Kids - Experts At Misplacement

He is not one of my students, but this astute young fellow sums it up perfectly.

Kids are like electrons - you may you know what they are, what they do and where you can find them. But true to the comparison, controlling them is wikked hard. I've tried a few different things: rewards, punishments, pepper spray, embarrassment, apathy and water boarding. Some work, some don't and each new day is full of surprises.

A recent development - kids are the foremost experts at misplacing things. Anything, big or small, they will put it somewhere where it will remain forever. At Giraffe school, we use audio CDs to supplement written material in their work books. Here is a specific incident of superb misplacement - the student, I'm calling Mario, needed to borrow my copy of the CD to finish a page out of his book. Great, I say, one less person to watch over - here is a CD, here is a CD player, have a ball. Mario has good English, here is the gist of the conversation when he came back without my copy...

"Thanks for finishing, where is my CD?"
"Um, I don't know."
"You were just using it."
"It's over there."
"I don't see it, can you show me."
"I don't know."
"You were just using it! Is it in your bag? The CD player? Your hand? Your mouth?"
"No, I don't have it. I don't know."

Is this the son of Harry Houdini? Are you using some kind of Taiwanese magic the teachers haven't warned me about? Of course, I went bananas looking around the area for this lost piece of educational goodness. Before I started lifting the linoleum and crawling around in the air ducts, I gave up. Of course I didn't punish or get mad at Mario, I was too amazed at that. Either I'm working in an Asian Bermuda Triangle or children are truly on their game of getting rid of crap they don't need. Other freak occurrences include losing pencils that were in their hand, erasers that imploding after placing it on the desk for a split-second and everybody's favorite, the "my homework vanished into thin air" ploy. So much talent, squandered on something so petty. Maybe the guy who whacked Jimmy Hoffa said to his child, "here hold this bag for a second, Daddy's gotta grab the car."

But kids have carte blanche on these kind of situations. If I could have held on to that kind of immunity, I'd have more money, friends and health. Recently Brendan and I were discussing our Resident Visa paperwork and what we needed to get done. Lets compare...

B - "Hey man, what did you do with that visa application?"
A - "I don't know."
B - "You're an idiot, find it."

Harsh, maybe but I did find it. It was in my hand the whole time. Does that make me a kid, dumb, or a dumb kid? Wompwompwomp.