The Incredible Bleeding Child

I still hold that it was a good idea. We're learning words about trash, so I took my class outside to clean up around the building that the school is in. The kids, all about 5, really enjoyed it at first. I'd point at some trash, and they'd go running. They had their bags nearly full before class was even half over.

We got pretty far away from the school when we found a parking lot just full of trash. The kids were having a great time cleaning it. But they were too frenzied so I called them back into the street.

Sue, the last one to come, stumbled in the gravel of the parking lot and went face down into the stones. By the time she looked up, blood was everywhere: her mouth was full, and it was running down her face. She tried to wipe it away with her sleeve and soaked her nice white uniform.

I picked her up and started heading back toward the school. The other five kids were concerned at first but went right back to cleaning up trash. I had to call them in together and get them to stand in a line before I could safely make the two block trek to the the school. Even in line, Jason, one of the more focused kids, still stopped in the middle of the street to pick up some more trash.

Starting the activity out, I couldn't have dreamt of a worse ending. I ended up carrying a crying, bleeding child two city blocks, while trying to calm the horror of the surrounding Koreans (in a language I'm hardly fluent in) and keeping the children together. Adam, a hyper one, ended up running around and getting away from the group. I had to call him across a street (with no traffic mind you) that he refused to cross. One thing that was on my side was that Koreans tend to ignore the misfortune of others. I got gawks at first and then everyone pretended like it wasn't happening.

When I got back up to the school, though, no one could ignore it. The secretaries rushed me when I came in, took the child from me, and went into action. One carried Sue to the restroom to clean her, another went for the medicine, and the third picked up the phone to call someone (I still don't know who).

One thing was made clear in their scampering: I wasn't to help. I was told to take the other kids back to the classroom (quite a feat considering that they were all worked up by now), and then was simply left there to speculate at Sue's fate until the period was over.

Well, it ended well enough. Sue had only split her lip--badly, but nothing that couldn't heal on its own. She didn't even need to go to the doctor, and oddly, no one even mentioned the incident to me afterward unless I brought it up with them.

Still, I maintain that cleaning the trash was a good idea. It just didn't work out like I planned.

Ryan