The Twits

drawings hanging in the school hall.

haha so cute!

drawings by my 1st graders

we had a dance sesh one day in class

I'm reading The Twits by Roald Dahl with my 6th grade class, this is definitely my favorite thing I've done all year, mostly because pretty much all i did this year with the 6th graders was prepare them for THE EXAM [a standardized test created by Cambridge University to gauge how much English they've (not) learned]. So exam preparation was absolutely awful and painful and stressful and frustrating, and [pick whatever other bad adjectives you want and add them here]_______________.  So now, just getting to read a fun book, and discussing it is very enjoyable for me {and I'd like to think for the students as well.} We were reading the other day, and this passage describing one of the characters really resonated with me:

The funny thing is that Mrs. Twit wasn't born ugly. She'd had quite a nice face when she was young. The ugliness had grown upon her year by year as she got older. Why would that happen? I'll tell you why. If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until it gets so ugly you can hardly bear to look at it.


A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and  crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

Do you agree or disagree? I agree. I'm 24, and I've met a lot of people, my judge of character is pretty accurate, and I agree that emotions and thoughts physically manifest themselves in our bodies. And on people's faces in the eyes and around the mouths is where a person gives-away who they really are. I'm not talking about an instant's facial expression, i mean, when a person is sitting there, relaxed, not talking, probably unaware that you are looking at them, and you can read them. you can see what kind of person they are by paying attention to their eyes and mouth. anyway, i didnt launch into this detail in class, but the teacher, who is thirty something, said she also agreed with the author.{the ironic thing is, that the teacher is kind of a terse gossipy b-word and not many people at school like her, and  it shows on her face too}

when we were discussing this theme with the students, they didnt know what we were talking about. They couldn't relate, or had never experienced this phenomenon, and so they disagreed with the author. they're 12 years old...they're starting to hit that age where they're just about to exit childhood, and everything starts changing, the real character development starts happening, and they have to start dealing with more real life issues.

And, thats when I realized, that they hadn't met very many people with bad thoughts yet. why? because they mostly hang out with other children, and children aren't really able to have bad thoughts. they're still really simple, and untainted by the hardships of life, so they hold no bitterness, or resentment or bad thoughts. thats also why you never really see a truly UGLY kid...you know? i mean, even if a kid isnt so easy on the eyes, they're still pleasant. so ugly they're cute.  and even if a kid isnt aesthetically pleasing tot he eye, it still has those good thoughts that shine through the face making it lovely. an ugly kid doesn't bother you the way the ugliness of an adult might bother you, because the adults ugliness comes from those bad thoughts.

I know this SOUNDS weird. but just think about it for a while. think about the difference between people with just an unfortunate set of genes and someone who has ugliness radiating out of them.  or, have you ever become friends with someone and found that they become more beautiful physically, the better you get to know them? or the reverse? met someone who you thought looked great, and, as you got to know them, they just got uglier and uglier?

What Roald Dahl wrote about was interesting, what was even cooler, was realizing that children dont have bad thoughts in them, and thats why children are so pleasant and lovely. i'm enjoying teaching so much right now, and learning so much more than i ever thought i could from working with kids.