One of my fourth-grade students, a 9-year-old, arrived early to class on Thursday. He walked in and nodded at me, and it felt as though there was an understanding that neither of us wanted to break a brief and uncommon silence which had, for whatever reason, descended on the school. We were both aware of how loud it would get as soon as the rest of the class appeared so, instead of saying anything, as I sat at the front and he took up his seat in the center of the room. After maybe thirty seconds, I sensed him becoming unsettled.

“Jamie teacher…” I looked up.

“Mhmm?” He was looking down, absently -- not really focusing on any one thing, with a sadness in his eyes befitting of a man 70/80 years his senior, with the many horrors of life behind him.

“This country has gone crazy.” I couldn’t help but smile. I didn’t really know what else to do and I hesitated before saying anything else. Conversations with my students struggle to last longer than two sentences – usually, because it has taken them five minutes to form the first sentence, in their mind, before they say it – so any response from me would just confuse and make things awkward.

“I know, mate.”

“And Trump.” My eyes widened.

“Yeah…” I waited, not really sure if anything was even going to follow. He sighed deeply as continued looking at the floor and shook his head – the way a plumber might when he comes across and overflowing toilet clogged with shit and saying, “I’ll need a cuppa first”.

“This world has gone to shit.” I think he was a little embarrassed at what he said, or maybe it was that he had surprised at himself for actually saying it because he raised eyes a fraction to give me a sheepish glance – he even went a little red, which I don’t think I’ve seen a Korean do before.

“It has.” I thought he might smile, happy he’d got away with swearing to his English teacher but, instead, we held each other’s gaze for a moment and, in that split second, we were able to understand one another, we were able to have a more fulfilling conversation than, “How are you?”

“I am so, so.”

And we were able to say everything we wanted to in the other’s language, even ‘oh for fuck sake’ when we heard the shouts of “HELLO TEACHER” and the rest of the class turned up.