So…pretty sure I accidentally taught my preschool Spanish students about cannibalism today. Please reserve all judgement/ concerned emails/ parent phone calls until the end of the story when you realize this was totally not my fault.
We were reading The Three Billy Goats Gruff, but in Spanish, (Los Tres Chivitos Gruff, if you were wondering). If you’ll recall, each of the billy goats tells the troll not to eat them because they don’t have enough meat to satisfy him; the troll should wait for the next brother to get more bang for his buck.
Do you already see how this is not my fault?
At the end of the story, a little boy casually asked “Do we have meat on our bones?”. “Sure,” I answered. “That’s what our muscles are.”
*I pointed out different ‘meaty’ spots on our bodies.*
“But those are muscles though,” he retorted. “Why would you call that ‘meat’?”
*I suddenly began sweating, wondering how many of these kids know where meat come from. I mean, I do live in Vegetarianville.*
“Well, you call it meat because if…an animal were to….eat you- and that’s definitely NOT going to happen- your muscles would be meat to them.”
*Students stared at me in horror.*
“Like when you eat meat, those are an animal’s muscles.”
*Continued horrified stares.*
“So if another human ate meat from you, they would eat your muscles!” came the disturbingly cheerful conclusion from the original questioner.
“Yes!!! Exactly,” I answered. “That’s exactly right!”
*Horrified stares resumed.*
It was time to reign this conversation in:
“But…we don’t do that, do we??” *nervous chuckle* “We don’t eat…okay, who’s up for a song?!”
And that’s how I got fired from my teaching job.