Today at school no one is dressed up apart from me. That's a lie. I wore this exact same outfit two weeks ago but this time I'm wearing a cowboy hat too. Obviously this strange custom needs to be explained so that children understand why they aren't part of this ridiculous holiday.
Enter my Grade 3 co-teacher.
"I'll explain this bizarre holiday to these third graders using a PPT presentation fresh off of the Korean equivalent of waygook.org" she gallantly thinks to herself.
Boy, was she wrong. The second slide in the presentation asks "Where does Halloween come from?" The answer: Celtic Tradition.
"Oh, English Teacher, what does this mean?"
What I felt like saying: "Well, it originated from Paganism, which originated from Ireland. Those are the people who only eat potatoes because after they fell from the sky those Irelanders, as they like to be called, ate all the dinosaurs and then all the dinosaurs died, just like the buffalo, remember that digression children? Now they only eat potatoes because its the closest thing to dinosaur meat in both flavor and texture. Back to the question though, they celebrate Halloween because they believed the Giant Spaghetti Monsters from Mars, who have ancestral lineage to dinosaurs, come to Earth seeking revenge for their slaughtered brethren on October 31st. Irelanders disguise themselves by dressing up as other people who don't have fire-red hair or neon green lips. And they decided to eat candy instead of potatoes too. That's all the facts you need children."
Annnnnd what I actually said: "It's just really old."
I tuned out the rest of the PPT cuing in on words like "Jombie," "Bampire," and "Gosootuh." Then we started a lesson on weather which went splendidly each time. This was my last day with grade 3s and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. As I type, the two quietest kids in today's storytelling class are doing a Halloween word search. While the others are nowhere to be found. Life's great.
Happy Halloween!
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