kids say the darndest things

dont let the title fool you. what follows is not an account of a corny kiddy quote, the likes of which used to appear in reader's digest.

no, this is more of the where the hell did that come from variety.

i was teaching a grade four class music and was doing a preamble to a remembrance day song i had prepared.

since it's also holocaust awareness week, we're going to touch on it at our assembly on friday so i wanted to give them a bit of background so that it wouldn't catch them unawares.

so when i announce that in friday's assembly we will be addressing the holocaust a young girl smiles broadly and says yes!while making the arm pump movement that humble pro atheletes make after scoring a goal. i look at her, perplexed, and continue. so i go into a spiel about how a powerful, persuasive politician named hitler only wanted people that looked like him and believed what he believed to be part of his country and how he segregated those who he didn't like...blah, blah, blah, and as i am mentioning the groups that he persecuted the same girl pipes up, proudly "and black people too, right?" (her mom is black and dad is white and mom has her go around to classrooms to do black history month psa's all february long) when i told her no, she looked confused and deflated, suddenly losing interest.

oh multiculturalism, where have we gone? what a strange thread we have woven...

anyway so after that little detour i mention that we're also going to focus on the contributions of women during the first two world wars . i explain that while the men were away at war women had to keep the economy going and entered the workforce in large numbers for the first time, marking a significant change in the options that were available to them. from out of nowhere another girl puts up her hand and says that she saw a movie called edward scissorhands where all the women stayed at home to look after the kids and they all had the same houses and dressed the same.

it's precisely these tangents that keep things fresh for me. never know where an introduction to a song will lead you. i went in planning to teach a sombre verse about uniting for peace and ended up talking about how screenwriters and set designers will exaggerate aspects of the truth to make a point.

good times. good times.