Foca.

During our Spanish this lesson this week, I had a ‘hold my breath’ moment. As our high school Spanish students were teaching us the names of Arctic animals, the word for ‘seal’ came up… it’s ‘foca’ and they even had a cute little song to help the class learn the new vocabulary.

When she said ‘foca’ and had the class repeat it, Andy shouted out, ‘FOCA! That’s a bad word, foca, foca, foca…”

This is when I held my breath. When the high schoolers come down, they lead the class. Mrs. D. and I usually stand to the side or in the back and participate, but truthfully, they are the teachers for the short time they’re in our room. I wasn’t sure how she was going to handle Andy’s blurting out…

Before I could catch my breath and open my mouth to intervene, she replied, “Oh, it’s not a bad word and we don’t use or talk about bad words in school, right?”

He nodded sheepishly.

I turned and smiled at Mrs. D. This young lady handled Andy like a pro. She wasn’t rattled or shaken in the least. We moved on with our lesson learning the Spanish words for bear, penguin, whale, and others. We sang our song a few times and Andy never flinched. She had put him in his place and I was quite proud of the way she handled the situation.