A couple of years ago I went to Seward Montessori school and talked to them about Australia and New Zealand, and let them try Vegemite. This is what they thought then:
In the first class, the choicest and most appropriate comment, was the girl who said that "I don't really care for that." One can assume that all the children saying "ewwww" and "yuck" would have expressed similar sentiments if they had been as articulate.In the second class though I received proof that children in Minnesota are taught to lie, and to debase the meaning of useful words in the English language. Amidst a chorus of "ewww" and "yuck" the teacher actually told the children "If you don't like something, don't say yuck, say that's interesting, or that's different".
Anyone who has spent anytime in the Midwest will know that "interesting" and "different" do not mean curious and distinct as they do in most other parts of the English-speaking world -- they mean "I don't like that, but I'm not going to tell you that directly."
Today I had four, count 'em, four children in a class of about twenty 1st through 3rd graders, request more Vegemite. Really, it is good stuff, even if you have to grow up eating it to really like it. The touching moment of the day—after I'd seen lots of little faces pulled and lots of little kids run to get a drink of water after their morsel of Vegemite—was the boy who tugged on my shirt as I was leaving, looked up at me with big, round, brown eyes, and said politely "Sir. Sir, that's icky." Polite and honest.
Posted by eroberts at May 9, 2006 4:04 PM