The Problem with Fruits Basket

Yesterday was my day to teach the 1st grade elementary school students at the school by my house. The kids are only 7 years old or so, so you have to keep things pretty simple English wise and have a lot of game time.

One of those games is called "Fruits Basket". It's a simple game where each child is given a picture of a fruit and sit in a circle of chairs. One student stands in the middle of the circle and calls out a fruit. Anyone holding that fruit card must change chairs and there's always one more student than chairs. The student without a chair stands in the middle, calls out a fruit and repeats the process. The game can go own indefinitely.

This game has become a fixture for JETs who teach in elementary schools because of the pure time wasting element of the game, the ability to attach just about any English words to it and because all the students already know it meaning you don't have to attempt an awkward explanation.

I was asked to play this game with the 1st grade students to have them practice numbers and I readily agreed to it since. Unfortunately, what nobody told me was that a girl from a school for handicapped children was going to visit class that day for my English lesson. The girl had some problem with her legs where she could only walk with the assistance of a walker. I didn't notice this until it was time to start the game because all the students were sitting on the floor and the walker was hidden off in the corner.

The girl's mom had come to watch the class too and looked concerned when I announced what we were doing. All the children were worried about the girl too and asked me how she was going to play the game. I didn't have an answer but the normal teacher stepped in and asked the girl if she wanted to try playing. The girl wanted to try so I just stood back and hoped everything would go all right.

The girl had never even heard of the game seeing as she went to a school where no one could play it. I was really worried that she was going to be stuck in the middle the whole game and start crying. Thankfully, I had forgotten about the kindness of kids when they are that age.

A group of girl students decided they would all help out by guarding a group of chairs until the girl with the walker could sit down. Usually she would just switch to the chair next to her, but she always had a huge, cute grin on her face when she would successfully switch, like she had just gotten away with stealing a cookie from a cookie jar. She ended up in the middle a few times, but I think it made her feel like she was part of the normal game and gave her a chance to try speaking English.
By the end of the game she was darting all the way across the circle to find empty chairs; that's a memory that I think I'll have in my head for a long time to come.

After class all the kids came up and swarmed me, as usually. I had to push through them because the girl was shyly waiting for me to come say goodbye to her so she could return to her normal school. I shook her hand, gave her a high five and asked her if she had fun. She said shook her head yes. The teacher told her to come visit again and she was on her way. I went back to giving all the other kids high fives.

This wasn't even the most eventful thing that happened yesterday. I could have written to write about the disastrous end of the year party with my co-workers, but I decided to write something more upbeat for a change. I just hope I get a little bit more warning next time.