Listen to Them

When I'm not exasperated or frustrated, I remember what my little students say to me or to their peers. Funny and cute conversations happen every day during school hours.. it's just whether I'm tuned to the right frequency to listen and try not to laugh out loud. Hehe.

Today I picked up quite a few at work. Honestly, I'm amazed that I managed to, because ever since I taught the 5-year-olds, I seemed to have lost that ability. There's just so much to focus on, their work, academics and whatnot. It's so different from the year before last when I was with the 3-year-olds where academic was not of utmost importance yet ('cause they can't write at that age).. that was the year I really enjoyed listening and talking to them.

Today, 6-year-old Ethan came to me with his new books about the solar system and the universe. By the way, that's like, his utmost passion. He can tell you lots of facts about stars, planets and the universe! And so, he found out that the sun will eventually die one day and shared his discovery with me today when I was busy fussing over the other kids.

I took some time to sit down to listen to him as the other kids did their work. He opened his book and started to tell me, "Did you know that one day, the sun will explode? And then at that time it'll touch Earth."

I answered, in a panicked tone, "Oh dear, it'll touch Earth?! Then what will happen to us?!"

Ethan looked at me for a moment before giving me his answer, "Oh, we'll already be in heaven at that time!"

I thought that's a brilliant answer. :)

He then continued to tell me that the sun will not explode yet, not in dunno how many billion years before I stood up and told him that it was time to do some work.

May this joy and my pair of listening ears never depart from me.