At dance class, children frequently cannot find their shoes. They leave their shoes in a mess outside the hall, and in their eagerness to leave when their parents come, other shoes get kicked, sometimes quite far away.One child came up to me with worry written all over her little round face. "Miss, my feet..." She stopped. The word was wrong."My shoe," I suggested, having understood the problem.She shook her head, frowning. That was not the word she was looking for. "My foot," she began, laboriously."Shoe," I suggested again, helpfully, I thought.She shook her head again, a little impatient with me this time. A frown of concentration had replaced the worry on her face. After a few seconds, she announced, triumphantly, "One foot does not have a shoe." … [Read more...]
Learning to Communicate
"Do you speak English?" we asked three police-people standing at a signal in Milan.The policewoman shook her head and turned to the men. "Just a leetle," said one.Then began our attempt to tell them we were lost and looking for our hostel. The hostel had given us a map, but we had walked clean off the map and had no idea how to get back. The word 'hostel' brought no reaction, so we showed them the map and said 'ostello'. We had no idea how to ask 'where', 'how', nothing! But 'ostello' was enough. They brought out another, more detailed map of Milan and had an animated discussion while we watched. They argued with one another about how we could go, one would start explaining to us slowly, another would interrupt...Then the policewoman tried. She said something like 'douce'. We shrugged. She asked again, "Douce, douce?" We had no idea what she was trying to say.Then, one of the … [Read more...]
Arbitrary Right
A little girl in my dance class was confused."Which is your right hand?" I asked."This one?" she suggested, tentatively, raising her left hand."No," I said, gently, used to these problems. "That's your left hand. The other one is your right.""NO!" she said, crossly. "That's your right."I smiled and demonstrated to her, "This is my right side; this is my left. That is your right side; that is your left."The little girl turned around so that both of us were facing the same direction. "Now which is my right?" she asked, triumphant at the thought that she had fooled me.I held her right hand. "This one.""How?" she moaned, upset with how fickle I was. "You said that window was my right hand!" … [Read more...]