Adventures in Teaching

This post is dedicated to my nephew Bennett who is 51% Canadian.

Like a trendy film, I will start with the end. One of my students looked at me and said in confusion… “Canadians drink blood?”

So how did I get myself in this situation? One of the things that I do here is speaking exercises with the various classes at the private school. And there is only so many things that I can talk to with a bunch of 14 year olds. So I came prepared with a map and we were talking about the world and the countries that speak English. I mentioned that my brother in law is Canadian and one student asked why there was a leaf on the flag. I jumped on this and brought up that they make a lot of maple syrup in Canada. But then comes my problem, how do you explain what maple syrup is too a bunch of kids who have never eaten a pancake?

So I said it was really sweet and it came from trees. They all smiled and said… like cherries. Back to square one. Maple syrup is not like cherries. So I said… No, it’s not a fruit. It’s sap. Blank stares. Sap is not a word they teach in Basic English courses. I attempted to draw a picture… No go, it just looked like squiggly lines on a tree. So then, I came up with a metaphor. Sap is the blood of trees. Which led to the now infamous question. At this point, I realized I had to give up. They still have no idea what maple syrup is, but I did clarify that Canadians DO NOT drink blood.

On my way home, I realized what I should have said. It’s like honey, but it comes from trees. Live and learn.