NIKITA ANECDOTE

I remembered an old anecdote about my 8-year-old student, Nikita, that is worth recording. If you recall, this is the student who brought a knife to class, as well as a scooter, lazer pens, and so on...

We had been studying 'The Village' - I had a big picture of a village and we were trying to name the buildings:

Nikita: (Pointing) What's this?
James: It's a church.
Nikita: (Pointing) What's this?
James: Er, it's a graveyard.
Nikita: (Pointing) What's this?
James: It's a grave.

Ten minutes passed, and the group was in the middle of another activity - some grammar exercises I think. Suddenly Nikita starts intoning, in a very sinister Shining-type voice: "One grave... eleven graves.... fifty four graves..." He went up and up and up. Pretty soon he had reached a total of around nine hundred graves. Well, that freaked me out, I can tell you.