There are some things you couldn’t make up.

 This is one such story. For once, it’s rather nice not to be writing about my own ‘perfect’ kids for once.

Here goes...

I was talking to my friend’s sister. She is a teacher in the south of Ireland (that’s an important fact, keep it in mind for the end of the story!), and we were talking about how children understand (or don’t) the passage of time.

She explained that in school what they tend to do is use timelines, with various dates and events on them. SO – one day she is asking her class of Irish youngsters what they notice about the dates that are different. Eventually they noticed that the dates got smaller as you moved from left to right until the time of Jesus, and then after that they got bigger.

“Well done” she said. “Now – what else?”

They soon spotted that the dates on the left had B.C. in front of them and the dates after had A.D. She asked whether anyone could guess what they meant, given the clue about Jesus.

With some encouragement, a little boy raised his hand. (This is the bit where you need to remember the location – think broad Irish accent and you won’t be far wrong).

“Um – is it Before Christ, miss?”

“So it is – well done you! And what about A.D. Can you work that out as well?”

“Um – is it After Dat?”

I have been dining out on the story for weeks!