etc.). I was a little nervous seeing as it was an observation day (my supervisor is very British and it’s sometimes a challenge to find lessons that she will approve of), but Cary and I had gone over my lesson and we both believed that my supervisor would approve. What I, nor Ms. Sink, anticipated; however, was that the students did not have adequate background knowledge. You see, at Bingham Academy, we are serving the rich…not the poor. The students who come here to Bingham are children of Ethiopian kings, Nobel Prize winners, big business men, etc. As a result, practically every student in my class has a maid/worker who does their household work for them. They did not know what a stove was…what a washing machine was…what a hair dryer was…etc. They were completely oblivious!! I was so shocked…so we stopped my lesson and I made the kids act out various electrical appliances. For a washing machine, the students had to pretend to put clothes inside their tummy, push their nose to turn the machine on, and then spin around in circles like a washing machine does. Hawi (one of the many who didn’t know what a washing machine was) spinned around so hard that he fell onto my supervisors lap. …what an observation!


Mongoose adventure number 2:
This story is 100% true. I am sitting in my living room right now typing up this post for you all to read. After typing the first two stories; however, I was rudely interrupted by…you guessed it…a mongoose. A HUGE mongoose!! Dan (our neighbor) has been trying to get the mongooses out of the attic all night and I think he accidentally left our attic door creaked open ever so slightly and so the mongoose got in. This time around I screamed like a little girl, jumped on my couch, and ran outside to find someone to help because I was home alone. I found Steph in the teachers lounge and she willingly walked back up to the apartment to help me chase the mongoose out of our apartment. Dan joined us as well once he figured out what all the commotion was about; however, after searching every room in the house (including my room with the broken light—sound familiar?), Dan declared that the mongoose must have ran out on its own because it was nowhere to be seen. I was so certain that the mongoose was still there though because it was so big and it seemed impossible that we didn’t see it run out…so I convinced Steph to help me search the house one more time (especially my room since the light was busted). So we grabbed a flashlight and searched the house one more time. Well…I was right. The mongoose was under my bed JUST like last time!! I grabbed my handy dandy umbrella while Steph called Dan back (who had a handy dandy pitch fork). Dan jabbed the mongoose while I blocked the hallway with the umbrella so that the mongoose could only go outside. *We’ll call this plan #3 (since neither Steph nor I were successful at getting the mongoose outside).

Plan #3 worked. :) No more mongoose in the apartment! :) AND, more importantly, I was rescued from another 2am mongoose attack! Praise the Lord!



That was one scary mongoose.

-Nicole