Most of you know I teach grade 6 Life Orientation at a school in Woodstock on Mondays. And I seem to leave every Monday with a funny story or two from interactions with the kids there. So yesterday, the glorious day that it was, I was sitting outside, soaking up the sun before I had to go into the cold, dark classroom and teach. And I was, yes admittedly, on Facebook on my phone. One of the grade seven kids, who had been sent by his teacher to run an errand, came up to me.
His name is Jacob Ngouabi (for the purpose of this blog) and, though he has lived in South Africa his entire life, his mother and father are from Congo. He was in my class last year. A real sweet kid.
So, Jacob waltzed up to me and sat right down on the playground bench, scooting as close to me as possible, looking at my cellphone screen, “You’re on Facebook?!”
I laughed, “Isn’t everybody? Are you?”
He got excited, “Yeah! Search me and add me as a friend!”
I’m not sure how I feel about adding the students of the school, but I humored him, hypothetically, “Ok, do I just search Jacob?”
“No. Roger.”
“Roger?!”
“Yep.”
“Okay? Roger what?”
“Roger Shaw.”
“Roger Shaw?!”
“Do you use someone else’s account or something?”
“Nope, it’s mine.”
“Why Roger Shaw?”
“I’m not going to use my real name on there!!!”
“Good idea. But where did you get that name?”
“Out of my brain.”
“Ok.”
“I bet there are a lot of Roger Shaws though.”
“Yeah. But mine is the one with picture of Batista.” (A WWE wrestler for those that don’t know)
“Ah! Of course. That makes perfect sense.”
