Yesterday, in my youngest Phonics class, made up of mostly 1st graders, Yunho announced he had a booger.
He was speaking Korean (“코딱지!” [kottakji = booger]), and I had a weird moment when I reflected on my strange plateau of Korean language knowledge. It can’t be normal for someone to understand a child’s discourse on boogers but not be able to understand an adult’s request for a suggestion (which also occured yesterday).
Yunho wasn’t finished with his booger. He grabbed scotch tape out of my basket of classroom supplies and taped his booger to his finger. The other boys in the class thought this was the grandest achievement in recent human memory, and promptly set out to replicate it. I had to confiscate the tape and forcefully insist that everything end up in the trash.
The one girl in the class (who is also a year or two older) shook her head and clucked her tongue disapprovingly at the whole proceeding. Understandably.