Things we've learned this week

Teaching young children in a country where you don't know the language can teach you some language quickly. Here are some new words:

Öğretmeni = Teacher (We learned this from the continuous chant of "Öğretmeni, Öğretmeni." Teacher Teacher still sounds like nails on a chalk board, even in a different language.

istemeorim - I don't want to.

Tuvalet - The Toilet. That's not to hard, but vital!!!

Hayır - As covered before this means No but I've heard it alot.

Ne? - What?

One of my other favorites:

Türkçe Billmiorum, English, English - "I don't know Turkish! English English."

Today I had a child look at me and tell me a paragraph worth of Turkish, none of which I understood. I told him "Turkçe Billmiorum, English English." He looked back at me and said ever so sweetly " Ingiliezce Billmiorum." And we were at an impass. I shrugged, he shrugged and then went on to play. We communicated, good enough.

When you start to work with the children of a different culture you get an interesting picture of the relationship between parent and child. The main thing that I feel here so far is that Children have few responsibilities for taking care of themselves. I witnessed a parent feeding their 5 year old child. Coming from a school where children who could barely walk were clearing their plates after lunch, this was hard to swallow, and I don't have anyone to spoon feed it to me.

Parents here seem to struggle with the same issues we faced with our classes in America. I have heard conversations about how a child is eating, the child who doesn't want to be in the English class, and have had several parents swoop in from the hall to pick up their crying child. While I didn't think that I would be getting away from parents I thought that perhaps I would be facing different types of concerns and conversations.

Although the approach and follow through may be different in cultures, I suppose a parent's job is the same all over the world, worrying about their child being happy and healthy.