Sunday, May 27, 2012

In one of the English classes I teach, we've been talking about how to have conversations about countries (you know, "Where are you from?" "What country is she from?"... that kind of stuff.) Rather than simply writing the names of the countries on the board and then having the students repeat after me a bunch of times, I thought this would be a good opportunity to make a project out of it. 

So, I brought in some paints and assigned each of the students a country. They were supposed to paint a picture of their assigned flag and write three sentences about the country and then were going to present their flag to the class. I was very excited about this, and even a little proud of myself for switching things up a bit. But I have to say, the wind was taken out of my sails a little when I was handed the flag that was supposed to be the American Flag. Instead of red, white and blue, I was handed an orange, white and purple flag-with no stars...

I was a little bit shocked. I'll admit. I looked at the sweet girl, Keany, who handed it to me and explained that what I was holding was not an American flag. Keany looked at me, then at the flag, and then back at me. "Yes it is." Was the response I was met with. So I began to explain that the colors were of the flag were not actually orange, purple and white, but rather red white and blue and that there were supposed to be stars on the flag. Her response: "No. That's not what the American Flag looks like. This is."

Flabbergasted.  It's really the only word that comes to my mind to explain how I felt. I couldn't help it. I started laughing so hard. I couldn't believe that I had just been told basically that I did not know what my own country's flag looked like. The two of us worked together, and after three attempts it finally looked like the flag I grew up seeing. 

I really love my job!