From the mouths of babes....

Once a week I meet with a little boy named Kohei to teach him English. Our first few months together were spent largely playing games and reading simple and short children's stories to work on vocabulary and phonics. One day his mother, who also studies in one of my classes, came to me and asked, "WHAT are you teaching my son?!" "Is something wrong?" I inquired. "The other day I asked him to clean his room and he looked up at me and shouted, 'Go away! You're ugly!' I scolded him and asked him where he learned such a horrible thing. 'Tony taught me!' he said." "Well," said I, "I guess that means we are ready to move on to the next story book. Sounds like he has a good grasp on 'The Ugly Duckling!'"