Immaturity is all inclusive

Although I've realized that there is no upper age limit for immaturity (I've never seen my dad laugh as hard as he did when he watched Ace Ventura being birthed out of the rhino's butt hole in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls), I had assumed that there was a lower age limit. I HAD assumed there was a lower limit. Past tense. Sweet Wendy, my innocent looking eight year old student who is missing so many teeth she has to eat from the side, has blown that theory out of the water (she's the same insightful little girl that hypothesized that poop is a solid in an earlier science class).

Here I was, teaching diligently as ever, when Wendy, Jasmine, and I reached an inconspicuous page in their new reading comprehension books. It was about a day on the beach. How picturesque. I had Wendy read out loud and I couldn't stop giggling because her pronunciation of the word "beach" sounded like another closely related word (I never said I wasn't immature myself) when we reached the matching section of the lesson. And there it was. A visual that would be the source of so much giggling that Jasmine had to place her forehead on the table. A visual that would send the girls rolling in the classroom. A visual which I would have to pretend was not hilarious.

A shirtless man.

Keep in mind this picture was a man throwing a net into the water. His swim trunks reached well past his knees, which is a strong contrast to the speedo epidemic that has hit Korea. His hair was unkempt, but not in an overtly sensual way. His measly stick arm covered half of his chest. The drawing was nothing more than a man enjoying a day at the beach in his sensible, middle-age appropriate swimwear. Unfortunately, the artist had included a slight line on his chest to insinuate chest muscles. I thought nothing of the man's near nudity until Wendy pointed to it and said, "He's got ... um .... " She either edited herself or she hasn't learned the word for boobs yet. My innocent take on the illustration washed away like a sand castle too close to the water.

Wendy then proceeded to accentuate the "chest muscles / breasts" in her book while Jasmine looked on and laughed appreciatively. Their laughter got louder until, finally, I couldn't resist. We laughed until I caught my breath and got my wits about me, told the girls that the picture was of "chest muscles," and asked them if they liked starfish. After all, eight year old girls are easy to distract.