Beautiful teacher Tom, enchanting and innovative.

I had a slightly similar experience when trying to communicate how much water we have in our bodies to Kindergarten children in only their second week of formal education at primary school.

It was hard work to get them to believe me, to convey the truth about the sheer amount when 22 five-year-olds questioned it. Not one of them will ever forget how essential to all life water really is.

I could ask them 3 years on and they’d still know it. Because of questioning the premise, which they found funny at first, all sorts of water learning play came about.

Six weeks later while finishing that first biology unit, they were competing to fill up their water bottles with essential H2O; calculating and graphing (in pictures) how many cups of plain water they’d had each day.

I was proud of that one, also of teaching 20 class members to log on, off and to go to town on TUX Paint on the school computers. That took 10 weeks of first term to achieve. The 2 who couldn’t manage on their own had double barrelled long first and surnames about 35 characters long.

All of that bright Kinder class reproduced the most outlandish pictures in the end, with a particular love of toilets stamped all over the screens.

I love that you teach the unexpected, Tom; it works so well.

Wear your hero cape with pride.