City of God kids

I have recently finished teaching a class of seven 4 year old boys. Despite their age, and their tendency to bring massive amounts of (toy) weaponry to class, they were reasonably well behaved, and would quite happily sit around and have a conversation. There was hierarchy with an unofficial leader, who they would defer to and ask advice, an ‘enforcer’, and the runt of the litter, who was the butt of their jokes. Despite the obvious disparity in class and circumstances (e.g. they all have Blackberries), they reminded me of the favela kids from the Brazilian film City of God. They sit around and chat, gossip, compare recent antics, and (probably) hatch schemes to defraud their schoolmates and make it big in the Jakartan underworld.