all i want for christmas

i had christmas lessons at elementary school today with 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 6th graders. i only go to elementary school once a week, i have six hundred students there, and i can't read most of their name tags, so getting to know them is pretty difficult, especially considering what a whirlwind twenty-five minute lessons are. nevertheless, now that i've been at this same school since for eight months (minus the *ahem* seven weeks i was on summer vacation), there are students that stand out in each class.

in one of my sixth grade classes is a chubby kid with a husky voice and a faux-hawk. when we do activities he usually doesn't participate, or gives up quickly, saying "this is impossible. i don't understand english." it breaks my heart when kids give up like that. of course he doesn't understand english, and i don't expect him to. i just want him to try.

today the fifth and sixth graders made ornaments to decorate christmas trees. we had one tree per grade and each class within the grade had a different color of paper (blue, pink, or yellow) in the shape of a circle, star, or square. on the ornament they had to write "I want (a) _______" in english and sign their name. they haven't officially learned the alphabet yet, but they can all write -- some of them with much more effort than others. their vocabulary is pretty limited, so i spent most of my time going from student to student translating and telling them how to spell things.

so i'm at my last class of the day and the teacher isn't there. i was supposed to leave early because i helped out with english club yesterday, but instead i'm staying until the end -- my schedule got shifted around. we've started ten minutes late because the previous class ended late. (any lesson involving crafts goes into overtime -- these kids are perfectionists.) the homeroom teacher isn't there, and this is the class with the three boys in the front row who always talk over my teaching and destroy the mood for everyone. they're not really paying attention and i know i'm short on time, so i skip 'how's the weather," "what day is it," and my christmas spiel and cut straight to, "okay, when is christmas? and what's the day before called? that's right, and santa brings presents, so we're going to decorate a christmas tree and tell him what we want, okay? let's do it."

and what happened ten minutes later made and killed my day. i-hate-english boy came up to me with his ornament. he held it close to his chest, afraid to show it to me because he was sure he'd gotten it wrong. here's what it said:

"my moTher haPy."

i wanted to give him so much more than a lousy sticker.