During dinner last night, we talked about "stuff" as always.
Andrew mentioned about his test during the day. He said that he was not the first one that finished the test, but he was one of the fastest ones. He finished all the math questions within one and a half minutes (according to him), and then of course used the rest of the test time drawing action figures on the back of the test since he was “bored”.
I started telling him that speed is not the most important thing in a test. He should focus on accuracy as well.
As an example, I told them a story from when I was little: “When mommy was in elementary school, there was a boy who sat close to me. He always finishes every test the first. After he handed his test in, he would go back to his seat and make a lot of noises to brag about it. I was always annoyed by the noises he made, because I could not concentrate on my own test. However, when we get the tests back, he always had a lot of mistakes. I think just being fast and have a lot of mistakes is not good enough.”
Apparently, their focal point was not on the test: “Did you tell your teacher about his noise?” Anna inquired
“Eh——, the teacher knew it, but she did not have time to worry about it because she had 45 kids in her class.” It was tough to explain why I had to live with it.
Then I really wanted to shift the topic: “She was my favorite teacher. She was really nice and treated everybody in my class equally.”
“Where is she?”“ Is she really old?”“ Is she still alive?”“ Is she still a teacher?” (mommy is already quite old in their eyes, let alone her elementary school teacher)
“She is still in China. Yes, she is alive. Actually she is about the same age as your grandma. I sent greeting cards to her occasionally. She has already retired.”
“She is retarded?!” Anna questioned with round eyes.
“No. Retired! Not retarded! Teachers can not be retarded. They have to be smart. If they become retarded, they will be fired right away.” Andrew corrected with full confidence.
I had a tough time keeping the food in my mouth.
“Oh......! What is ‘retired’?” Anna is really confused.
Both Andrew and Anna looked at me.
“‘Retired’ means that when people get older, they stop working at a certain age.” I managed the answer without laughing out loud.
The conversation went on to something else……
