Interesting teacher experience #1

It should be noted that this is by no means the first interesting teacher experience I have ever had.  It is simply the first one I have ever written about on this blog.  More to follow.

Hello, my name is Mr. Lorenzo*.  I am a teacher of English as a second language.  I teach New Arrival students from all over the world.  This is a tale of two such students; Melissa from Chile and Tung from Vietnam.  Both students are 15 years old and of average size.  Melissa has trouble pronouncing my name so just calls me either “mister” or more often “miss” (the latter salutation is a result of me being one of only two male teachers among a merry band of thirty women).  Tung has trouble pronouncing the “th” sound and consistently forgets the plural “s” when speaking though rarely when writing.

This is a tale about love; deep, requited, beautiful love…or at the very least a schoolyard crush.  However, as a result of being but spring chickens, this modern day Romeo and Juliet are unaware of appropriate and effective methods with which to proceed.  So, they bicker, throw things at each other, accuse one another of offences that were never committed, and were this the period when inkwells were still used in schools then Tung would surely be staining Melissa’s golden pigtails blue (assuming of course that Tung sat behind Melissa and that Melissa had blonde hair, neither of which are currently true, but they could have been a hundred years ago, we simply cannot say).  

I had sat back passively and watched this love (not) develop throughout the term.  I thought it no place of mine to get involved.  I maintained this position consistently until I did not.  At that point, near the end of term, just after Melissa had accused Tung of something and Tung had thrown something at Melissa I said something helpful and enlightening like “Come on guys, why can’t you be friends?”  I then collected my books in a swift, professional, teacher-like action and headed for the door.  While doing so, I happened to pass Melissa and added, “I think you like him, anyway.”  Melissa proceeded to chase me down the hall saying, “What did you say, miss?  Miss!  What did you say?”  I said, “Nothing, nothing…I think you heard me.”  And her best friend, Haus, ran along behind us supporting my position (not that I was running, but you know how it is when adults walk quickly…) Anyway, she continued with her “Miss!  Miss!” all the way down the hall.  I was under the impression that this was all in good humour until I relented and told her again what she already knew I had said.  She responded by stomping her left foot, raising and lowering both fists, and exclaiming that, “Me never say mean to you!  Why you say mean to me?”  She then stormed off back the way we had come, not allowing the opposing torrent of students to slow her down one bit.  Cries of “crazy girl” were exclaimed as she barged through.  I made to reconcile with her but realised immediately that to even begin to approach her pace I would need to adopt techniques I had learned during football training when I was twelve where you had to knock down teammates holding giant protective pads.  Since none of the students were wearing pads I held back.  Haus was still there and she said she’d talk to her.

The next day, I saw Melissa in the morning and brightly said “hello”.  She ignored me.  I saw her again in the afternoon.  She ignored me again.  Despite agreeing with me, Haus seemed to be back in the good books.  She confirmed for me that I was still in Melissa’s sin bin.  The next day, she seemed to have thawed somewhat.  She responded to questions in class and asked me questions.  Later in the day, she pulled me aside and said “Miss, me still little angry with you.  Why you say that?” I replied, “I’m sorry Melissa.  I didn’t mean to make you angry.  I just think that you and Tung could be friends.  But I’m very sorry that I made you angry.”  She said “OK, miss.”  I then asked her if she forgave me, which she clearly didn’t understand so I “graded” (dumbed-down in teacher speak) my language to “Everything OK now?”  “Yes, miss”.

And that was that, or so I thought.  No, that was that I guess, but there was also more.  Now I’m not sure if this is linked to the whole episode, but a few days later, on the last day of term in fact, Melissa handed me a letter in an envelope.  She made me promise that I would not be angry.  I promised.  Before you read this letter, I should add that a few days before all these incidents, Melissa had asked me if I was Christian.  I replied that I was not.  She then asked what I was, to which I said, “It’s not important what I am.”

The letter read:

“Hello dear friend.  I hope that you’re alright.  I want to tell you that today I feel very happy and I want to share my happiness with you.

(At this point I thought that she and Tung had sealed the deal, but no…)

That I have a friend who has done a lot of things with me and with many other people and his name is Jesus.  If you knew him, you’ll be very happy.  But first of all I want to tell you that I have no intentions of offending you, I just want you to know him so you can know how it feels don’t let me tell you or allow anyone else to tell you, prove it yourself all you need to do is accept him as your saviour.

I assure you, that you won’t regret it.

You friend that loves you.

Remember God loves you.  He’ll always be waiting for you.

Too Jesus loves you because he died for you.  Because he loves you so much.

From: your friend”

Despite holding a fairly strong aversion to religion (not the religious), I found this letter quite nice; as one of my friends said, “That’s quite sweet”.  That said, another friend rolled his eyes and said, “Oh my god” (with no irony intended).

Next term, I will access skills that I have picked up in other aspects of my life and pretend nothing ever happened.  Hopefully these skills are transferrable.

It should also be noted that despite a couple of mistakes in her letter (spelling and grammar, not the belief that Jesus is the son of god), Melissa clearly received considerable assistance in composing this letter.  I’d say the church is making a little missionary out of her.  She’s failed on this mission…

*Names of people and places have been changed to protect the privacy of those depicted in this story.