Twinkle Twinkle

By the end of the first day, I was exhausted. After pretending to be nearly every farm animal known in existence (I did confuse them a little with braying like a donkey) and running countless laps around the school yard, I collapsed onto a rough wooden plank that served as a bench next to the school gate.

The kids soon settled in a little semi-circle around me. Two curious girls climbed on to the bench on the either side of me to run their fingers through my hair. Two cheeky boys sat at my feet and tried to untie my shoe laces. A couple of kids tried to roll back my sleeves and the cuffs of cargo pants to touch my relatively light-coloured skin. The little ones were happy to hold on to my hand (I was holding about 3 little hands in each hand at this stage) or wrap their skinny little arms around my legs. This was accompanied by a chorus of "Teacher Kun, Teacher Kun", lots of screaming, giggles and various attempts at making farm animal noises.

To be honest, as endearing as it was, it was also a little overwhelming. I felt like I was going to be smothered under a pile of kids. And I couldn't exactly just stand up and shake them off me. So I did the only thing I could think of. I started to sing. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star was the first song that came into my head.

To my amazement, the kids became utterly still and silent. They were completely mesmerized by the song's melody. I realized that it was probably the first time they've heard this song. (How could this be? I wondered at the time). The school yard was silent except for the sound of my voice.  

Now, a confession: I'm a terrible singer. I'm completely tone deaf and tend to mangle lyrics. I’m the last person you would want to go to karaoke with. But the kids didn’t mind that one bit!

I followed with a second rendition, this time at a slower pace and with hand gestures of twinkling stars and diamonds in the sky. Dozens of dirty little hands with frayed sleeves followed with dancing fingers. By the third time, some kids started to join me in singing the first line of the song. After the fifth time, they got the second line and the last line. From that day on, they requested to sing "Twinkle Twinkle" at every recess. 

The kids loved to sing. 

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